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He’s absolutely right; there’s so much we have to catch up on. Things no amount of physical intimacy will make up for. And those things are what he wants from me.

“I met Temper senior year at Peel Academy,” I say, my mind jogging back to the final year at my supernatural boarding school. That was a rough period. I’d lost Des only months beforehand, and I found myself with no friends and no family. The only thing I had in abundance was heartbreak.

“It was the first day back, and I wasn’t sitting next to anyone in my morality of magic class when she dropped into the seat next to me. And then she started talking.” She talked to me as though we were already friends and I just hadn’t gotten the memo yet. “It was the first time since you left that another student tried to befriend me.”

It doesn’t hurt so bad, admitting to Des I was once a social pariah. That, he already knows about.

As for my friendship with Temper, it was only later that I found out how hard it had been for her to take that seat next to me and put herself out there. She knew I had no friends, something the two of us had in common.

It took me weeks to learn people avoided Temper even more than they did me, largely because of the type of supernatural she was. Of course, considering my own troubled past, Temper’s infamy only made me like her more.

“Ever since then,” I say, “we’ve been inseparable.”

Talking about Temper only makes me miss her all the more. The past seven years might’ve been the pits when it came to my love life, but not when it came to everything else, and that was largely thanks to Temper. She must be losing her mind right now, wondering where I am.

I shove my worries away. “How did you meet Malaki?” I ask.

I’m not even sure Des will respond. He never answers these things. He stares down at me, standing so close, I feel the heat of his body.

“Will you unfasten my leathers?” he asks instead of answering.

I deflate at his response. I shouldn’t be disappointed. Des has already shown me so much more of himself than I ever thought he would.

Pressing my lips together, I nod.

He turns around, his wicked-looking wings still out.

My hands find the ties that secure the leather armor to his back. One by one, I unfasten them.

“I met Malaki when I was a teenager,” he begins haltingly.

My fingers still for a second.

“Back then I had…lost my way,” he continues. “I found myself in Barbos, the City of Thieves, without a cent to my name.”

I bow my head, letting a small smile slip out before I resume unfastening the bindings.

“That was around the time I joined the Angels of Small Death,” he says.

“The gang,” I say, remembering the explanation he gave me for his sleeve of tattoos.

“Brotherhood,” he corrects over his shoulder. He takes a deep breath. “Malaki was another member. He was several years older than me but still the closest fairy in age.”

I can tell dragging out these memories is hard for him. His mind is a steel trap. Things go in, and they don’t come out.

“Living on the edge like we were,” Des continues, “brought us close together. He’s saved my life before, and I’ve saved his.”

I unfasten the last of the ties at Des’s back, and the leather slides off him. Just like me, he’s bare from the waist up. I guess this is our weird version of show-and-tell—show some skin, tell a secret.

He turns back around to face me, his chest bare. “He’s my brother in every way but blood.”

I meet his eyes. It’s rare that I catch Des laid bare like this. Like me, he’s spent years building armor around himself…and now it’s coming off. He’s no longer the terrifying king or the slippery Bargainer.

Right now, he’s just my Des.

“How long have you known him?” I ask.

He pauses.