“I’ve been awake for a while,” she says. “Haven’t heard anything from the monster.”
“It could be lying in wait nearby.”
“True.” She wedges her fingers into her left pocket, then withdraws them, as if she’s assuring herself that something important is still there. I make a mental note to inform myself about the contents of that pocket.
“I say we head straight for the treasure.” I fasten the last buckle of my gear, then pick up my pack.
“I’m leaning that way, too. I’d rather not get trapped in the tower again.”
“Maybe we’ll find Grisly along the way.”
“And how do you think he’ll react to sharing the treasure with someone who stuck him full of iron shards?”
“Not well. But he’ll have to get used to it.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
I shrug, adjusting the various straps of my gear. “Then I guess it’ll be you and me.”
She’s watching me, a torn hope in her eyes. “You’d choose me over him?”
“Easily. Without question.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a piece of shit, and you’re—” I hesitate, fearful of repeating my blunder of comparing her pussy to a knife sheath. “Here’s how I look at it. There’s gods up here, and then the Fae in the middle, and then humans below, right?”
Her eyes are hooded, suspicious about where I’m going with this. “And?”
“You’re up here, right under the gods and above the Fae.”
She presses her lips together tightly, like she’s trying not to smile. Then she says, “I’m not sure I understand your rubric.”
“These are things I fear, things that are beautiful and dangerous and wonderful.”
“And you’re saying I’m more beautiful and dangerous than the Fae?”
“Exactly.”
“You’re an absolute idiot.” But her tone is warm, indulgent. It feels like she hugged me instead of calling me a fool. I can’t help grinning at her.
“Stop it.” She pushes against my injured shoulder, and when I vent a little exclamation of pain, she gives me a tiny smirk.
Despite the stiffness of my muscles and the tug of bandages against blood-dried wounds, I’m gleefully ecstatic and thrumming with energy. All I want is to get this job done, get back to the mortal realm, and find out what’s next for me and Devilry.
I have no idea if she’ll even agree to see me again once this is over. If she doesn’t want to, I’m afraid I might resort to stalking her. I don’t think I’ll be able to stay away.
My mother once told me that she was hooked on hessen from the moment she tried her first pipe. Nothing else compared to the feeling she got, and from that moment on, her entire life was centered on achieving that feeling again, as often and as intensely as possible. Nothing else gave her joy. Everything she did was a path toward her next pipe.
Until last night, I never truly understood her addiction.
Fucking Devilry was my first pipe of hessen. My fascination started back when I met her that night in the Puzzled Coin, and sleeping with her only intensified the craving instead of dispelling it. What I felt when she begged me to come inside her, the euphoria I experienced in that moment and afterward—it was astonishing. Miraculous. Beyond anything I ever thought was possible.
If I never get to have that with her again, I fear I will become a dark and desperate addict, forever in search of something that only she can give me.
She hands me a bowl of food—leftovers she has scavenged from the pantry—and a cup of water. As I take them from her, she peers at me, like she’s reading my emotions.
“We’ll be all right,” she says. “We’ll get this done and go back to our lives.”
