I glance up to find Riven sliding onto the barstool beside me.He’s one of the regulars here.Some kind of shadow demon, all smoke and darkness with glowing silver eyes.We’re not friends exactly, but we’ve shared enough drinks over the years to be familiar.Like me, he’s waiting for the human who’s calling for him to finally be ready and step into The Undertow.
“I don’t brood,” I growl.
“You’re literally radiating misery right now.It’s killing the vibe.”He signals the bartender for a drink.“Let me guess.The human?”
I don’t answer, which is answer enough.
Riven laughs, low and knowing.“I knew it the second she walked in.You looked at her like you’d found religion.”
“She’s mine,” I say.
“Does she know that?”
“She knows.”I remember the way her eyes widened when I told her, the heat that flooded her scent.“But knowing and accepting are different things.”
“So you let her leave?Bold strategy.”
I turn the glass in my hand, watching the liquid catch the light.“She has to choose this.Choose me.Otherwise, what’s the point?”
“The point,” Riven says, accepting his drink from the bartender, “is that humans are terrified of us.You give them too much space to think, and they’ll talk themselves out of it.”
“She won’t.”
“You sound awfully confident for someone who’s been staring at that door for the past forty-eight hours.”
I want to argue, but he’s not wrong.I’ve barely moved from this spot since she left.Every time the door opens, my chest tightens.And every time it’s not her, the disappointment cuts deeper.
“She felt it too,” I say, more to convince myself than him.“The recognition.She’s mine the way I’m hers.She’ll come back.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
The thought makes something primal and violent stir in my chest.If she doesn’t come back, I’ll have to find another way.I’ll open the veil wider, make it impossible for her to ignore.
“She will,” I repeat firmly.
“For your sake, I hope you’re right.Because if you get any more pathetic, Joly’s going to start taking bets on whether you’ll last the week.”
I glance over to where Joly—the blue-skinned water nymph—is tending tables.She catches my eye and gives me a sympathetic smile.
Great.Even the staff pities me.
“She’s worth the wait,” I say.
Riven takes a drink, then asks, “What is it about her?Besides the obvious that you’re mates.”
I consider the question.What is it about Lilith that’s different from every other human I’ve encountered in centuries of existence?
“She doesn’t just want to be with a monster,” I say.“Sheunderstandsthem.She tries to capture something real with every toy she creates.Not the sanitized fantasy version humans usually want, but the actual weight, the stretch, the intensity.She designs for people who crave the impossible.”
“So she’s a kinky human.That’s not exactly rare.”
“It’s more than that.It’s longing.She aches the way I ache.She’s spent her whole life feeling like she doesn’t fit, like she wants something no one else understands.And when I felt that, when I recognized that same loneliness in her—” Something shifts in the air around me when I say it.The pressure drops, and the shadows in the corner of the bar pull slightly toward me the way they do when I stop managing my alternate form.“I knew she was mine.And when she comes back, I’m not letting her leave again.”
Riven finishes his drink and stands.“Good luck, friend.I hope she’s worth the torment.”
She is.
I watch him disappear into the crowd, then return my attention to the door.I think about Lilith in her apartment, probably trying to convince herself that meeting me was nothing but a dream.I think about her touching herself in the shower, desperate and unsatisfied, because toys will never be enough now that she knows I exist.
