We lay tangled together, both breathing heavily, his weight pleasant rather than crushing. I ran my hands down his back, feeling the smooth skin where I’d imagined wings.
“Did you just use demon powers during sex?” I asked when I could speak again.
Malphas lifted his head, looking slightly guilty. “Perhaps a small amount. Was it… okay?”
I laughed, the sound turning into a groan as he shifted inside me. “More than okay. Though I think we might have alarmed the neighbors. Pretty sure the house shook.”
“Let them be alarmed,” he murmured, pressing kisses along my jaw. “I’m not sorry.”
“Neither am I,” I assured him, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Though I am curious about something I saw. When you came, there were… wings? And something like a crown?”
Malphas tensed slightly. “You saw that?”
“Just for a second,” I said. “Was it real?”
He sighed, carefully withdrawing from me and settling us into a more comfortable position on the sofa, my body tucked against his larger one.
“Yes,” he admitted. “In moments of… intense emotion… my true form can bleed through. Most humans can’t perceive it at all.”
“But I can,” I said, thinking of what Alice Deleon had said about seeing things as they truly are.
“You can,” he confirmed, running a hand down my side. “Another reason you’re… special.”
The word hung between us, weighted with meaning neither of us was quite ready to articulate.
“So those lieutenants of yours,” I said instead, changing the subject. “They seem… interesting.”
Malphas chuckled, the sound vibrating through his chest. “They were certainly fascinated by you. I’ve never seen Pustule so animated.”
“They told me people—demons—in the ‘lower circles’ are talking about you,” I said, tracing one of the fading patterns on his chest. “About us.”
“Let them talk,” he said dismissively. “My position is secure, as I demonstrated today.”
I propped myself up on one elbow to look at him. “What exactly did you demonstrate? You never said.”
A shadow of his earlier predatory smile returned. “I reminded them why I am Prince Malphas, Commander of Forty Legions, and not some lesser demon to be questioned or challenged.”
“That’s still very vague,” I pointed out.
He caressed my cheek, his expression softening. “And it shall remain so. There are aspects of my existence I prefer to keep separate from this—” he gestured between us, “—from us. Not because I want to hide things from you, but because I want to protect this.”
I understood what he meant. The Malphas who commanded demonic armies and harvested souls existed in a different reality than the Malphas who built me bookshelves and worried about the pH balance of his garden soil. Both were real, both were him, but they didn’t need to fully overlap.
“Okay,” I said, settling back against him. “But if you ever want to talk about it, I’m here.”
“I know,” he said softly, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “And that means more than you can imagine.”
We lay in comfortable silence for a while, his hand stroking my back in soothing patterns. Eventually, I remembered something else his lieutenants had mentioned.
“They said you’ve never displayed photos of anyone in your personal space before,” I said casually. “Is that true?”
Malphas was quiet for so long I thought he might not answer. Finally, he said, “Yes. It’s true.”
“Why me?” I asked, the question that had been hovering in my mind since Ixizel pointed out the photos.
His arms tightened around me slightly. “Because you’re the first being in my very long existence that I’ve wanted to remember every moment with,” he said simply. “The first I’ve wanted to build memories alongside, not just collect souls from.”
The honesty in his voice made my chest ache. I pressed closer to him, suddenly overwhelmed by emotions I wasn’t ready to name.
