“You aren’t supposed to have to handle anything,” he said. “Not with me here.” He tried to soften it, but the words just hung there.
I blinked, not sure whether to be flattered, annoyed, or both. “I’m not glass, Samiel.” I crossed my arms, trying to keep my voice steady. “I know you want to protect me or whatever, but I don’t need a bodyguard. I need a...” I trailed off, the wordpartnerburning behind my teeth, too much and too soon.
He looked stricken, like I’d slapped him. “I’m sorry,” he said, but it fell flat. “I just—forty years, Annie. I’ve had to watch every inch of this town, every day, knowing if I so much as looked at a woman wrong, I’d be straight back to Hell. I guess I forgot how to do just enough.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, the claws almost grazing his eyelid. “I can dial it back. I will.”
I stared at him. All that want, all that hunger, and he was still terrified to fuck it up. I made a decision then. I needed to be honest about who I was, too.
“Look,” I said, moving closer. “If you’re really going to be my demon, then you have to trust me to take care of myself sometimes. Not every touch needs to be a duel to the death, okay?” I reached out, lacing my fingers through his, the veins on the back of his hand still pulsing with leftover adrenaline.
He squeezed back, hard. “Okay,” he said, “but you’re still mine. I’m not letting go.”
I rolled my eyes, but not unkindly. “Fine. But if you ever try to alpha-male another pizza guy, I’m switching to vegan.” The threat was empty, but he flinched anyway, and I laughed, the tension finally breaking.
We ate our pizza on the kitchen floor, backs against the fridge, the smell of garlic and tomato and scorched dough so crisp, it shredded the roof of my mouth.
After a while, I noticed the silence had changed. Not bad, just… heavier. I finished my third slice and wiped my fingers on the crust, then glanced at the clock, the window, the weirdly empty blue outside.
“You ever think about what happens after this?” I asked. “Like, after the Chase. After today, after the matching.” It came out quick, and I hated how small my voice sounded in my own ears.
Samiel looked at me, the stillness in his face suddenly alive with panic. “You mean, if you… stayed?” He said it so tentatively that I felt the bones of my chest cave in a little.
I nodded, forcing myself to go on. “I mean, what does ‘mine’ even look like out here? Am I supposed to just let you break every pizza guy who looks at me funny? Or are we going to have to, like, set ground rules?” I tried to joke, but it didn’t sound like one.
He was quiet for a long time. "I want to hurt them," he said, his voice dropping to a register that vibrated through the floorboards. "Anyone who touches you, looks at you wrong—I want to tear them apart." His jaw clenched, tendons standing out along his neck. "But I won't. For you." He hunched his shoulders, massive wings folding in tight against his back like a shield. "I'll try to do better. I don't want you afraid of me."
I reached out, my hand covering his where it tensed against the floor. “I’m not. I just… I want to be more than a thing to be protected. I want to be your equal, not your precious.” I said it before I could lose my nerve. “I want to know if you’d still want me if I could fight my own battles, if I didn’t need you at all.”
He stared at our hands, then up at me, and for the first time the black in his eyes was all soft, no sharp edges left behind.“I want that,” he said. “If you could tear the world in half, I’d just want to watch.” He squeezed my hand, claws retracted, all careful control. “But I need to know you’ll let me fight for you sometimes. Not because you need it—because I need it.”
I breathed out. “Deal,” I said. “But you have to promise not to kill any more delivery guys. Or at least wait until after they bring the food inside.” He laughed—a real one—and for a second I saw how it could work, this thing between us. Not a standoff, but a partnership made of challenges, of who could love harder or be braver without giving up any ground.
We finished the pizza, leaving a mess of napkins and crusts on the kitchen floor. The sun dipped behind the valley's edge, stretching shadows across the living room. Samiel gathered everything with demonic efficiency, then turned to me, eyes gleaming in the darkening light.
“Should I get changed?” I asked, half-joking. “Or is this one of those things where you want to see if I can outrun you in mesh shorts and free tits?”
He paused, gave me a once-over—the kind that should have felt objectifying, but on Samiel was more like a tailor’s appraisal than a pickup artist’s leer.
“You should wear something you can run in,” he said, voice careful. “And shoes. There are goatheads in the sand—seed pods, not actual goats,” he clarified. “But you can wear whatever you like. I’ll find you no matter what.”
The way he said it—matter-of-fact but edged with pride—made me want to test him. I pictured myself in those fishnets, bare legs flashing white against the dusk, and wondered if he’d hunt me harder for the spectacle. Or if he’d tear them off just to prove the point. I decided to split the difference and pulled on my shortest running shorts and an old, baggy band shirt and bra, then laced up my sneakers. I left the makeup as it was—the ghost of black eyeliner, the sweat-glow on my cheekbones, amess of two-tone hair frizzing from the earlier shower. I didn't want to look perfect for the game; I wanted to look like myself. My heart hammered against my ribs as I caught my reflection in the hallway mirror—cheeks flushed, pupils wide, hair wild. I thought of the way his eyes had burned with his fingers wrapped around Clem's neck, how the veins in his forearms had stood out like ropes. My mouth went dry. Would he look at me that way as he hunted me through the desert? Would I feel those hands closing around my wrists, my throat? The thought made my skin prickle with goose bumps despite the heat, fear and something darker twisting together in my stomach.
CHAPTER
TEN
Samiel
At 6:59 p.m., the air outside was still radiating heat from the day, but under it there was a tremor—a fine sizzle like electricity just before the power hum went dead. I stood on the porch with Annie, waiting for the second hand to click over, feeling the hair at the nape of my neck bristle with anticipation. The sun, half-submerged behind the mountains, poured molten gold over the sand, turning every rock and weed into a silhouette.
I glanced at Annie, taking in the sharp line of her jaw, the way her hands flexed open and closed at her sides. “You sure about this?” I asked, voice pitched low.
She grinned, all teeth and nerves. “You’re the one who said no takebacks.”
“Fair enough.” My wings flexed, a slow unfurl that stretched the membrane almost edge-to-edge with the patio. I caught the movement in the glass of the sliding door behind us, a blur of red and black that made me look less like a man and more like a warning.
Without warning, I scooped Annie up and launched skyward, the sound of my beating wings drowning out her yelp.
“I’ll fly you to the start point and then give you a minute head start,” I whispered into her ear as I flew. She clung to me as the desert stretched out below us. “If you make it to the deck before I catch you—you win.” Knowing there was no way she would. Sure, we had agreed on rules and parameters, but what were rules to a demon?
