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Wonder shakes off the notion and gapes at him, tenderness clutching her chest. No one has ever presented her a gift before. Rather, she’s so accustomed to providing things for others instead.

She rivets on the garden, her throat constricting. The lush garden is stunning, luxurious, a mirage made manifest. Every conceivable wildflower sprouts from the earth, every overlapping aroma calms her senses, and every brilliant color lifts her spirits.

Like a private sanctuary. A place tailored just for her.

Gratitude sweetens on her lips, but expressing thanks would only intensify Malice’s discomfort, as it had yesterday. Already, her silence is taking its toll. He’s spearing those talons through his hair, rendering the style even messier, while aggravation radiates from his body.

He’s unsure whether she likes it. Though, the demon will never admit it.

Gentleness fills Wonder’s reply, opting for the sort of response he’d prefer. “It’s beautiful. Though, I’d rather have back what belongs to me,” she says fondly.

The tension in his body eases up, and his mouth crooks. “So would I.”

The letter. Fair enough. Yet they regard one another with genial humor, a moment so easy and pleasant, she wants to remain inside it for weeks, months, years.

In a sudden mood to cavort, Wonder strolls past him.

Divesting herself of weaponry, she sets it beside his own and scales the nearest tree.

Elevated a few yards above Malice, she hooks her limbs over a branch and hangs upside down, her hair unraveling like a banner.

She cannot say why she has always fancied this position.

Perhaps viewing the world from an inverted angle trains her to keep an open mind to new possibilities.

Amusement loosens the chinks in Malice’s features.

It turns out, he’s a good climber, settling on the branch below her, where he lounges against the trunk.

He sprawls one leg along the bark and bends the other, reclining like an insolent lord of the underworld. “Not worried I can see up your blouse?”

Her thighs stiffen over the offshoot, then go limp as she reminds herself the blouse is tucked into the pants. “You got lucky once. It will not happen again.”

His gruff tenor lowers. “We talked about this, Wildflower. Careful tossing the devil a challenge.”

Her flesh tingles. “Naturally, anything to avoid serious discourse.”

“Ah. Now that’s an even greater challenge.” He reclines like Hades would, like a black sheep making himself at home. “Ask what you’re dying to know. You only get one question, so make it a good one. Choose your ‘What the fuck’ wisely.”

“Gladly. State your price first.”

“Isn’t it obvious? That I get to ask you something in return. Knowing everything there is to know is my top priority where you’re concerned.”

Predictable. “I gather, it’s so you can take advantage of the details and back me into a corner when it suits you.”

Malice’s irises glitter, and his voice drips into the garden like black wine. “I’ve already done that. But if I ever back you into a corner for a second time, you’ll want me there. Because you’ll be naked, your cunt drenched, and your thighs clamping like a vise around my skull.”

Not predictable. With the image of Malice’s conniving mouth strapped around her clit and sucking hard, the bud in question chooses that inopportune moment to respond, the intimate flesh thudding to the point where if she moves, the friction will pull a whimper from her throat.

To compensate, Wonder scowls. “I have never had the misfortune to know someone this uncouth.”

Malice inclines his head. “Why, thank you.”

What are your nightmares about? Whom do they feature?

“Does it hurt?” Wonder asks. “Does it hurt when you scream?”

Mission accomplished. The demon’s veneer drops, his visage narrowing into a perturbed frown. “Not what I expected.”

Neither had she. Morning rays trickle through the foliage, beams of light embossing the grass.

“You shouldn’t have barged in,” Malice says, his jaw rigid.

“Let me guess,” Wonder says gingerly. “Your malevolent ego doesn’t want anyone seeing you like that.”

“I don’t want a certain floral goddess seeing me like that,” he corrects. “I don’t give a fuck about anyone else. I have claws, and you have enough scars. Get my drift, Wildflower?”

Her tongue stalls. Deities detect emotions in humans through sensory signals—taste, touch, sight, smell, and sound—but not in each other.

Be that as it may, the clang of confusion rings in her ears, and the honeysuckle sweetness of concern invades her palate.

During his unconscious ravings the previous night, Malice could have inadvertently flayed her skin or crushed a bone.

He could have made her bleed fatally, and she would’ve had to cut him back, and they would have smeared crimson all over each other.

“My turn,” he says, jutting his chin toward her scarred wrists.

“If we’re getting real, then let’s get real.

Did those hurt? And while I’ll give your crew a free pass for the forced torture, The Court is still on my hit list. Which of our sovereigns do I have the pleasure of mutilating on your behalf first? ”

The threat shouldn’t be attractive to her. Yet she fights to tamp down such brutal flattery. “While I appreciate the solidarity, I do not need anyone fighting my battles.”

“I know. It’s one of my favorite things about you, aside from your feisty mouth. But still, seeing you broken yesterday put me in a shitty mood. Therefore, humor me.”

He won’t let the subject go. And very well. If she wants him to keep opening up, she must as well. “Growing up in The Dark Fates, did you hear rumors about my torture?”

“If I wasn’t in solitary, I was in The Archives. If I wasn’t in The Archives, I was in solitary. The commute between both kept me busy. Even if it hadn’t, I wasn’t a social butterfly, plus my crewmates consisted of rage gods and goddesses, not the cliquey sort who got off on gossip.”

That confirms what she had already concluded.

Malice is too perceptive for details to elude him, and he’s been badgering her about the scars since they first locked horns in The Celestial City.

With a few scraps of hearsay, he could have drawn the right conclusion.

Stars be praised, those facts have never reached him.

Wonder swings upward, sits upright on her own branch, and matches his position. A breeze cuts through the woodland and perfumes the air with the aromas of distant lupines, which sucks her into the memory of a mortal prairie.

“Chronicling my actions in that book is one thing. But as far as my penalties, The Fate Court did nothing to me that they wouldn’t have done to one another,” she reasons.

“They were performing their duties as protectors of this realm. I could have disrupted the veil that keeps our world undetected from humans. It’s the same peril that Love dealt with when she met Andrew.

My actions were no different, except I got caught much quicker. ”

Malice peers at Wonder. “Who was he?”

“Who was who?”

“The cocksucker you sacrificed your hands for. The mortal who inspired this disobedience. The one I’m going to kill slowly.”

“It’s been millennia. He’s already dead.”

“I’ll dig up his corpse, then. Polish him off until he feels that agony in the afterlife.”

“It wasn’t his fault.” Wonder conjures a picture of that mortal face. “He was a good man. He loved reading and treated people kindly.”

Her companion grunts, dragging Wonder from the recollection. “So that’s your type? A vestal paragon of sainthood?”

“Better than a diabolical pain in the ass.”

“Pain is underrated, especially in the pelvic region. Need I remind you?”

“Come any closer, and my knee will prove your testicles wrong.”

“What sort of coming are you referring to? The technical or the carnal?”

Wonder bursts into a scandalized guffaw, and Malice tilts his head, looking grim as he listens to the sound.

“You cannot help yourself, can you?” she chortles.

Ignoring that, he addresses the scars. “Was he worth it?”

Her laughter dies, bereft of an answer. Yes is too weak, and No is too aloof.

Malice waves off her silence. “Whatever. You don’t have to tell me. It’ll slip eventually.”

“I suppose that makes us even,” she remarks, considering he hasn’t said whether his screams hurt. “You’re going to pursue the legend, aren’t you? Is that why you’re here? To cure the nightmares?”

“Ahh, well. Nightmares are so ghastly, so tenacious, so nightly.”

“Answer me, Malice.”

“But you know the answer.”

She does. The thickness in his voice says it all.

In the piebald light, Malice leans forward. “We should do this more often.” Ambition brightens his face. “Maybe during our next talk, you’ll tell me the other half of this legend. You know, the part that has to do with you.”

Wonder blinks, about to deny it. But really, she should have anticipated this, so what’s the point? Of course, Malice had figured it out.

She raises her chin and quotes him. “But where’s the fun in that?”

A slow, nefarious grin slides across his face. Since their walk through the restricted section yesterday, they’ve reached a measure of accord. Yet she cannot celebrate because if they accomplish their goals, the spell will break. He’ll get his heart back, and she’ll put a leash on hers.

The only mystery is who will succeed first.