Suyin blinked and then started to smile. “You’re a genius, Marie.”
Without another word, she headed over to the row of old desktop computers and fired one up. Of course, the damn thing took forever, the little Windows loading circle going on and on until she started mentally recalculating the coven’s yearly budget to make space for some new desktops.
“What would a demon want with that grimoire?” Marie-Thérèse asked.
“I have no idea,” Suyin replied. “But I intend to find out.”
13
CUT TO THE QUICK
IRIS SAT ALONE ON THE BED WITH HER KNEES AGAINST HERchest. She was gulping in air almost as uselessly as Meph had been and blinking hard to keep the moisture in her eyes from spilling down her cheeks.
If she let herself cry, it would feel too close to admitting she wasn’t quite as emotionless as she pretended to be, wished she was.
She kept seeing Meph’s face in her mind—his red eyes wide and staring at her in horror. And then came the memories of how he’d flinched when she shut him down.
That’s too bad, she heard herself say in that awful, dead voice.I was really enjoying our arrangement.
Flinch.
Shame it has to end.
Flinch.
That flash of hurt in his gaze... Her breath hitched, her throat constricted so tight she couldn’t swallow, and a tear managed to escape down her face. She quickly swiped it away.
Either she was a stone-cold bitch or she wasn’t. If she was going to reject Meph, she needed to own it. Embrace it. Feel nothing. Not sit there and cry about it.
She started to get angry.Fuck him.She’d made it very clear from the beginning that this was not about feelings and that the moment either of them felt them, it was over. He had agreed. It wasn’t her fault he couldn’t hold up his end of the bargain.
I have... feelings. For you.
She pictured him hunched over, gasping for breath. He was so screwed up, he had a straight-up panic attack because he didn’t know how to process emotions properly. And then she’d knifed him in the back. She hadn’t just shut him down. She’d taken the little flower buds of his fragile emotions and crushed them into oblivion.
“Fuck!” she shouted to her empty bedroom.
Why was she like this? Why did she nurture such a scathing personality that no one could stand to be around her? And why did she insist on pushing away the only people who could?
She knew she was rude. She knew she was too blunt. She knew she got mad too quickly and her stubbornness made people roll their eyes when they thought she wasn’t looking. Sheknewit, but she didn’t change it. No, she reveled in it.
It wasn’t like she meant to torture herself. No one wanted to be the unlikeable, difficult person. Yet she went to great lengths to ensure she filled that role, and she wasn’t entirely sure why.
This whole thing wasMeph’sfault, she reminded herself when the guilt threatened to choke her again. He was the one who’d broken their bargain. He was the one who’d made it complicated. She’d been clear about her intentions, and he had chosen to ignore them. She owed him nothing.
And yet, those assurances did nothing to console her. No matter what justifications she made, there was no hiding from the cold, hard truth:
Once again, she’d crossed a line. She’d hurt someone who didn’t deserve it.
Fuck the fact that he was a demon. She’d been so hung up on it in the beginning, always reminding herself what he was whenever she had any positive thoughts about him. Whenever he did something to impress her or make her laugh. She’d put him on trial from their first interaction solely because of what he was.
She was pretty sure that was calledprejudice.
Yeah, she had a good reason to be distrustful of demons. It flashed in her mind’s eye every time she went to sleep at night. The fire. The screaming. Her screaming, as she saw the flames and knew her parents were trapped.
Her mam had sent her to the store on a nonsensical errand, making her vow with blood magic that no matter what happened, she wouldn’t enter the building until she was told it was okay. Iris had fought her, had argued adamantly and demanded an explanation, but in the end, she was an eighteen-year-old girl who listened to her parents, and she’d given in.
And when she returned, she’d been forced to stand helplessly and watch Valefor’s fire take down the building with the coven inside.
