Page 89 of The Devil and His Goddess

He didn’t hesitate. “Of course. Always.”

He stood and went around to the other side of the bed. He started to pull the blankets back but paused with a glance at me. A t-shirt suddenly appeared in his clawed hand, and as he slipped the navy material on, his demonic features vanished. With his shirt now in place, he settled against the headboard and sat down on top of the covers, his long legs stretched out beside me.

I finally laid back down on my side and faced him, pulling the covers up to my chin. My eyes snagged his vibrant green ones, and we stayed like that, staring at the other.

Unspoken words polluted the space between us. I no longer felt like myself. The girl who had no trouble speaking before now shuddered in shame at the idea of talking. There was so much I wanted to say, but I couldn’t stomach the words.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Perseus asked softly.

I swallowed hard as my eyes burned. “I … don’t know.”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to or can’t. Whatever you need, Harper. I mean it.”

My throat clogged with budding emotion, and tears slipped out of the corner of my eye to fall onto the pillow beneath my head.

I hate myself.

I can still feel him inside me.

It’s my fault.

I wanted to tell him all of these things, but the words refused to leave my tongue. What came out was, “It’s almost Christmas.”

He folded his hands in his lap and nodded. “So it is.”

“Do demons celebrate Christmas?”

He chuckled, but the sound was hollower than normal. “We can celebrate and do whatever we want. Doesn’t mean we have the same reasons for it that others do.”

“Do you decorate for the holidays?”

He quirked an eyebrow at me. “Doyou?”

I nodded. “That was always one of my favorite parts, especially for Christmas. My parents would pull out every box of decorations, and as a family, me, my parents, and my brothers would put them all over the house. We’d make an entire day of it. We’d playThe Nutcrackersoundtrack through the house, and my brothers would always try to copy me as I danced to the music. They were awful, of course. There’s not a dancer’s bone in their body, but they’re great at football. We’d bake cookies as a family, which inevitably turned into a cookie dough fight. When it looked like Christmas had claimed our entire house, we’d end the night off by watching a Christmas movie together with only the tree lights on.”

Perseus stared hard at me, and it was only then that I realized a small, nostalgic smile had formed on my face. Seeing it seemed to suck the air from Perseus’s lungs, and his jaw worked as though something inside of him were being ripped apart.

As the memory of my family faded, my faint smile went with it, and the ache that had taken up residence in my chest was back with a vengeance. With the brief reprieve from the pain, the pang of misery felt even worse than before, and all of those ugly feelings bubbled up with nowhere to go exceptout.

My chest cracked wide open as I whispered, “It’s all my fault, Perseus.”

“No it’s not, Harper,” Perseus insisted as heartbreak pulled down his brow and lips.

One of the things that had been playing on repeat in my head was Drake telling me how he’d seen my friendliness as an admission of love. I kept replaying every exchange we’d ever had, feeling like if I’d been crueler or harsher or smiled less, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. He never would’ve targeted me if I hadn’t given him that attention. If I’d been a better friend to Mandi, she wouldn’t have tricked me. If I hadn’t lied to Perseus, I wouldn’t have been alone.

I closed my eyes and shook my head against his disagreement. “It is. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t been nice to him, this wouldn’t have happened. If I hadn’t lied and helped Mandi—”

“Stop.Please, stop,” he pleaded.

He shifted, and I opened my tear-filled eyes to see him sliding down the bed so that he laid right next to me. His face was now level with mine. He reached out like he was going to grasp my hand, but he stopped, freezing in place before letting his hand rest next to my own. Centimeters separated our fingers. When had centimeters become worlds apart?

I knew why he hesitated, and that only made my guilt worsen. That only made my self-loathing greater.

“Everything is ruined, and it’s all my fault,” I sobbed, burying my head in the blanket.

“Harper, look at me,” he commanded, his voice rough but firm.

Hiccuping, I barely managed to meet his eyes. His shoulders rose and fell hard as he studied me for a moment. Seeming to make up his mind, he took a chance and closed those centimeters—thatworld—separating us. He held my hand and squeezed it, the warmth of his palm seeping into my skin. It spread up my arm and through my chest like the first rays of sunlight after a hurricane.

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