Page 12 of Married to the Devil

But I can’t seem to help myself.

I knock on the door to the room Stella has been staying in while we resolve the situation with the Leonids. Her shop being ransacked made a compelling case to accept our protection. It also allowed her to help in finding where Katarina had run off to after the attack.

I mentally prepare myself until the door swings open. The sight of her is still enough to knock the air from my lungs, but I’m used to that. Stella is gorgeous, but one should pay more attention to her thorns to get through an interaction unscathed.

I’ll never admit to anyone that her prickliness pulls me in almost more than her conventional beauty. Not that I’m immune to that. Her hair is down and flows over her shoulders. The copper highlights make my fingers itch to touch it.

She folds her arms and leans against the door jam. “What do you want?”

I clear my throat to corral my thoughts. I had a purpose for being here.

“I wanted to apologize for being an ass.” I hold out the flowers that look more worse for wear after their journey through the shadows of the in-between.

“What’s this?” she asks but accepts them.

“A gift.” My ears burn, the gesture suddenly seeming beyond ridiculous.

Stella’s lips curves in half question and half a bashfulness I rarely see from her, but when she opens her mouth, her words are exactly the type I expect. “You’re giving me flowers? I know you may fantasize about strangling me, but it’s too early to plan my funeral.”

I cough to stop my laugh. She’s always able to turn things back on me with a jab, and I’d be lying if a part of me didn’t enjoy our banter. Crave it. The shine in her eyes makes me think she enjoys it as much as I do.

The arch of her brow is as sharp as her teasing words.

“I’m sorry,” I start instead of getting pulled into a satisfying exchange of quips. Quips that have lately strayed into the territory of angry sniping more than I wish. “It’s a stressful situation, and I know I’m not helping you feel any better.”

Stella glances down as if uncomfortable with putting words to the actions. As if we didn’t mention it, she could forget the risk to her and her friend’s life.

I continue, trying to distract her from everything and maybe share something about me that would help her understand. “It’s always been my job to create solutions to chaos, and it’s made me…inflexible.”

“A stick-in-the-mud?” Stella teases.

My lips pull into a reluctant grin. “I’m very good at it. The most stable stick-in-the-mud.”

She nods, her gaze taking in the haphazard bouquet. “I know. It’s a good attribute to have. I’m sorry if I’ve been catty about it. I’m just worried about Kat. Thank you for the flowers.”

The truce of our words rests in the air and make me want to linger.

“I saw them, and they seemed fitting. You know, wildflowers.” My cheeks warm as she looks up at me.

The smile of her lush lips is wry. “Are you calling me wild?”

“Utter chaos.” I’m suddenly breathless.

Her cheeks pinken. There’s a beat of silence as the revelation crashes over me like the long-waited crescendo of a song. I’ve always liked verbally sparring with Stella. It’s only now that it occurs to me that it’s much more than that.

“These are called forget-me-nots,” she says softly her expression thoughtful, questioning the tension between us. “I would think that I’m someone you’d want to forget.”

A foreign sensation rises in my throat. Nerves.

“You’d be wrong,” I say.

And then I’d enacted a solution to the Leonid problem. A solution that put Stella as far away from me as she could be.

I don’t deserve to drown my misplaced sorrow or to mark Stella’s wedding with forget-me-nots, but some part of my soul wouldn’t allow me to let her be bound to Stoneheart without knowing that I…grieved for something we hadn’t had the opportunity to explore.

The sensation in my chest tightens, and I gasp, pressing my hand to my heart as it to push it back into place.

This is something different than the emotions I’ve been wrestling with. A hint of floral citrus warms the back of my throat as surely and distinctly as if she were in front of me.

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