“Isnothe only word you know?”
I didn’t know what it was about Thallor. The glisten in his eye when he knew I was annoyed, or that stupid dimple that seemed to emerge from nowhere when he really smiled, but he had coiled himself around me. Encapsulated my soul. Whilst everything he had said might of been a joke, all for show, it stirred up a longing inside me I hadn’t known was there. Until it was. Untilhim.
“You are the worst, you know that?” I sighed, looking up at him.
The grin that sat resolute on his face in stoic defiance of my scowl was as infuriating as it was irresistible. He scratched at the back of his neck, calculating just how to get me out of my stupor, but all I could focus on was the muscle of his forearm and the veins etched across his skin.
I’d spent the next two hours trying to stop the little cogs in my brain from whirring whilstWhen Harry Met Sallyplayed on the television in front of us. Not even ten minutes into the film, Thallor had stretched out, the muscles of his arm prickling the back of my neck and his leg firmly pressed against mine. I could feel the thrum of his pulse against the back of my neck, the nervous, excited energy coursing inside him betrayed by his ownbody. But I didn’t mention it, and neither did he. Between the shared bag of gummy worms and the occasional touch of hands that had resulted in small smirks and awkward laughter, we settled comfortably into what had become my favourite thing to do.
“So, what did you think?” I asked Thallor once the credits began to trail across the TV.
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to get this one out of my head,” he said, eyes laser-focused on me whilst I kept mine on the screen ahead of us, reading each and every name to stop myself stealing glances at Thallor.
“Yeah, Meg Ryan is a total babe, so I’m not surprise?—”
“I’d like to hear you moan the same way she does in the film.” Whilst I had noticed how close we were sitting, I hadn’t noticed Thallor’s hand on the far side of my neck and the warmth of his breath lingering at my jaw. An anxious, nervous feeling whipped up inside me like a hurricane fighting to break loose. If I leaned any closer, his lips would have grazed my jaw.But that wouldn’t be so bad.
I took a steadying breath as he released me and pulled away, the distance between us suddenly stark and cold. His gaze lingered upon me, on my jaw and lips, before settling on my cheeks. For a brief flicker in time, it felt like Thallor was drinking in the sight of me. Flustered, lips parted, and honestly a little tête-à-tête, this thing we seemed to do to each other, I wouldn’t, couldn’t, let him win. Because I didn’t want him to know what effect he had on me. Even if every comment, every look, every smirk and sideways glance, every ‘Sterling’ and every roll of his eyes upended my very being.
“The whole point was that it was fake.”
He didn’t miss a beat. “It wouldn’t be with me.”I’ve heard that before, but I can’t help but think you mean it.
He continued to hold my gaze, settling me with afiery stare that would have left me breathless had I not already been holding my breath.
“What has gotten into you?” I asked quietly, desperate to understand the change in him (and the change in me). I continued to watch him, descending deeper into the hypnotising kaleidoscope of his darkening red eyes.
“What’s gotten into me?What’s gotten into me?” Thallor scoffed, parroting my own question back to me.
“You, Quincey,” he bit out, tone more serious than it had been only moments ago. “You’re what’s gotten into me. You’re under my skin. You’re in every crack. You’re buried so fucking deep I don’t know where I end, and you begin.”
From the very first moment, I thought Thallor’s words were justwords.Things to fill the space between us when he was bored and I was standing close enough to hear them. I got that we were friends, sure, but I’d never really imagined there was any actual truth laced into the things he said. Because he was him, and me? Well, I was justme.
I could feel him chipping away at my walls. Walls I’d spent so long building up. I didn’t have the emotional capacity to listen to what he was saying, because in the end, he would leave, and I’d be left to put the pieces of myself back together. The ones I’ve already lost in him.
“When we first met, you told me I was pitiful…” I trailed off, remembering the disdain on his face. “Do you just expect me to believe you’ve changed your mind?”
“Because itispitiful, Sterling. Don’t you understand? I know this isn’t right. I know you and I shouldn’t work, but we do. You felt it that night? The first night we met. A jolt of something that is unlike anything you have ever felt. Demons don’t have soul mates. Demons don’t fall in love…”
The way Thallor looked at me pained me just as much as it clearly pained him. I didn’t know what to think or what to feel.All I had ever done was try to protect myself against the feelings clutching at me and refusing to let go.
“And yet when I am with you, I cannot seem to fight what is happening inside me. I am scared of falling for you. I am scared of everything that I have yet to leave behind seeping into this life, into whatever it is between us that makes me so unbelievably happy.I ampitiful; I’m not sure I have the will to resist this, but I do not want to put you in danger.”
“What danger?” I pleaded, finding my words for the first time. I wasn’t sure why I even asked. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready for the answer. For the honesty that came with it. I wanted us to stay in limbo, in the moment suspended between us where I could pretend that maybe this could all turn out okay.
“Do you know why the Malediction Codex exists?” Thallor bit out, head dropping. The words came out quiet and raw, yet they had a sharpness that stung anyway. I shook my head, not that he noticed. “It is a prison. I was tethered to the book centuries ago because someone wanted to keep me trapped. I have and always will be a fucking disappointment. My lack of need to cause destruction and oblivion goes against everything it is to be a demon. And I have tried, Quincey, I have. I was a monster. I did everything I thought I was meant to do. Where I have sought to escape Hell, to escape who I was, that book is the one thing that keeps me coming back.”
“Thallor,” I said, voice breaking under the weight of everything he’d just told me. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I…I didn’t know. I am so sorry for contributing to that. I’m not sure I’d be able to forgive me. I know I’m not responsible, but still…”
“I knew it from the moment I laid eyes on you, Sterling. I felt it deep within me. And I was scared. I wasscaredof the way you made,make,me feel because for the longest time, I didn’t want to feel anything at all.”
I swallowed hard as he stared at me, frantically trying tosteady my breath in a room that felt like it had been deprived of air. Thallor’s gaze didn’t waver from mine. He didn’t move as he watched me, but the intensity of his gaze pulled the little oxygen I had left in my lungs until I was sure I wouldn’t survive him.
Maybe he was falling for me the way I was falling for him. But when all was said and done, we were still doomed. We were as fucked as Romeo and Juliet, and when I’d made my last wish, Thallor would disappear. He would go back to whatever life he had, and I would go back to mine. Thallor’s life would stretch on, with me as a whisper of a memory. And my life would be over before he even had a chance to notice. Even if I wanted this. Even if every part of me screamed for it, even if I saw it reflected back at me inthatlook behind his eyes, it would never change how things ended.
“Tell me you don’t feel the same way,” he said quietly.
I felt the heat ignite in my chest. The pressure continued to rise and expand outwards despite me begging it to stop. Each and every one of his words, like arrows, knocked and shot straight at my heart. I knew I felt the same way. I’d felt sure of my feelings for weeks, probably longer than that now that I thought about it. I didn’t have to question how or why I felt it. Because the feelings I had? They were not up for debate because they justwere.Intrinsically part of me. Every strand. Every fibre. Woven with bits of him.
