Page 16

Liam

“Whatcha looking for, Babygirl?”

Hazel, who had been going through our cabinets, jumped like she’d been caught with her hands in the cookie jar. “Shit! You scared me. I’m looking for something to relieve my headache.”

I frowned. “It’s back?”

“Yeah.”

“You should’ve said something before Seth left.”

Seth had just gone over to Desmon’s to work on that Breach problem about ten minutes ago.

“I can call him, and...”

“No, don’t bother him. I’ll be fine. Mike doesn’t have magical help, and he’s still alive.”

“He didn’t catch the full brunt of the magic,” I reminded her as I dug into the back of the cabinet and produced a tiny plastic container of pills. I read the expiration date. “It’s like a decade expired. I think this one came as part of a first aid kit, but we never used it.”

She stuck out her hand. “I’m willing to risk it. I think I read somewhere that medicines don’t really expire, they just get less effective.”

I opened the bottle and shook out two pills. Or at least I tried to. The red coating on the pills had melted and reformed, making them all stick together in one big mass.

“Maybe it’ll be better if I go out and pick some up for you.” I showed her the abomination in the bottle.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

I quickly ran to the pharmacy downstairs and returned with a new bottle.

“Why don’t you just pop downstairs to buy it and pop back up?” Hazel asked, holding her hand out for the bottle.

“I can’t carry anything if I dematerialize completely,” I explain. “Here. Watch.”

I held the bottle of painkillers over her lap, then slowly dematerialized, turning smoky, starting from my body and slowly extending it out through my shoulders to elbows. As the smokiness enveloped my wrists and hands, the bottle of pills dropped into her lap.

“Oh!” She picked up the bottle and opened it, fishing out the cotton ball that held the pills in place. “So you won’t be able to carry anyone or anything in your dematerialized form.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Unless it’s specially spelled to come along with me.

Seth specially spelled my cell phone and my wallet for this reason so I can carry them around on my body inside a pocket of soulstuff.

Way back when I was a young demon, it was easy to con unsuspecting men out of their goods and wares with fake coins.

” I formed a coin out of my soulstuff and passed it to her.

It stayed in her hand for a second before disappearing.

“But that doesn’t quite work anymore with cards.

Not that I worry about affording anything.

Seth promised me everything I wanted, even though all I wanted at the time was him. ”

“At the time? What about now?”

“Well,” —I winked at Hazel as I handed her a tall glass of water— “now I want you too.”

She rolled her eyes like she thought it was a joke. “Ahh, so you’re the one behind all this.”

“Nah, Seth spotted you first.” I sat down on the couch and pulled her down, nestling her next to me. “You should hide that bottle of pills. Seth isn’t going to be happy about it.”

“Why not? Is he the anti-science type?”

“No, nothing like that. He just likes to be useful. And if I recall correctly, he asked you right before he left if you had a headache, and you said no.”

“I wasn’t going to bother him about it.”

“But that wasn’t the full reason, was it?”

She sighed. “No. I want to get back to work. I hate sitting by the sidelines when everyone else’s helping out.”

“That’s one thing you and Seth have in common, always needing to help. Stubborn too.”

“I’m not stubborn,” she said stubbornly.

“Sure you aren’t. But seriously, you should ask Seth for something sometime,” I suggested. “Even if it’s something small like jewelry or dinner.”

She wrinkled her nose as if the idea offended her. “I don’t think so. I’m not comfortable doing that. I’ve always been someone who provided for myself. I mean, after Dad passed anyway.”

“It’s not about being demanding. It’s about giving Seth purpose.”

That caught her attention. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, at first when he promised to give me everything I wanted, I reacted much the same way as you are now. Worse, even. I thought maybe the offer was out of some misplaced guilt that his family had enslaved me for generations. Besides, I didn’t want much.

Just my freedom. And him. Two things he already gave me.

“But then I started noticing that when Seth doesn’t have a clear goal in mind, his thoughts go south.

Seth’s father did a number on him, and when he doesn’t have direction, it shows.

He focuses on things like power and revenge, and his head goes to dark places.

Do you know the number of times I’ve had to stop Seth from straight up killing his old man?

I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve to die, but with everything that has happened between them, Seth wouldn’t be able to get away with it.

Not with all his father’s powerful friends in the WEC.

They’re looking for any reason to lock him up for good. ”

“You know you’re telling a cop this, right?” she asked with a single raised brow.

“That’s why I’m telling you. You know that human saying, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Seth is very powerful. He was born that way; it’s in his genes. He is the product of what the WEC has been trying to create for centuries. They just didn’t know they’d lose control of him.”

“Thanks to you?”

“Partially, yeah.”

“Your relationship must’ve ruffled some big feathers in the wizard world.”

I chuckled. “You don’t say. But you know, it wasn’t just the wizards who disparaged our relationship.

The idea that a demon would willingly stay with a wizard from a family that had imprisoned him was ludicrous.

For some time, other demons wondered if I was brainwashed. Some even considered me a traitor.”

“Even after Seth renounced the WEC?”

I shrugged. “Feelings are irrational.”

One such demon, Eamon, had ended up mated to Seth’s long-lost sister, and he now tolerated Seth and I for Tansy’s sake.

“But I’m not totally responsible for Seth not turning out a monster.

Elena did a superb job raising him. His father didn’t take notice of him until he was about twelve or thirteen when his magical powers really started to show.

Elena nurtured him as a person and not just as a wizard.

She hid Seth’s full ability from her husband for years so that he wouldn’t have an interest in him and turn him into a monster.

“But given the chance, his hate for the WEC would turn him into a monster. I already know he daydreams about massacring the whole lot of them. As a demon trapped by those assholes for centuries, I would love nothing but to help him. But as someone who loves Seth, I also know that letting that happen would be the end of him. He wouldn’t be the same person anymore.

He can’t come back from that. Not to mention, it would bring Desmon a lot of trouble, and I do not want to get on the dragon’s bad side. ”

Technically, Seth and Desmon were a lot closer than just employee and employer.

The dragon actually cared about him and not just because of his magic.

He was kind of like a fatherly figure, but not quite.

It was complicated. I doubted Desmon would actually hurt him, but it was better not to risk it.

“And so you turn his attention to material goods instead,” she finished for me.

“Yes.”

“And you want me to do the same.” She blew out a breath. “I get it; I do. But this is erring on the side of a relationship. I don’t do those.”

“Nah, it’s all just fun.”

She didn’t seem convinced but let it go.

“Rest. And if you need anything, I’ll have my headphones on, so come bother me or shout. Imma go pwn some noobs.”

“What?” She frowned.

“Video games,” I said, gesturing to my PC.

“Ah! I see.”

I gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, then floated away, leaving her to rest on the couch so I could get my daily quota of consequence-free violence.