Page 23

We Talked Honestly

Rafferty didn’t have many moments in his existence where he thought something was truly unfair. He had seen the pain and suffering of the people he had been forced to serve from every level and walk of life, from the ultra-poor to the ultrarich and all the layers in between. All of them believed that they weren’t getting their fair share no matter what they act ually had.

The former demon believed he would continue to think that… that is, until he walked into Scarlet’ s kitchen.

“Oh my…” He didn’t know who to direct those words to, but it didn’t matter because he could barely process anything at th at moment.

It was the ultimate, state-of-the-art kitchen. It was more than a restaurant-style space. While it had a multi-range stove lining one wall, it had also been designed with modular units for every type of cooking his heart could desire, including an induction surface, an inset steamer, and something called an air fryer. Throughout the rest of the room, there were dedicated task stations and a workhorse sink with a faucet that extended on a metal hose, one that could be pulled all the way across the room and that would snap back home when released.

“Oh wow,” Helena said, impressed herself, and a warmth slipped in through his chest. He couldn’t have loved her more than in th at moment.

Two different fridges, set at different temperatures, had touch screens reporting data on their surfaces. When he tapped the screen to see what was inside, a list appeared beside a picture of the items along with tags like “date bought” and “date expected to expire.” The screens even went further to show a meal plan, laid out three months in advance, typed and organized with ingredients listed and buying requirements. There was also a list of forbidden foods and another with foods that could be consumed once in a gr eat while.

“She was on quite the restrictive diet,” Helena commented as she slid her finger over the surface, scrolling the list.

Rafferty nodded as his eyes scanned it, still trying to take everything in. “So much”—he turned to look at it all—“thought and design went into this room. And it was used .”

“Looks like by Yosef,” she said, tapping at the list. “He used to make notes like that. His own little abbreviation system that I had to learn just to understand his emails. He lived here. They really were a couple.”

Rafferty had no doubt about it. He just let his eyes linger over the list of Do Not Eat. “If we are going to make her something, it should be from this list. She is well now. There is nothing forbidden to her now.”

“I suppose so,” Helena said, but waited as his eyes scanned the list again. “Food of the Gods?” she asked, basically at the same time he saw i t himself.

He tapped the heading, and, sure enough, it opened up to a typed-up recipe and a link to a paused video; a paused video o f Eleanor.

“As you can see there are many versions of this recipe that call themselves the Food of the Gods, but this one is my all-time favorite,” his rival’s recorded self said, doing her thing of preparing herself to make what looked to Rafferty to be a dessert of some sort.

“This is it,” he said, pausing the video and refocusing on the ingred ient list.

“Are you sure?” Hel ena asked.

“Yes,” he said, turning to go to the cupboards to see what supplies they had.

Helena didn’t simply accept that. “ How can you be sure?”

He couldn’t help smirking a little. “I have always had a knack for knowing what people truly want or nee d to eat.”

“Oh.” Helena wrinkled her nose. “That’s not… I guess, I thought… that was all a part of your whole dem on thing?”

He shook his head. “No, that belongs to me alone. My mentor used to call it the ‘Sense.’”

“Oh,” Helena said, but she sounded distracted, cocking her head to one side as if listening. In fact, he was sure she was. When she noticed his scrutiny, she looked up. “Sorry. I was just making sure she was okay. It’s so weird. If I just focus long enough, I seem to be able to hear her no matter how far awa y she is.”

That gave Rafferty pause, the only thing that really could distract him from his marveling at the stockedness of the cupboards.

“Oooo, whipped cream!” Helena declared, grabbing up a can from the shelf. She popped off the top, brought it to her mouth, and did the most horrifying thing he had ever seen: blasted white foa m into it.

She smiled as her lips tried to wrap around her mouthful, taking in his shocked expression. “What? You’ve never done this before?” she chided, shaking the can. Then she offered it to him to blast some in his mout h for him.

“No, thank you,” he said, pulling his head away. She only pouted for a second before redirecting the nozzle back for another hit, filling it up again with wh ite cream.

His pants grew tighter at t he visual.

Swallowing, he looked back into the cupboard.

He reached up into it and pulled down a jar of rich, golden honey. Palming the jar, he looked at her and lifted his eyebrows in a suggestive way. She giggled around her whipped cream, catching the implications. Painting her with that honey, then licking it off her was a something he needed to add to his list of things he want ed to try.

He reached for a package of dried apricots and a box of graham crackers required by Yosef’s recipe. But he couldn’t focus; Helena was being so di stracting.

While he rooted around amongst the ingredients, she opened the honey jar, pulling the lid away revealing a small honey dipper attached to the underside. It trailed a thin glob of honey, which she lifted over her head and spooled into her mouth. Strands of honey clung to her cheek and dripped down onto h er blouse.

“Oh, shoot, that was dumb,” she said, rea lizing it.

As she tried to look down at the mess, he thumbed up the honey escaping to drip just below her collarbone. She went still at his touch and watched as he brought his thumb into his mouth. The honey tasted of sunshine and warm days. Some part of him wanted to believe it also tast ed of her.

Helena watched him, her eyes running calculations. “Do you miss sharing tastes with me?”

That wasn’t what he thought she was about to say, and his sharp flinch co nveyed it.

She flinched in response, screwing the cap of the honey back on. “I mean, I’m sure you don’t miss not being able to taste anything and being at my mercy for some scrap of it, but it’s like… there’s some connection that we used to have that we don’t really anymore. At least, that’s how I’ve been feeling. I don’t know. So much has changed so fast.”

Lifting her fingers to her mouth, she went to suck off the sticky, but he caught her wrist. Leaning forward, he did it himself, locking his gaze with hers as he did. Her finger made a loud smack as his lips slid along the digit, then released at the tip. “I still feel very connected to you,” he assured her in a husky voice. “But yes, I do sometimes miss sharing tastes with you.”

“I suppose there are all kinds of advantages when demons make deals,” she said, reclaiming her hand sadly, and suddenly, something that hadn’t occurred to him yet… did.

“Did you… make a deal with her?” he demanded, alarmed, his heart r evving up.

“What?” Helena asked, her eyebrows knitting, confused.

Rafferty let the cupboard doors he had been holding drop and they banged closed, reflecting his anger. “Did you make a deal with her? With Scarlet? Is that why you’re trying to use your power on he r behalf?”

“You mean like a demon would?” Helena asked, her eyebrows shifting to anger as she realized what he meant.

“Did you?” He knew this trick, answering a question with a question. He wouldn’t let her deter him.

“No!” she exclaimed. “I’m just trying to help her.”

“Like you tried to he lp Cindy?”

She huffed. “Yes, okay, I get what you’re saying, but it didn’t work. I don’t even think I helped Cindy. I’m going to need to call her and make sure she’s okay over at Charlie’s as it is. Why are you getting so ang ry at me?”

“Because I can’t understand how someone as wise and smart as you keeps insisting on doing things that will cause them harm. Spending what little power you have doing favors for every broken person in your life will only drag you ba ck there.”

She looked questioningly. “Ba ck where?”

“To hell!” he shouted, which forced her to press her hands to his mouth to shush him, glancing anxiously at the closed kit chen door.

“Keep your voice down! I don’t want Scarlet to hear,” s he hissed.

She huffed a breath. “It’s not like I’m doing anything wrong trying to help people. I haven’t done anything I wouldn’t have done before. Maybe how I’m doing it, but it’s only been a sliver of power, if at all. And for that matter, how is it any different when you used your demonic powers to help me?”

“I was trying to get your soul!” he growled, but she waved her han d at that.

“No, you weren’t, not even a little bit, and we both know it,” she replied defiantly. “So why are you thinking I would do the sa me thing?”

“Because it’s the game, ” he said.

Her eyebrows furrowed deeper, her expression asking the question her lips didn’t. What game?

“It is what we demons call all this. The bargains, the acquiring of souls, and the energy they generate—it’s the great game. The only game worth playing for us. In order to pay the price to stay in creation, we risk and bet what little we have in the hopes of getting the jackpot. To do what Vassago is doing and be so flushed with power that we can stay a time in creation away from the s uffering.”

Helena took that in a moment, then asked, “Is that a game you can actu ally win?”

Now, it was his turn to blow out a sigh. “I would have said no a week ago. But”—he dryly laughed and gestured at himself with both hands—“here I stand. I won. And you…” He almost couldn’t say it, the words threatening to choke in his throat. “You lost. And I don’t know how to save you from t hat fate.”

Helena nodded, her lips drawn into a thin line. “I’m not going to lie. I’ve been thinking about that these last few days. I’m really a demon , aren’t I?”

He shook his head again, reaching to grasp her hands. “No, you aren’t. Not to me,” he lied. He set his forehead to hers. There it was again. That uncanny tingle. “But please, stop risking it. Why won’t you listen to me ab out this?”

She forced a shuddering breath. “Because I can’t just stand by and do nothing. I can’t… I can’t just bring Yosef back. But I need to help her somehow.” She shook her head. “How did you do it? I saw you, I felt it. You were able to keep me calm when everything was happening wi th Cindy.”

“That wasn’t me.” He shook his head, wishing she would get it. “That was a strength inherent to yourself.”

“Then what is it that d emons do?”

He laughed dryly. “So much of what we would actually do would be normal things that anyone can do, but so few have the incentive to. You have to understand, Helena, a demon’s goal is to extract as much power as possible while expending little. If we simply do what a mortal asks and it takes no power, we will do it and take all the credit we can for our ‘ miracle.’”

It felt good to actually explain this out loud, like it was something he needed to hear as well, to process the actions he had performed for years without giving them muc h thought.

Helena listened but still shook her head. “But there must be something more I can do with just a snap of my fingers. I can make anything I want: a pile of gold, a feast for thousands. And you keep telling me I can’t. Then what is the damned point? Why can’t I just snap my fingers and make this Food for the Gods? I could even put the intention of helping her fee l better.”

“Demonic magic can only hold grief back for a time, but we can’t alter it any more than we can other human emotions. We don’t control that; we just try to momentarily influence them. You can’t make people feel anything they don’t want to, and you’re going to waste all of your power trying to force it, and fail, and then have nothing to show for it. People want to use and be used, so you might as well use them.”

“Is that what you did to people?” she asked in a sm all voice.

A strange shudder washed through him. He knew that she was seeing him in a different light than ever before. He hadn’t been lying to her about who he was or what he had done, but now she seemed to be accepting it. He hated it and craved it at the same time. It had felt all along that he had been tricking her, that she loved something so vile, but she truly didn’t understand how loathsome he had once been. How loathsome she was becoming.

Helena cupped his face with her hand, then slowly skimmed her fingers over his ear and through his hair. The petting washed through him, feeding his touch-starved soul. There was nothing more to it; he could tell. She wasn’t using any demon energy to invoke this response in him. The fact that it was so innocent and pure was why he craved it so much. He craved it as much as he could revile it.

It was confusing.

She ran her fingers through a second time, and his mouth fell open while his eyes fluttered closed, confusing his feelings further. He wa nted more.

Then s he paused.

Opening his eyes, he gazed into Helena’s real gray ones, the human eyes he lost himself to. “I know you’re not sure about me now that I’ve changed. I know you are afraid of what all this means. I know. I know ,” she said with all the strength and earnestness that he loved about her. “But it’s not who I choose to be. Even if I am actually a demon.” A tear pricked at her eyes, but her voice remained strong. “It’s not who I choose to be. And honestly, I think it’s the only thing that matters in all this.” Her strong eyebrows quirked a little. “Do you un derstand?”

Rafferty swallowed back the thickness in his throat, imprisoning any other words he could say. He nodded. Then reached for her, wanting to hold her close, ignoring the uncomfortable tingling her aura washed over his skin. The need to feel the weight of the body housing her unchanging spirit in his arms far outweighed any d iscomfort.

“I love you,” he whispered. And oh, did h e mean it.

“I love you too. I know I always will,” she replied, digging her face into his chest and shoulder, snuggling and squeezing as hard as she could as if he were her buoy in the storm of changes she was living through. “We’ll figure this ou t, right?”

“Yes,” he said. “Whatever it takes. Howe ver long.”

For a moment, he could see it. See how he could be perfectly happy with her, how wonderful this long life he now had could be. And he dared to say the thing he had been hol ding back.

“I do love you , Helena.”