Page 4 of The Damned (Coven of Bones #3)

M A R G O T

I hurried to the right, curving my way up the staircase without so much as glancing at the students who had gathered near the doorway as I passed.

I took the stairs more quickly than any of the others, my book bag bouncing where it hung by my hip.

I pushed myself to skip steps as my legs spread to accommodate the longer stride, hugging the wall to keep anyone from seeing up my skirt near the railing.

The need to push, to make my muscles strain with the speed that I sprinted up those steps was so overwhelming that I couldn’t have hid it if I’d wanted to.

Making my body hurt was the only way to make myself feel what I knew should have hurt, the reminder of my childhood and the lack of approval from my mother not really striking me in the way they once had.

The numbness was a plague upon my soul, haunting me so much that I wondered what was wrong with me and how I could fix it so often that I’d lost track.

But I couldn’t, and the only thing I could do was work my body until I felt like I might give in. The woods and the grounds weren’t safe, hadn’t been even before the archdemons had come, but now they were even less so and I’d have to risk my life in order to take the chance and find my outlet.

I wasn’t at that point yet, so I raced the four flights of stairs up to the library at the top, my lungs heaving by the time I reached it.

I paused outside the door, gathering my breath and trying to compose myself for a brief moment.

Sweat slicked down my spine, tickling over the place where I knew my tattoo marked me.

My mother had been furious the first day I showed up to class with it covered in the sheen of a healing ointment, the ink fresh and skin still a little swollen.

Reds did not participate in body modification of any kind as a rule.

Personal expression like that was seen as a diminishing aspect of our objective attractiveness, making it so that our prospective partners would either love it or hate it.

Most witches could not create something from nothing, and that meant that remaining attractive to as many people as possible was an advantage in the eyes of our elders.

My mother hated my shorter hair for the same reason, because it was an act I’d done in a direct rebellion of her wishes.

I refused to allow it to grow past my shoulders because of how much I knew she hated it.

The piercings I hid beneath my top that I’d foolishly done myself were another silent protest against the rules placed upon us by a too-strict Coven that wanted to erase any and all traces of our individuality.

It didn’t matter to me that no one else would see them if I had my way.

I hadn’t done them for anyone but myself.

I sighed, turning to face the library door and stopping suddenly when he appeared in front of it and blocked my path.

Beelzebub.

I staggered back a step, desperately seeking the distance between us that he hadn’t afforded me.

This close, he seemed even larger than he had the night before.

I was far from short at five seven and he had to be a foot taller than me anyway.

His shoulders were broad, the rippling muscles tense where his arms were crossed over his chest. His wings settled down at his sides as he raised his chin, settling into his place in front of me.

I had to assume he’d flown to the platform that led to the library. The space was narrow and left me with the staircase at my back looming too close. One quick shove and I’d fall, ridding him of the curse I’d placed upon him by allowing him to hear my song.

For a moment, I wondered if he’d do it. For a moment, I hoped he would.

Jaw clenched and red eyes blazing, his gentleness from the night before was gone.

His hair was still pulled back into that bun at the back of his head, and I wondered if he ever let it fall free around his face.

His golden Enochian tattoos glowed, pulsing with light as he took a step toward me, and my heart raced in anticipation of my coming death.

“What do you want?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder at the staircase behind me.

He didn’t respond, studying me intently. He looked at me as if I were a puzzle, reading the lines of tension in my body and whatever he could see in the expression on my face.

I didn’t know if it was fear or exhilaration that made my heart race, waiting for him to make the decision we both knew danced behind the evil in that gaze. It would take one quick movement and he’d be able to free himself, and I let my body relax as I waited for it.

He tilted his head to the side, studying me as if I’d surprised him.

“Why do you not sing?” he asked, reaching forward so suddenly I thought he might push me. Instead, he grasped me by the strap on my book bag, tugging me forward sharply, and I toppled into him. My hands planted on his chest, the heat of his skin sinking into me as his mouth parted.

Every song. Every touch .

I jolted back as his mouth dropped open in shock, stepping around him to lean my back into the wall beside the library door.

It left him with no choice but to swap with me, putting the stairs at his back.

He was still too close, leaning his arm against the wall above my head, but he kept his distance enough not to touch me.

That in itself felt like a kindness, given what I knew of the effects of my touch. It felt restrained, where so many lost their self-control entirely under such close proximity to my magic.

“Why did you not sing?” he asked again, his eyes narrowing impatiently.

“Not really feeling the music right now,” I said, giving him a bitter half smile. It felt more like Willow than me, a sarcastic response that I hadn’t known I had in me. If the archdemon were going to kill me he would have already, and something in that emboldened me.

“I could have killed you, and you just stood there and waited for me to,” he said, dropping his arm from the wall. I flinched, waiting for the touch I felt so certain would come, but he only glared down at me.

Waiting for my answer, I realized. Seeing too much, I knew.

“You didn’t,” I said, shrugging and feigning a casual ease that I did not feel.

He growled, the sound low and vibrating within his chest. It was barely audible, but I heard it.

I felt it as if he were touching me, the sound sinking into me.

“I should have,” he warned, earning a nervous swallow from me.

“Would you have stopped me, little siren? Would you have defended yourself if I had tried to snap your pretty neck?”

The bitter smile faded off my face, leaving me slowly as I held that red-eyed stare and tried to find the well of make-believe where all my pretty lies came from. I tried to find the energy to pretend I cared what happened to me beyond never allowing someone to take from my body again.

I spoke the single word quietly, giving him a vulnerability that I hadn’t afforded anyone else. I didn’t know what possessed me to choose him as the one to receive it; perhaps it was the distinct knowledge that I didn’t need to care what he thought of me.

He was an archdemon. He was the enemy.

Let him think me weak.

“No,” I said, raising my chin to hold his stare as his glare faded into shock. I let my answer sink in, let him see the truth of it in the emptiness of my eyes for the briefest of moments.

And then I donned my mask once again, forcing a pretty smile to my face before I turned and tugged the door open, retreating into the relative safety of the library.

I made a beeline for the table I always claimed at the back of the library, hanging my book bag on the back of my chair and dropping into it with a sigh.

His steps were loud as he approached me, uncaring of the people studying around him as he closed the distance.

I hated that he’d followed me, hoped that I’d shocked him into leaving me alone for a little while at least.

He stood on the other side of my table, glaring down at me as I turned my eyes up to meet his.

“How long will this fucking spell last?” he asked, yanking the chair out and dropping into it.

His wings fluttered behind him, trying to find a comfortable way to rest, and he grunted his frustration when it seemed an impossible task.

“They look inconvenient,” I said, watching him struggle.

He glared, seeming uninterested in making small talk with me. “How long?” he asked again, forcing a sigh from me.

“That depends on whether you stay away from me or not. Touch will worsen the pull, so you should avoid touching me at all costs,” I said, taking my book out of my book bag. “If you stay away, maybe a couple of weeks at most and then you’ll be free.”

“Convenient for you that I should avoid touching you given how you recoil in fear when I try, songbird,” he said, an arrogant smirk tilting his lips up at the corner.

He thought I was lying, and there was a challenge in those words that I so wanted not to rise to meet.

My pride got the best of me. “I’m not afraid of you,” I snapped, dropping my book on the table without a care for the way the thud echoed through the occupied library. I was all too aware of the stares that turned our way, watching our interaction for what it was.

Gossip fodder.

“No?” he asked, reaching out in an attempt to touch my cheek. I flinched back, hating the visceral reaction that I couldn’t control any more than he could his pull to me. “That’s what I thought.”

He pulled his hand back as I looked down at my book on the table, opening it to the next page and getting ready to ignore him in favor of the pages about magical history.

“It’s not about you. I don’t like to be touched,” I said, offering the appeasement that I wasn’t certain why I felt was needed.

It felt like an attempt to be comforting, and maybe it was the play of vulnerability on his face.

Maybe being somewhere new made him feel like a monster, too.

“Why’s that?” he asked, snapping my attention back to his face. “Who made you that way?”

My own growl rumbled in my chest, making his brows rise in surprise as something monstrous welled up within me. “You don’t get to ask me that,” I snapped, baring my teeth in a grimace.

“Easy, songbird. I’m just trying to get to know you,” he said, raising his hands placatingly as if to try to convince me he was innocent.

Like he hadn’t just asked me a very, very personal fucking question.

I hated that he saw enough to know that there had been a who, that I wasn’t just born hating touch.

There’d been a time when I was physically affectionate as a child, constantly seeking out hugs from my family and friends.

He’d taken that from me, made me despise the very notion of another person’s scent on my skin.

“Yeah? Well, don’t,” I hissed, flipping through the pages of my book to try to find the right page. “It’s far better for both of us if we know nothing about each other.”

He paused, leaning back in his chair and getting comfortable as he watched me. He crossed his arms over his chest, not in anger but in comfort, as if to say he was planning to stay awhile. “I think I disagree with you on that one.”

“Do you want to stay stuck under my spell forever? Is that it?” I asked, watching as his smile faded a little.

“No,” he said, barking a laugh. “But if you’re going to occupy my every fucking thought against my will, then I might as well get to know you so I have something to think about. Besides, you’re the most interesting way I’ve found to occupy my time here.”

“I’m not sure if you meant that as a compliment or an insult,” I said, leaning back in my chair.

The fucker really wasn’t going to smarten up and stay away from me, determined to condemn us both to this misery.

“Maybe it was both,” he said, his face lighting up with a playful grin that I felt everywhere as I swallowed, feeling my heart in my throat.

Shit. That Goddess-damned song was going to be the death of me.