Page 24 of Hopelessly Teavoted

Azrael wiped her cheek again, the pad of his finger tracing her skin.

“I have always loved this constellation of freckles.” His voice was reverent as he traced them, the path of his fingers sending little tremors of pleasure licking down her body, lower.

He moved his hand to her neck, running a thumb down it and onto her shoulder.

It took her a moment to recognize what glinted in his eyes. Fear. He looked afraid.

Like he had not been prepared to be that honest. He was racing time before the devil asked him specific questions.

Lex saw it, and broke the moment, clapping loudly. Desire and dread pooled, threading together in her stomach into a heavy knot.

“Victoria, pet, answer a question for me.” Lex’s voice was velvet. Sharp. It cut through the almost of Azrael’s confession like a sleek, smooth dagger, and she turned to face the demon, not breaking the connection with Az but unable to bring herself to look at his face while it crumpled.

“Don’t do this,” she begged.

The look in his eyes was calculating. Clever, like he knew how to twist that knife.

“Tell Azrael how attractive you find me. What do you think of my face? My body ?”

Tears pooled in her eyes, and she heard the sharp intake of breath beside her. Felt the clench of his fingers digging into her side. She tried to bite back the words.

“I think you’re angelically beautiful. Carved from stone, in your features and your physique. I could hold myself against it, against you, and the sensation would be exquisite.”

It was true, objectively. She just didn’t love him the way she loved Azrael.

The way she had loved Azrael, and the way she had fallen back into an easy rhythm of messages and talking, as though no time at all had passed. The way she would now cut his heart wide open. Lex wasn’t done.

“It’s fine, Vickie,” Azrael was saying softly in her ear. He pulled her closer, thumb strumming a reassuring stroke against her skin. “It’s totally normal. Even I can see that about him.”

“Oh? Tell me, witch. What do you think of me, romantically?”

“I think…” Azrael clamped his hand over his mouth, but it was no good.

He sighed and dropped it. “I think if my heart weren’t elsewhere, I would be very interested in learning more about the magical potential between witches and devils.

I think, though, that I am mostly jealous that you and Vickie might try out devils and debtors instead. ”

He choked a little, trying to swallow back other words, and she remembered that he wouldn’t be able to lie. “This decimates my heart in the jealous, scarred part of it, but still, it beats for you, Vickie. It hurts, but I know, I understand. You wouldn’t if you didn’t have to.”

“Az,” she whimpered, burying her face in his shirt for a moment, trying to memorize the scent of him in case this ruined everything.

Imprinting on her brain the press of his chest against her cheek.

They had just rebuilt what had broken between them into a shaky semblance of friendship.

She wanted to pause Lex’s forceful honesty. To lock out what was happening.

This was a mistake, with Lex watching them like a cat about to pounce.

“Tell me, Vickie, do you desire me, pet?” His voice was not just gentle. It was hopeful . Yearning. Like this cosmically powerful creature needed to hear her say that she did.

No matter what that might do to her soul, or to Azrael’s.

“I,” she started. Blood rushed to her cheeks. No. No. She made the mistake of looking at Azrael. His face was ashen. Wrecked. A muscle ticked in his jaw.

“Yes. I desire you. You’re attractive and mysterious.

” The words slipped out unbidden, along with tears tracking down her face.

Azrael was pushing them aside with his thumbs, both moved up to her face now, and murmuring words she didn’t hear.

She couldn’t look at him. “I don’t feel for him what I feel for you, Az.

” She whispered it, as though maybe the closeness could shut out the devil at their side.

“I don’t desire him the way I desire you.

I’ll never feel for him the way I feel for you, Azrael. ”

His arms moved down and tightened around her, and she realized what he was muttering.

A protection spell. His fingers snapped at her sides.

Lex threw his head back, laughing. There was a sharp edge to it. He was angry. He’d gotten what he wanted, but her honesty had too many facets. The truth had consequences. And from the looks of it, even if he wasn’t an evil creature, he was still jealous enough to do harm in return.

“You’ll rue the moment you chose to do that, witch,” Lex said, eyes flashing.

“This isn’t a game. Something magical is afoot here, which means someone else has struck a deal.

I can’t find a source, and even your Council is worried.

This is serious business, and Victoria, pet, you still owe me two more souls.

And if you care to save Hallowcross, you’ll need to help me find out who’s traded with the greater devil.

Unchecked, that person’s power—well, it’s more than a person should have, pet.

It would be more devastating than this sad tableau.

Have care to remember that, as well as the fine print, the deadlines , of our bargain, in what comes next.

” He looked back and forth between them, as though deciding.

“I’m sorry, pets .” He looked at Azrael on the sobriquet, pointed.

Sharp. “I fear this is the only way to impress upon you the severity of the situation in Hallowcross. Consider this a warning. Me lighting a fire under you to figure out who’s behind this mess before it does any more irreparable damage. ”

Flame stirred at Vickie’s fingertips, and at Azrael’s, strangely, for a moment, before fading away.

Lex vanished, this time in a cloud of black smoke that tasted like regret, and, oddly, she got the feeling that it was Lex’s regret, and not her own.

Azrael pulled Vickie close until the smoke cleared the hallway.

Looking down at Az’s hands, she thought she saw a flash of flame illuminating his mother’s ring, but she shook her head, and there was nothing.

“I’m so sorry, Az,” Vickie breathed. “This is not how I wanted to tell you, but I’m—I feel things for you. Again. What you did in college is still fucked up, and I’m working through how I feel about us then, and now. Everything I said was true, but, goddess, I wish I hadn’t been forced to say it.”

Azrael pulled away to get a better look at her, hazel eyes wide with pain and wonder.

“I get it, Vickie. Me too. With the old feelings and the confusion. I’ve made mistakes, and I’ve missed you.

We made no promises to each other, and it’s normal to notice physical beauty.

” He bit his lip, like he didn’t want to go on, but his mouth opened again.

He didn’t say it back. He didn’t say he was falling too. Why didn’t he say it back?

“There’s so much I want to ask you, but I don’t want you to have to answer now.

” Az ran a hand over his face. “I wanted us to be honest with each other, but not like this. I wanted us to be able to take the time you asked for. Not with forced honesty, and I wanted it to be perfect. Storybook perfect.” The devastation written on his face broke her.

She needed to do something. To fix what had shattered there.

“I would not have slept with him, if that’s what you’re thinking of,” Vickie said.

Her heart was pulverized. As much ash as the possessions of any of the ghosts she’d laid to rest. Resolve filled her.

“From the moment you came back to town, I would never have touched anyone who wasn’t you if there was even the slightest chance that you and I might be more than just friends. ” Azrael bit his lip.

“You didn’t have to do that. I never expected you to wait for me, obviously.

You don’t owe me anything. But I have to be honest.” A muscle twitched in his cheek.

He did have to, she realized. “I’m glad you did.

Every time he calls you pet , I want to tear him into pieces.

And the thought of you being with someone else, while any possibility of trying again glimmers between us, well, that makes me want to just lie down and die right here. ”

Vickie felt completely alone as they stood in silence, each ripped wide open and raw from honesty in a hallway outside a stranger’s apartment.

Her back found a wall, and she slid down to the floor, tucking her head in her hands.

It was too terrible, all the truth she’d endured in the last hour, not just about Lex or Azrael, but also from the cruel soul they’d just reaped.

Vickie loved sunshine and daisies and happy shows with young love and gay pirates.

She wore strawberry perfume as though it was a prescription.

She even recovered after that night with Az that had left her curled up in despair, watching weather drip down the window of her dorm room.

But thinking of the calm, collected evil of the soul she had reaped, juxtaposed against the sharp, chaotic truth of her feelings for Azrael, her own fallibility, and all the time they’d wasted, the feeling of the spirit lingered.

His corruption had persevered even after death.

Vickie’s truths crashed over her in waves, too many to process all at once.

Her parents and their lingering, impossibly selfish debt.

Her powers, and what it felt like to only know how to burn things down.

Her feelings for Azrael, and her foolish heart.

Vickie chose difficulty every time, rejecting her upbringing and longing for love.