Page 6 of Each Their Own Devil

“I, personally, was terrified,” Nic said.

“Maybe I can…” Aleja began. She thought of Garm and how she had once felt pinned beneath his enormous claws—a kind of wild fear she had never known before. “If I can make something, how long will my fire linger in the human realm without me?”

“You’re a Dark Saint now. If you command your flames to stay, they will—until a bargain is fulfilled or you dismiss them.”

“Okay. I’m not about to get the hang of this standing around thinking about how much I want to orderpomme fritesfrom that stand over there. I need your shadows to help me.”

“Oh?”

“We’re going to chase them out of town like you suggested,” she said. And perhaps it was the old Lady of Wrath and Fire speaking through her without needing words, but Aleja added, “And we won’t stop there. They’re going to understand what it feels like to know there is always a monster just a few steps behind you.”

Aleja had never seduced someone—unlessyou counted Nicolas. But now she sat in a French whiskey bar calledL’Escapade,still wearing her dirty boots from the Hiding Place, with her leather armor glamoured to look something acceptably close to a black t-shirt and jeans, thanks to the Knowing One.The magic hum against her skin was the only reason she knew he was still somewhere in the bar, cloaked in darkness.

As it turned out, it was not difficult to catch the eye of a drunk man half an hour before closing time. Marc had already spilled most of a drink on her lap, and it was only by the unholy grace of the Second that she didn’t grab his arm and let flames sink into his skin right then and there.

“Where are you from again?” Marc hiccupped.

Aleja had never said. For that matter, she didn’t speak French, but the words sounded strange and tinny in her ear. Marc went through several slurred sentences before Aleja understood the gist.

“I’m from Florence,” she decided.

“Ah, I love Italian girls.” Marc barely managed to get the words out before dropping a hand on her knee, and the marriage bond bristled. She grinned and leaned away from the touch but didn’t remove his hand. There was something about the wave of possessiveness in the magic tethering her to the Knowing One that made heat rise inside her. Of all the night’s outcomes, she hadn’t expected to unlock a new turn-on.

“Want to have something a little stronger than this drink?” she whispered. She’d heard that line on one of the reenactments that graced her higher-budget true crime podcasts, but Marc didn’t need to know.

“You have something in mind, sweetheart?”

“I don’t have anything on me, but I bet you’re the sort of man who knows his way around the city. Can you get us a little something? I have cash.” Aleja forced her eyelids open wider. Wasn’t this supposed to be the “doe-eyed” look? A glance at the mirror behind the bar revealed she had accidentally transformed her expression into something closer to a rabid animal. Fortunately, Marc was drunk enough to fall for the attempt.

“My boys are hanging around. What do you want?” he said.

“Oh. The…usual? Listen, my brother is somewhere in this bar, and if he sees me buying drugs, he’s going to drag me back to Italy so that our mother can beat me with a shoe. I’ll head out back. You and your boys meet me there, and then we can go to my hotel room to party.”

“Your brother won’t follow us?” Marc asked.

“No. Once I leave his sight, he’ll forget I exist. He lacks object permanence,” Aleja said, silently congratulating herself for coming up with a ruse good enough to fool a man who was—by her estimate—six whiskeys deep.

“Subject eminence?”

“That’s the one. You and your boys meet me out back, okay?” she said, letting her voice drop.

“Okay, pretty girl,” Marc said, leaning forward to kiss her cheek and missing. As he stumbled out of his stool, Aleja downed the rest of the beer she had ordered, then searched the bar. A door marked “EMPLEES NLY”—she supposed this was her new Dark Saint brain doing its best to translate written text—briefly opened as the bartender returned from his smoke break.

More shadows joined her as she slipped away. Under other circumstances, it would have been difficult to tell in the otherwise murky space of the bar, but she could feel which were Nic’s. They sounded like him, if she cleared her mind and listened to their wordless murmur. There was a hint of approval mixed with annoyance, as if even the shadows were agitated by the sight of another person touching their wife.

Jealous?she asked out of habit, as if she were speaking to her inner voice.

That’s too weak a word for it. If you weren’t planning something worse, I’d take his hands.

The response was so unexpected that Aleja nearly dropped the half-empty glass she carried with her.I didn’t know I could hear you like this, she told Nic tentatively.

It’s new, came the response, a tremble in the shadows, just like the light flickering on the streets outside.But marriage bonds are full of surprises, and we’re technically bound twice over.

Aleja wished she had waited for a swell in the thumping music before opening the back door because the creak of its hinges sounded like a cat in heat. Half the bar turned to stare at her over the rims of their tulip glasses.

“It’s okay!” she called, as the door closed behind her with a heavy thud.

She had not expected Marc and his buddies to be out here already.

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