Page 40 of Run Like the Devil

Maybe I would never grow past being an awkward thirteen-year-old glaring at another pretty girl who my boyfriend looked at.

Which was so not the look I preferred for myself. Still…

Koller used to be an angel. She was similar to Gorrin in ways I could never be, had a shared history and background with him I never would.She understood him in a way I could never.

It meant that when she looked as innocent and sweet as she had before, I wondered if I could stab her just a little.

Not enough to kill her, just enough to make the point to stay away from Gorrin.A good scar could work as a wonderful reminder for people who struggled to learn things…

Knock it off, you fucking psycho.

I sighed as I took a seat on one of the rocks that rounded the large campfire we’d found just off the Path. There were enough spots for each of us, making me wonder if she’d set this up for us or it was just coincidence.

What wasn’t a coincidence, I was sure, was how the spot left for Gorrin ended up right next to her.

Instead of making a scene—and boy did I want to—I held my hands up, palms toward the fire to try to chase away the chill.

“You’re downright snarling,” Hale whispered to me. “If you kill her, I’ll bury the body.” His lifted eyebrow made me unsure if I should laugh at the joke or decline the offer.

Or accept the offer. That’s an option too. Fuck knows I don’t want to dig a hole.

“Are you going to explain why you are here, now?” Gorrin turned a sharp eye on Koller, a sure sign that despite their past, he didn’t fully trust her.

She sighed as she dragged one of her toes through the sand. “Life as a human was far from easy. I thought that when I died I would go back to the Plains. I wouldn’t be an angel, but I could at least go back to where I belonged. Unfortunately, I hadn’t understood how lasting my punishment was. When I died, I woke in the Chasm.”

“You sold your soul?”

She shook her head. “No. I never would do that—I knew that wasn’t worth it. Because Hubis took my angel form, because he made me human and cast me out, I was denied entry to the Plains for all time. Worse, in the Chasm, I had no protection, no power, nothing. I was outside the order there, bound to no one.”

Gorrin frowned. “If you were in the Chasm, wouldn’t you have eventually seen me there? Why did you not seek me out? I would have protected you.”

And there is that stabbing pain in my chest again…

My brain supplied the image of perfect Koller all cuddled up with Gorrin, desperate for him to protect her. Is that what he wanted? Was that what he’d craved from me?

Because I wasn’t ever going to be that sort of woman.

“You had done enough for me. Besides, all you could have done was kept me safe in the Chasm, made that place more comfortable as long as you were there. I didn’t want that—I wanted to go home.”

“Surely you understood that wasn’t possible.”

Koller peered around the fire, her gaze moving over the other Lords and myself. “Coming from you, who seems to be leading all the Demon Lords through the Path and to the Plains? Are you really in any position to tell me what’s possible and what isn’t?”

Gorrin pressed his lips together as though he didn’t want to admit she was right but also couldn’t argue with her.

“So you followed the Path to try to make your way to the Plains?” I asked, wanting her to continue the story rather than the little trip down memory lane with Gorrin.

Koller looked directly at me, and boy did she give me an expression the others didn’t get. I understood it for what it was, though—jealousy. I knew because I recognized it from my own feelings. “Yes. I’ve spent—” She furrowed her brows as if trying to figure something out, before shaking her head. “I don’t know how long, honestly, but I’ve spent a very long time here, in the Path.”

“I thought everyone who spent time here went crazy,” Yazmor said, the first time he’d spoken up since our little spat. “And I am an expert when it comes to insanity.”

“This place twists people,” Koller explained. “It is pervasive and subtle and never-ending. It works like the dripping of water—just keeps going until it wears away the stone beneath. The longer people are here, the more affected they become.”

“Affected by what?” Gorrin asked.

“You must feel it already. Choices that don’t feel like your own, feelings that make no sense to you. You feel and behave in ways you can’t understand.”

I thought back to the way I’d clung to Gorrin, the way I’d snapped at Yazmor.

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