Well, she was at least half right: he’d certainly felt like he needed to get laid since, darkness, how long had it been? And she wasn’t helping matters, crawling up onto her knees and leaning on the table to peer out at the occupants in the tavern, ass wiggling right in his face.
“Maybe someone in here will do us both the favor and put you in a better mood. What about her?”
She was pointing out a fiery-haired woman serving drinks to a table of men playing cards. She had a toothy smile, tanned skin, and a slight point to her ears to suggest elven ancestry. He glanced over at Amma again, her blonde brows waggling at him. “Too ginger.”
“Oh, more into the tall, dark, and handsome type? Makes sense since you’re so into yourself. What about him, then?” She pointed out a well-built man standing at the bar, meeting the criteria she’d just listed with roguish stubble and a hilt he wasn’t trying to hide on his hip.
Damien was too amused by her candor to be offended by it. “That one’s too tall.”
“Too tall? That’s not a thing.” As she spun back toward him, Amma knocked into one of her empty tankards, and it clattered across the floor. The patrons closest glared over at their table.
“I prefer someone smaller that I can pick up and throw around.” Damien took her by the arm and guided her back onto the bench. “Aren’t you trying to keep a low profile?”
The barkeep had come over, collecting the fallen stein. He made a pointed effort to glower at Amma before walking off.
“Sorry,” Amma giggled, ducking back into the shadows. She grabbed another empty tankard to hold before her face like she could hide behind it then grinned over at him. “So, tell me what your ideal companion would be like then, Sir High Standards.”
“I’m evil, Amma, I don’t havecompanions.” He took another sip, gazing out over the tavern goers, each table filled with multiple people, laughing, carrying on. “I’m not made for that.”
“Oh, yeah, you said because of the demon thing you don’t feel love, but I don’t really believe that.”
He scoffed. “You don’t believe in the fundamental truth that infernal-born beings are incapable of love? The teachings of all your great and holy gods insist upon the same thing. The dark gods were cast into the Abyssbecauseof their inability to love, and that gift was passed on to their servants, the demons.”
“Wait, that’s why? I thought the gods just got in a fight or whatever? Well, still, no, I think it’s minotaurshit.” The way she said it, so flippantly, stunned him. It was fact, one he’d grappled with his entire existence, and she had just so casually told him she refused to accept it. “And I also don’t believe you’ve never had a girlfriend or boyfriend that you at least liked a whole bunch.”
“Well, which is it—I’ve got no experience or am well versed in romance?”
“The second, obviously,” she said with a put-upon sigh.
Damien wasn’t sure what was so obvious about it when she’d been needling him earlier, but he knew it was the preferable option. “Well, uh, yes, I suppose I was once someone’s boy…friend.” He winced at the word. He had certainly belonged to someone else once, though he had tried very hard to forget.
She shifted back up onto her knees to face him, excited. “Wait, tell me aboutthat.”
“No.”
“Yes,” she insisted, nodding enthusiastically. “I won’t give you the Lux Codex unless you do, and you can’t even touch it anyway, so you have to tell me if you want more help from my, what’d you call ‘em?”—she drummed her nails on the flagon—“mynimble fingers.”
Though she’d conveniently forgotten about the talisman, he supposed it wouldn’t hurt saying something to satisfy her: she wasn’t likely to remember any of it anyway. “There was a woman once—”
“Was she pretty?”
Damien snorted. “Considering what she got away with, she had to be.”
Her eyes flashed then, narrowing. “Howpretty?”
“I’ve met prettier since,” he said carefully.
Amma’s mood shifted right back to being absolutely enthralled, overly dilated pupils unblinking. “How’d you meet?”
“There is a sort of…assemblage for people of my persuasion called Yvlcon—”
“She’s a blood mage too?” Amma again tried drinking from the empty tankard, turning it upside down over her head.
“No, there are very few of us,” he said. “The word for what she is…well, you wouldn’t like to hear any of the ones I’d use to describe her.”
“Didn’t go so well, huh? What happened?”
“Misery, mayhem, murder.” Damien grinned wistfully then frowned. “But then it went to the Abyss.” He took a long drink, insides queasy. Even the good memories seemed to sit differently now.
