“You were caught in some kind of a spell and under duress. You weren’t reading the situation clearly. Otherwise you would not have been so stupid as to trade your soul away. Not even for Ben. Not even for Jame. Not even for Dad. You know better.”
She was wrong. I knew she was wrong. Spell or not, I would have traded my soul in a flat second if it meant Dad and the people I cared for were okay.
But there would be no convincing her of that right now, and probably no point to even try. She was angry and hurt and scared and I was really, really tired.
Exhausted.
I leaned down onto the bed, the blanket having been pulled back for me, the cool press of the sheets against my skin a kind of bliss worth sighing over.
So I sighed over it.
And slept.
Chapter 9
The bed dipped and someone bigger and heavier than me settled on the mattress behind me.
I knew, even without opening my eyes, who it was.
“You are killing me, Laney,” Ryder whispered as he wrapped an arm around me and molded the front of his body to my back. “Couldn’t you have called for backup before you put your soul on the chopping block?”
“Myra talk to you?”
He hummed and brushed his hand, warm and heavy, down my arm. I shifted around and he did too until we were both lying on our sides facing each other. It was pretty dark in the room. Hopefully not morning yet. Hopefully still before midnight.
“Are you angry at me?” I asked.
He spread his fingers over the rise of my hip and pulled me a little closer to him. “In the last few days you’ve been attacked and bitten by a vampire, and goaded into selling your soul to a demon. Neither were your idea. Not sure there’s anything to be angry at you about.”
“I wasn’t goaded.”
He moved his feet, catching my ankles between his. He wasn’t wearing his boots, but still had on jeans, T-shirt, and kind of adorably, his socks.
“I can see contracts. It’s my new superpower, remember? You were goaded, given a choice that left you no room to negotiate for an equitable outcome. You were railroaded, baby.”
Warmth spread through me at his words, at his calm faith that some of this, at least the circumstances if not the choices, were not in my control. I tried to hold onto that, the warmth, the faith, the fondness that filled me, but it was sucked away by a cold wind that scrubbed me clean.
“So far I don’t recommend the experience,” I said.
“Selling your soul?”
“Walking around without one.”
He waited, his feet tangled with mine anchoring me not to this room, not to this life, but to him. To us. To what we’d agreed we were to each other before there had been demons or vampires or gods involved.
“Does it hurt?”
“No. But that’s the problem. Nothing hurts. I know it should. I know I should feel pain and anger and fear. I get waves, sort of glimpses of those things, but then they’re gone and I just don’t really care that I don’t have them.”
“Not such a bad thing to be insulated from pain and fear.” His thumb stroked up my arm, painting a warm trail from the delicate skin of my inner wrist to my elbow, then skipping up, over my T-shirt, my shoulder.
“It’s not just the bad emotions. It’s everything. Even love.”
His thumb paused, just a second, then continued the path to my jaw, his fingers dragging warm and gentle behind as he cupped my face. He rubbed his thumb at the edge of my chin.
“Can you feel me?”
“Yes.”
