Page 27 of A Study of Blood and Ichor

“It’s a demon, Rory. I’ve studied them my whole life. If you knew half the shit I did about them, you wouldn’t be acting so indifferent right now.”

“I know plenty about demons,” he said and then took a tentative sip of his coffee before setting it back down. “Seven years, remember?”

I scoffed. “If that were true, you’d be begging me to exorcise it.”

“Look, I’m very aware of my situation, sweetheart. I don’t need another high and mighty lecture from you. Not right now.” I caught a wince flash across his features after he snapped at me. With a sigh, Rory lowered his head and dug into his pockets. He slid my gold hair stick across the table. I shivered at the memory of Vain pressing the sharp tip against my throat, and I had to stop myself from rubbing at the skin there.

“Sorry about that, by the way. I told him not to be too rough.”

“Thanks,” I muttered as I snatched it up and pulled it under the table into my lap. I couldn’t risk pulling out my knife in such a public setting, so having a semblance of something sharp in my hands calmed my nerves slightly.

Jessica returned with our food, and I didn’t miss the way her wary eyes bounced between us, like she had either gleaned the animosity between me and Rory, or she could sense the same otherness about him that I did.

Only after she rushed away wordlessly did Rory speak again. “Vain says thank you for helping us escape.”

“I didn’t do it for him,” I said. “I did it for you.”

He ran his hand through his hair, pushing the dark strands out of his face. “Why the hell would you save me?”

My heart tugged at the unsaid words. “I’m not worth saving.”

I swallowed and stared into my tea, lacing my hands around the mug as I tried to shove the image of Sascha from my mind. “I couldn’t sit back and watch you die. Lena was prepared to kill you. She wanted me to kill you. I couldn’t…”

Rory’s mouth parted and then shut again. He picked up a fork and dug into his pie.

“And here I thought you were only interested in my charming personality,” he said through a mouthful, then smirked. “Or you just wanted to get in my pants.”

My hands shot out and clasped around Rory’s wrist, careful to avoid the raw skin from the manacles. He flinched at first, but then relaxed into my touch.

“I did what I thought was right,” I said. Knowing that I only had one good shot at it, I made sure to meet his eyes and hold his gaze so that he was less likely to notice the swirls of magic I had started to trace discreetly across his skin with my fingertips. “Vain’s broken something inside you, Rory. And, for some reason, I think you feel like you need the demon to survive. But Vain is using you even if you can’t admit it to yourself yet. It’s the truth.”

Rory’s expression softened for a moment, but once I finished the last bit of the spell, he drew back, hissing and clutching at his left wrist. His fork clattered on the table.

Jessica whipped around for a moment, but then seemed to not think much of it because she returned her attention to her other customer at the counter.

Rory looked up slowly from the mark. A red band of sharp thorns encircled his left wrist that now matched the one etched into my own skin as well. His eyes turned to slits. The air in my lungs went cold, and my heartbeat hammered in my throat.

Maybe Vain wouldn’t be the one to kill me after all. Rory’s glare burned with murderous intent, appearing all too eager to do the deed himself.

“What did you do?” he snarled.

I leaned forward over the table. “It’s not for you. It’s for Vain. The demon knows what that mark means.”

I wasn’t about to take any more risks, not when I knew too little about what Vain was fully capable of. It was a fairly simple binding spell, one that wouldn’t allow the bound to be more than a certain distance from its binder. The only catch was being too far apart would cause excruciating pain to not only Vain and Rory if they tried to escape, but to me as well. However, since Vain had given me its word that it wouldn’t harm me, I had to hope that the demon wouldn’t find a loophole to violate that part of our bargain.

Realization struck Rory, and the muscle in his jaw fluttered as he seethed.

“You are going to remove this mark right now, witch.” The tattoos on his arms flexed as he shook. Whether it was all his rage or some of Vain’s mixing with his own, I couldn’t tell.

“I’m not going to let you out of my sight. Not after everything. Not until I’ve had a chance to exorcise Vain.” I looked straight into Rory’s eyes, knowing Vain was behind them and hanging on every word. “If you think I’ll let you get away with Rory and renege on our deal, you’re even stupider than I thought.”

Vain’s onyx eyes flashed, and I edged back into my seat. “I told you, my word is good.”

The neon signs blinked outside the window, and the fluorescent lights overhead flickered at the demon’s presence. Vain’s power felt different when freed of the confines and magic of the Hull. It bounced around the diner like bolts of electricity, and my skin prickled in its wake.

“And I told you, I don’t take the word of pathetic demons.”

“Yet you’re still the one who made a deal with me.”

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