Page 48 of Devil's Debt

“I thought you don’t kiss them on the mouth,” I comment, my words dry as the wasteland I found Katy in. Falcon smirks.

“She tried. I didn’t need to get rough with her to dissuade her.”

I stop myself from rolling my eyes. In this area, we are opposites. Falcon runs through women like my club runs through bottles of vodka. He gives me a look, and I know what he’s thinking. He may not be any more human than I am, but the laws that govern our existences are vastly different.

He is free to cavort, socialize, fuck his way across the entire planet if he wants but I...

“I can’t,” I say, and my tone is heavy, “not since... not for a long time.”

“Not even with that sweet little mortal, Katy, laying in your bed?” Falc leers at me, and a flash of red streaks across my vision, the overwhelming desire to body him filling me.

I take a deep breath and turn away. He would not touch her, he wouldn’t be thinking about it, not if he had plans for a long and fruitful life. He knows me too well.

“She’s not like that,” I say, and Falcon snorts.

“That’s what you always say.”

“This time it’s true.” All those other ones? The humans I thought would be the key, some literally, to me regaining my kingdom? I never touched a single one. Treated them well, set them up in lives of their own where their dreams and true callings could be achieved. After, I realized they would be of little use to me.

Those that survived, anyway.

The others...

I turn my thoughts away from that corner of my mind. Better left dead than thought of again. They are beyond my reach, out of range of my comfort or words of apology now. There is no forgiveness to be found in the long-gone and nearly forgotten.

“You’re going soft,” Falcon comments, and I shrug, staring down at the bottle in my hand. It’s nearly empty.

“Perhaps.”

“You’ve been here too long. It does it to all of you--“

How did the bottle get empty so quickly? I barely remember drinking it. The city in front of us glimmers, like a beetle with a hundred thousand eyes, glorious and frightening all at the same time.

“You’re like us,” I remind Falcon sharply and he laughs, then mutters something inaudible to me.

“You should take her out, somewhere that’s not the club.” He glances around the room. “Have you even asked her what she wants?” I frown at him.

“I don’t get your--“

“Her aspirations,” he says it sarcastically. “Oh don’t look at me like that. Each one of the girls you’ve tried and failed to used to win back your crown, all of them, you’ve given their every dream to them. Shay thinks it’s sweet. I think you’re insane.” He drains his bottle and throws it out the open window to the alley below. I cringe at the shatter that follows. “I’m just saying, give her a day, take her shopping, let her do whatever she wants. Or take her out to some fancy dinner, dazzle her. She grew up in Lowtown. She knows nothing of our world, so show her.”He grabs me by the shoulders of my shirt and stares me in the face. I want tosnap at him immediately to unhand me that no one touches me without my permission, but there’s something so earnest in his expression that I say nothing.

I wait in silence for him to get up the courage to tell me whatever it is he’s thinking.

“She’s not like the rest of them, Hadrion, and you can’t treat her the same way. She’s special.” His gaze searches my face, like he’s expecting me to argue.

But I don’t. Because I know he’s right. I feel it in my gut whenever I’m around her, and I don’t know what the fuck to do about it. I’ve never wanted a single one of the women who’ve come through my door like this.

Like what?

Katy has the key. And nothing more.

Liar.

“You should go home,” I tell him, and Falcon releases me.

“And you should talk to her tomorrow,” he says, and heads back toward the stairs, waving at me as he does. “Or I’ll tell Shay you pussied out.” My jaw tenses, and he smirks at me, taking the steps two at a time, leaving me alone in my living room, with my thoughts as my only company.

Fuck him.

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