Sam shrugged. “I can’t tell you how to do that. Only you can change the way you think. But like I said earlier, no one’s making you.”
The bitter taste of failure filled my mouth at his words. I wanted to succeed, to prove to my family and, maybe more importantly, to myself that I could belong in the secret order. But the reality was that I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t have a plan to get myself out of the deal with Beelzebub. I couldn’t help feeling that I was a disappointment to my family, that I wasn’t worth the love and support they’d given me.
Even this training session was a waste of Sam’s time. He could be with his wife and kids right now, and instead he was here, trying to teach me despite the fact that I hadn’t gotten better in the past four freaking years.
“I want to,” I said.
Sam nodded. “Okay. Let’s put the bow down and talk about what’s holding you back. What do you think you need to succeed?”
A new personality. A brain and body that was actually good for something. A way to get rid of the choking fear that I would never measure up to everyone’s expectations, that their belief in me was misplaced.
But I wasn’t going to say any of that to Sam. “I don’t know. How do you do it?”
“It’s never been a problem for me.” He plucked a toothpick from his pocket and slid it between his teethlike it was a cigarette. “But I also have anger issues and find violence therapeutic.”
“What about everyone you’ve trained here?” Sam had dozens of employees who were loyal to him and wouldn’t hesitate to follow him anywhere… usually into fights with demons.
Sam laughed. “They’re in the same boat. That’s the thread that ties us all together. We each took a shit hand and turned it into something good.”
I wanted to be able to do that. I hadn’t been given the kind of bad hand Sam was talking about. My parents weren’t Fallen, and my childhood wasn’t traumatic. But I wanted a way to turn my deal with Beelzebub into something good.
It was bad enough I couldn’t defend myself in hand-to-hand combat. Now I wasn’t only a liability, I was a damn ticking time bomb.
The front doorof the penthouse slammed and I jumped, dropping the knife I was using to chop vegetables. I’d been on edge since I’d left Youngblood this afternoon.
My hand ghosted over my thigh where my bow was strapped, and I wished not for the first time that I had Sam or Nate’s ability to sense demonic or angelic power.
Hayden rounded the corner, and I let out a relieved breath.
“What’s wrong?” he asked the second he saw me.
“You’re home early.” It was only five thirty, and I’dgrown used to Hayden not coming home until around nine or ten.
His features twisted. “I didn’t realize that was such a bad thing. I can leave if you want.”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that. I just didn’t know it was you.”
His eyes narrowed. “Who else would it be?”
“I don’t know, Hayden. That’s the point. I knew someone was here, and I didn’t know who it was.”
“I’m sorry.”
I blinked in surprise. Did he just apologize?
“Areyouokay?” I asked. Now that the initial shock of the moment had worn off, I could see the agitation in Hayden’s aura. There were lines of stress bracketing his mouth, and his eyes were dull, defeated.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
Well, that cleared everything up.
He moved to the coffeepot that sat on the kitchen counter. There was something robotic about the motion, like his mind was somewhere else. I sort of loved the fact that Hayden made his own coffee instead of going to a café or having his assistant pick it up for him. It was such a normal, non-billionaire thing to do.
“I told my father about the wedding,” he said without looking at me.
