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5

WILLOW

“I’m leaving,” I said, drawing in a deep breath as he lowered his chin ever-so-slightly. A week ago, I might have missed the subtle change, but some part of me recognized his movements for what they were.

A threat. A promise.

He sighed, walking slowly toward where I stood beside Beelzebub and closing the distance. He didn’t speak a word to tell me that I wouldn’t be allowed to leave, but he didn’t really need to. I pivoted slowly to face him more fully as he closed the distance, leaving the other archdemon to finally step away and walk toward the school. His wings twitched as he walked, and I had a sinking feeling it was a sign of his irritation with the male who approached me.

He raised a hand slowly, sliding it beneath the curtain of my hair and grasping me in that sensitive space where my jaw met the side of my neck. “Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be, love.”

I jerked back from his touch, wincing when his fingers trailed over the front of my throat, and his jaw hardened. His golden eyes flashed, such a horrific contrast to the blue I’d grown used to seeing staring down at me. “Don’t make this difficult?” I asked, my words coming out sharply as the pit of anger that existed within me threatened to swallow me whole.

I’d had a target for it all. Had apurposefor all the ugly and the bad in my life. There’d been a way to channel it before, whereas now…

Now, there was just rage, and there was onlyonelogical target for it.

“Willow—” he said carefully.

“You fucking stabbed me!” I screamed. “And you have the fuckingnerveto act as if I am the one who is the problem?”

His hand dropped to his side slowly, clenching into a fist as he opened his mouth and closed it once before speaking. His own anger lingered beneath the words, hidden beneath something soft and vulnerable that I didn’t care to take the time to think about. “You were trying to leave me.”

My lips spread into a cruel, disbelieving smile as I turned my head to the side and winced at the bitter laugh that crept its way up my throat. “Of course, I want to leave you.” I sounded more like the demon and he the victim, when in reality, it was the opposite.

I’d believed every manipulation. Believed every lie and twisted truth.

“Again,” I said, pausing as I turned my attention back to him. My smile dropped, my laughter stopping suddenly as I leaned toward him. “You fucking stabbed me.”

“To save your life!” he yelled, snatching my hand from my side and tugging me toward him. My chest collided with his stomach, sending tingles through me despite the clothing between us. I’d always been hyper-aware of his body and felt the charge of attraction between us, but it had been more extreme since waking. “Everything I did in that tribunal room was to keep you alive.”

“No,” I argued, shaking my head. He didn’t get to rewrite what he’d done as if it was for my benefit. As if I’d asked him to kill all those witches.

I’d have sooner died.

“Everything you did in that tribunal room was foryou.It was so that you could have your body on this plane. Everything you’ve done forcenturieswas so that you could end up right here, and fuck the consequences and the people who’ve been hurt. If it was for me, you never would have gone through with opening the seal.”

He paused, taking my free hand in his and placing it to his chest where his shirt was unbuttoned at the top. My finger brushed against his bare skin, and his eyes drifted closed with a pleasured sigh. He held my wrist tight, keeping me pinned there as he tipped his head to the side, and a tiny smile curved his lips upward as he opened that golden gaze to stare down at me.

“You’re right. I did what I had to do to be here in truth, to feelthis,” Gray said, pressing my hand tighter into his flesh. “That was for me and me alone, and I have waited centuries for it to come to pass. However, if I hadn’t taken the rib from you, you would have given your life to the seal. I couldn’t allow that.”

“And why not? That was always the plan, wasn’t it?” I asked, waiting for the confirmation of just how far his deception had gone. If it was as intense as Charlotte had implied, if I indeed was the cost of her bargain, then I didn’t see any other way.

He had the decency to look ashamed as he pursed his lips. “That was before.”

“Before what exactly? Before you fucked me? Before you told my father to raise me to believe I would be getting revenge for his sister, even though you’re the one who killed her?” I asked.

“Before I saw you the night I killed Loralei,” he said, stealing the breath from my lungs.

“That’s impossible,” I said with a scoff. “That was decades before I was born.”

“And yet it is the night that I marked you as mine,” he said, releasing my wrist finally and touching it to the top of my shoulder. His fingers brushed over the bare skin, the very tips grazing the devil’s eye I’d woken with after my nightmare.

“Loralei had been dead for decades by that point, Gray,” I argued, refusing to admit what I’d seen in my nightmare. It was too unfathomable to even consider.

“For you,” he admitted, conceding that point. “Although I gave this mark to an apparition who appeared at her side when I murdered her, fifty years ago.”

“I don’t understand how that’s possible. I don’t have that kind of magic,” I said, trailing off. There was no way to deny what he said, though, not in truth when I knew what I’d seen.