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Reese eyed me thoughtfully. “Do you love him?”
The strangled sound I let out made her howl with laughter. I could feel Sariel caressing the bond curiously, trying to feel out what we were talking about. I didn't try to shut him out, even though I could feel the mortification heating my cheeks.
“I… I care about him—”
Reese interrupted me with a snort. “Obviously. You picked a fight with an Archdemon over him.”
“—but it feels…weird. I don't know how he feels about me, and I don't really want to slap a label on it. We’re bonded, soeventuallywe’ll get there, but right now, we’re just a hot mess.”
Sariel’s amusement filtered through to me, making me wonder if he was somehow able to hear me or pick apart my thoughts without me consciously sending him anything. Did we do that now?
The bond felt weird and foreign again, taking up more space than it did before. There was no telling what it was capable of relaying to my other half.
“That sounds a lot like a ‘yes,’ but with more steps,” Reese teased. I shoved her, rolling my eyes.
Sparring together was cathartic, and we moved on from my odd relationship with my mate to the even more bizarre relationship I had with Barimuz between punches.
“I wonder how it affects his brain—well, all of him, actually, but you said that he had lingering feelings when we got out of Hell?”
Her curiosity about it was pretty endearing.
“Yeah. That’s how Sariel explained it, anyway. Apparently, shapeshifting can blur the lines between their lives and the lives they’re stepping into.”
I grimaced at the thought. It seemed like a hard thing to deal with. I couldn't even begin to imagine thinking I was in love with another person, then having to forget it when I took my normal shape. Shuddering, I managed to side-step Reese’s next swipe.
“Fascinating,” she remarked.
Of course, she would think so. It was easy to forget that Reese was human, and this was all more or less a fairytale come to life for her. Angels, demons, shifters—it wasallfascinating when you’d grown up in a happy little human bubble.
Her next swing caught me in the gut, and I grunted. “At least someone thinks it's cool. He’d probably be flattered.”
Actually, I was one-hundred-percent certain that the Archdemon would be just tickled pink at any sort of admiration, but it seemed kinder to give him the benefit of the doubt somehow.
Reese grimaced, hopping out of range when I swung again. “I hope not. He’s kind of an asshole.”
I cackled, only to get my legs swiped out from under me.
“Stop making me laugh! It’s an unfair advantage!” I complained.
Reese didn't respond, following me to the ground and forcing me to grapple my way back up.
We carried on for another hour before taking a breath, plastered to the grass and panting as we stared at the sky. Clouds drifted by without a care in the world; when combined with my exhaustion, the whole idyllic atmosphere nearly put me to sleep.
“We’ll be okay,” she said, speaking more to herself than me, but I squeezed her hand anyway.
It was a good reminder that I wasn’t the only one fretting over what our future would look like.
“Of course, we will be. Have youseenthe men on our team? Atlan and Kiran literally ate people the last time we sicced them on someone.”
Reese giggled, looking disgusted and concerned all at once.
There was a long pause.
“They’re kind of cute.”
“Who’s cute?” I asked.
She gave me an almost guilty look, and I gasped.
