“I promise,” I said, matching his seriousness. “I’ll be here when you get out.”
He vanished down the hall, wings sweeping a low arc in the morning sun.
Alone, I took inventory of the kitchen’s offerings. There was a tray of pastries, all suspiciously intact—someone, maybe Samiel, had gone to the trouble of slicing and fanning them, like they were expecting a panel of judges for theNevada State Bake-Off. There were croissants in both sweet and savory, scones, strudel, something that looked like a poppyseed cake, and a pile of cheese Danishes so plump, they glistened like they’d been shellacked for a food commercial. It was far better than any hotel breakfast I’d ever scavenged at a conference.
But pastries didn’t count as breakfast. Not for me. I needed protein, or I’d get shaky and irritable by noon, and no amount of sugar or caffeine could fix it. I went back to the fridge, scrounged eggs, spinach, a log of goat cheese, and something labeled “bacon” in three languages, one of which was, I suspected, not spoken on this plane of existence.
I set to work, rolling up my sleeves and gathering pans, bowls, and a cutting board. Cooking for myself had always been an act of survival, but cooking for someone else felt almost ceremonial. I chopped the spinach (fine, so it didn't go limp and slimy in the eggs), whisked the eggs until they glistened, and crumbled in a ridiculous amount of goat cheese. If there was one thing I knew about men—even demon men—they’d eat anything as long as you drowned it in cheese and salt. I opted to skip the haunted bacon, but maybe I’d work up to it by Day Three.
It was strangely peaceful, moving around the kitchen, the brightening lake catching more sun by the minute and the air still holding a nighttime hush. I lined up the plates, brewed a second round of espresso, and had just slid the omelet into the pan when I heard him return.
Samiel’s hair was wet and slicked behind his horns, and he wore a pair of black sweatpants that looked like they could split at the thigh seam if he even considered lunging.
I plated the food and slid it across the island to him without comment, then watched as he stared at the eggs like he was trying to solve them.
"What is it?" I said, genuinely curious. "Are these… like, off-limits for demons? Is there a secret mortal taboo about goat cheese I should know about?"
He blinked, then shook his head, incredulous. "No. No taboo. Just—nobody’s ever made breakfast for me." He picked up his fork with the exaggerated caution of a man handling an heirloom or a live grenade, then cut into the omelet, unleashing a molten ribbon of cheese and spinach. He chewed, swallowed, and then closed his eyes in something like reverence.
"Jesus," he said, "you could overthrow governments with this."
I laughed and dove into my own plate. We ate in silence for a couple of minutes, forkfuls and sips of coffee filling the space. At some point, as the food did its work, I felt something in me click into place—like I could finally imagine the morning after being a real thing.
Samiel polished off his food and then, without warning, he dropped the fork and closed the distance between us in a heartbeat, his hands settling on either side of my face. He bent and kissed me, and this time it was neither sex nor ritual. It was a thank you. He lingered, lips soft and unhurried, and when he drew back I saw—just for a second—the debris of a century's worth of longing, swept clean and replaced by something as simple as breakfast.
We leaned against the kitchen island together, staring out at the lake, both of us a little embarrassed by the sudden intimacy or perhaps just unsure how to fill it. I fiddled with my coffee, felt the heat in my cheeks, and realized I was blushing for the first time in years.
“So,” I said, tracing a finger around the rim of my mug, “do we just wait for the chaperone to show up and grade our relationship? Or do we get to do something fun before the mandatory check-in?” I tried for casual, but the thought of being “graded” made my shoulders tense up in a way that was only partly a joke. I’d spent my whole life on the edge of some evaluation—school, work, relationships, therapy intake forms—but this was the first time the stakes felt so high.
Samiel considered, then grinned. “The mayor’s due at noon for the check-in. Until then, we’re supposed to ‘bond in a naturalistic setting,’ which mainly means not traumatizing the gardeners or causing property damage.” He eyed the patio door, then me. “If you want to see the lake, now’s the time.”
I was already moving. There were cravings that didn’t make sense until you were in the presence of certain landscapes—salt water, sand, the shimmer of heat over flat land—and Lake Purgatory, for all its devil-branding, called to me like an old, bad habit. I wriggled into my sneakers, palmed two more pastries from the kitchen, and watched Samiel roll his shoulders, wings stretching and flexing. He let them fan out, the span catching the slanted sun and turning the kitchen into a cathedral of red and shadow. He looked like something built for flight, some prehistoric beast that had been tricked into domesticity but never fully tamed.
We stepped outside. The morning was already heating up, the sky an impossible, chemical blue, the air carrying the faint, metallic tang of the lake. Our little house perched on a bluff, the concrete patio giving way to a switchback trail that snaked down to the shore. At the bottom, the sand was fine and bone-pale, almost white against the water. The lake itself was a color you only saw in dreams or in the aftermath of a chemical spill—cobalt near the bank, then shading to an oil-slick black at thecenter. The surface was dead calm, not even a shimmer from the wind.
Samiel stalked ahead, barefoot, his tail carving a lazy S behind him. He turned once to see if I was keeping up, then waited, hands shoved in his pockets, looking uncharacteristically shy.
The shoreline was studded with black rocks, a few driftwood benches, and a rickety public dock that looked like it had been built as a Boy Scout project and then abandoned to the elements. But further down, maybe a hundred yards from the house, was a second dock—private, slick with dew. Tied to it was an actual rowboat, the kind you saw in stock photos, all white with a rim of faded blue, two oars resting inside and a picnic basket wedged under the center bench. I blinked, not sure if it was a mirage, but Samiel saw my stare and grinned like a man holding a royal flush.
“I said I wanted to show you the lake,” he said, voice pitched low. “I asked Mara to set up a lunch for us, knowing—or hoping—we might sleep late.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his clawed hand.
I let out a laugh, sharp and delighted. "Should I be worried about a boat ride with a demon? Is this how the next ninety-day bride goes missing?"
He slipped a hand around my waist, guiding me with the same casual authority he used to manhandle a skillet. "If I was going to drown you, I'd at least wait until after dessert," he said, and the way he said it made me want to bite his shoulder for the hell of it.
We picked our way down the trail, the air getting heavier with the funk of lake minerals and some odd, floral undernote that might have been from the patch of wild sage clinging to the slope. The dock groaned when we stepped on it, but Samiel didn’t even blink. He braced the rowboat with one clawed hand,offering me the other to step in. I pretended not to notice the way he tested the boards, just in case they tried to give out under my weight.
He helped me in, steady as a rock, then pushed off with a single, shockingly graceful move. The boat glided free of the dock, and for a second, I let myself pretend I was in a different kind of story—a summer camp romance, maybe, or the opening to a horror movie. All I knew was that I felt seen, and not just in the predatory, hungry way. More like Samiel had been paying such close attention that he knew what kind of morning would make me want to stay here forever.
He rowed with slow, powerful strokes, the muscles in his forearms flexing under the thin membrane of his skin. The oars dipped in and out of the water so smoothly that there was barely a ripple. I sat on the prow, knees tucked up, the air cool on my face but already promising to burn off by noon.
After a few silent minutes, he paused, let the boat drift, and reached under the middle seat. He emerged not with a knife or a bottle of demon whiskey, but with a can of SPF 100 and a folded black-and-white umbrella, the kind tourists used on the Vegas Strip when their skin couldn’t take the sun.
He nudged the umbrella open, set it in a clamp to shield my shoulders, and handed me the sunscreen. “I read the orientation packet,” he said. “I know humans… fry.”
I took the bottle, warmth blooming in my chest. “You’re not worried about your own skin?”
He grinned, showing one fang. “I could bake at four hundred for six hours and only get hungrier.” He squinted into the sun, eyes gone almost gold around the edges. “But I didn’t want you to burn. Or to be uncomfortable.” He said it so simply, so unadorned, that I wanted to cry a little and also tear his sweatpants off and ride him into the bright, indifferent eye of the day. I settled for smearing sunscreen down my arms, thenmy legs, watching the way Samiel’s eyes flicked to my hands, tracking every movement.
