Page 62 of Bad Demon

“What are you doing?”

“Just getting it out of the way.”

He was braiding it. A lot of the hounds wore it that way. Relic’s had been braided the first time he came into my shop. Tingles prickled all over my scalp—the nice kind that made me feel all drowsy. The last time I’d felt that was when I was a child, when my mom would play with my hair while she read me a bedtime story.

“W-why are you doing this?” I heaved again. I hadn’t thought there was anything left inside me, but apparently, I was wrong.

“’Cause you got really nice hair, and I didn’t think you’d want puke in it,” he said.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him take a hair tie from the bathroom counter and then used it to secure the braid.

“Good thinking,” I said, trying to act like this was nothing, that I didn’t care, that I hadn’t just begged him to leave when all I wanted at this moment was for the ground to open up and suck me under.

One of his hands, large and warm, slid up and down my back, soothing me. “Don’t act so surprised. I’m not just a pretty face, you know,” he said, his tone teasing. “I’m kind of offended all you see are the muscles and the good looks.”

I huffed out a laugh. “I bet about now, you wish your muscles were the only things I’d taken advantage of since you met me.”

“You haven’t taken advantage of shit, Fern,” he said, all traces of teasing gone.

I shook my head while the elephant in the room loomed over us, stomping its massive feet, demanding attention. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t pretend what had happened hadn’t. What I’d done was absolutely fucked up. I swallowed past my scratchy throat several times.

“So far, I’ve stolen your soul, ordered you around, thrown attitude, been a bitch, demanded you protect me, treated you like a servant”—I swallowed again, my throat like razor blades—“and a … a sex slave last night, and now a fucking nursemaid. So, I don’t just see the muscles and the handsome face. No, I know exactly what kind of male you are, Relic—a good one—and I’m ashamed of the things I’ve done to you—”

“Don’t,” he growled. “We don’t use that word here. Shame does not exist in this place and not between us. So, I’m telling you now, you need to lose it from your vocabulary—understand me?”

“What I did to you … and last night …” I heaved again, but not from the aftereffects of the potion, not this time. I’d taken advantage of him, used him like an object to help get me off. I squeezed my eyes closed as I gasped in a breath. “I’m so disgusting. You must hate me; you must hate me so much.”

I was jostled suddenly and lifted as Relic sat back, leaning against the wall, positioning me in his lap.

Wriggling, I desperately tried to get away. I didn’t deserve to be comforted. “I need to release yo—”

“Shh. It’s quiet time.” He tugged down the towel from the rail beside him, still damp from his shower earlier, and used it to wipe my face. “No more talking, Tinker Bell, because everything you’re saying is not only wrong, but it’s pissing me off.”

He tossed the towel aside and wrapped his arms around me—not tight, but enough that I knew he wasn’t letting me get up. “I told you last night that you’re not disgusting, that there’s fucking nothing disgusting about you.” He smoothed his hand down my back, soothing me again. “No, sweetness. To me, you are fucking perfect.”

I recoiled, shaking my head, and opened my mouth to tell him he was wrong, but he took my jaw in his hand—again, not hard or painful, but in a way that told me to shut up and listen.

Didn’t he understand that his view of me was distorted? I owned his soul, for fuck’s sake. He was confused by the connection it had created between us. I sure as hell wasn’t immune to it.

“Everything I’ve done since the night we made our deal was voluntary.”

I shook my head, trying to speak again, and again, he stopped me.

“I know you don’t believe that, not yet, but it’s true. I’d wanted to protect you before we made our deal, Tink. I told you that—you know I did—so you have to know that I’m more than good with that part. As for the rest of it, getting you a cup of tea doesn’t make me a servant, and helping you last night …”

I tried to look away, but he wouldn’t let me do that either.

“Helping you last night did not make me your fucking sex slave, baby. It just fucking doesn’t because, again, everything I’ve done was because I wanted to. And taking care of you when you’re sick … I’m starting to get the feeling that not many people have done that for you, so sitting here with you now—taking care of you when you are at your most vulnerable, knowing that you trust me to do that for you, whether you like it or not—is my fucking privilege, Fern.”

I blinked up at him. This male could not be real. Everything he’d said gave me feelings I didn’t know what to do with, filling me to overflowing. And the biggest one? Hope. I didn’t let myself hope. Ever.

He only thinks those things because you own him.

My head refused to entertain the things he’d said. It was just my poor, neglected heart that wanted to believe a male like him could truly care about me.

“You don’t know me,” I whispered. “You wouldn’t say those things if you did.”

I wanted it to be true, for him to truly care about me, but I’d taken enough from him. I couldn’t let him think those things; I couldn’tnotwarn him. I wasn’t the female he thought I was—I couldn’t be. If he saw me—if he truly saw me—he never would have said what he had. He sure as fuck would never think caring for me was a privilege.

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