“You’re kidding me. No, that can’t be—It has to be a coincidence.”
“It’s not.”
“You’re telling me my best friend is dating a demon? A fuckingdemon. She loathes demons with a burning passion. She despises them with every fiber of—”
And then she remembered their recent conversation. Iris’s lies of omission and seemingly nonsensical certainty that she was safe from Valefor.
“Is Valefor really dead?”
“Yes.”
“How? How did he die?”
“As far as I know, Belial killed him.”
That was why Iris was so convinced she was safe. She’d known. “Nice of her to tell me,” Suyin grumbled. She and the coven members spent hours every week keeping that damn cloaking spell going and it wasn’t even necessary. “Fucking hell. I can’t believe her boyfriend is a demon.”
“Lily’s too,” Murmur tacked on, his cocky little smirk telling her he was enjoying her disbelief.
“How did it happen? How did she even meet a demon and not try to immediately kill him?”
“You’ll have to ask her that.”
“Just tell me now.”
His lips quirked. “You can’t make me talk, Suyin.”
They stared at each other. She saw the stubbornness in his eyes and wanted to kick him. He wasn’t going to tell her anything for the sole reason that she was dying to know. It was his favorite game, and they’d been playing it from the moment they met.Asshole.
“Why are you always so cagey anyway?” she snapped. She wasn’t going to beg for answers, and he was right: She’d be able to find everything out once she returned to Earth. Rest assured, she and Iris would be having a nice, long chat. “What purpose does it serve keeping all these secrets from me? I’ve already said I want to help you. You’re only hurting yourself by keeping me in the dark.”
“Maybe I enjoy it.”
“Why?”
“Maybe it’s all a game to me,” he replied, echoing her very thoughts.
“A game where you make all the rules and call all the shots.”
“My favorite kind.”
That wicked smile … He was a dick, but she swore it was a form of foreplay just looking at him.
She groaned internally. It had been her master plan to insert herself into his life and get under his skin until he cracked and told her everything she wanted to know. But that plan was a double-edged sword, because the closer she got to him, the harder it got to remember why she was trying to manipulate him in the first place.
“I hate you,” she muttered, more to herself than him. Just as a reminder. Because she did.
“Do you?” His eyes were full of challenge. He didn’t look offended.
The longer they stared at each other, the more she felt herself caving.
“Ishouldhate you,” she corrected, mentally kicking herself. “I keep reminding myself to hate you.”
“But you don’t.”
Her upper lip curled. He smiled, finally lifting his head off the couch and angling his body toward her. As if this was a conversation that interested him enough to command his whole attention.
“Why should you hate me?” he asked as if he didn’t already fucking know.
