Dav scrubbed a hand over his jaw and nodded. “I don’t know how to face them again after what I did. I hurt them, and I can’t take it back, but… they hate me now. They have to.”
“Well, I think it would be hard to hate the demon you were meant to be soulbonded with. I don’t know Rosalind, but I do know a bit about Lazerath.” He pushed out of his chair and left the kitchen, shuffling around in the front of the cottage before returning with a bundle in his hands. He tossed it onto the table. “And I think Lazerath knows a bit about you.”
It was a stack of envelopes, each with Laz’s handwriting scrawled across the front.
Addressed to Davarox with Sev’s address.
And there were two dozen.
Dav glanced at Sev, trying to grapple with the thought that Laz had known. He’d known where Davarox had gone, even when Dav wanted to hide. “How long have you had these?”
“They started coming the morning after you arrived.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me he was writing?”
The scars around Sev’s eye covering twitched as he pointed back the way he’d come. “They were in the…bread box? We leave it open since the drayk decided that’s where mail goes. I just thought you were intentionally ignoring them.”
Dav shook his head, leafing through the letters. Of course Severath would fail to tell his guest there was a bread box, of all things, accumulating mail addressed to him.
But…
Lazerath had known.
Had written two dozen notes to him in four days. Short notes. Sometimes a paragraph. Sometimes three sentences.
Rosalind’s proposal was accepted. She misses you. So do I.
Sometimes one.
Come home, please.
Tears blurred Davarox’s vision as he folded his fingers over the last letter. “Now he thinksIhate him. Hatethem. What am I supposed to do?”
“Well, this is Laz we’re talking about.”
Dav looked up to find Sev smirking.
“Grand gesture.”
Dav blinked, then looked out the window. Rain ran in torrents, blurring the glass and making it impossible to see anything beyond the gray darkness.
The idea settled, and a slow smile spread across his face.
A moment later, he was out of his chair, twisting around the table as the decision solidified.
“I didn’t mean right now,” Sev called after him.
“I owe you any cake you want!”
“You owe me a clean kitchen,” Ember corrected from her reclined position on the couch, but despite her sharp gaze, that was a smirk on her lips as Davarox flung the front door open and sprinted into the rain.
The first icy pellets stung his skin, and he partly regretted not grabbing a cloak, but minutes later, when he was still sprinting and his clothing stuck to his body, making every step heavy, he was just thankful he could keep his momentum up through Heck.
Turning the last corner, he nearly rolled an ankle in a puddle that was much deeper than he expected. But there was Lazerath’s apartment, light flickering in his second-story window, and Dav scooped up a handful of pebbles from the planter in a neighboring home and tossed one at the window.
Another.
“I’m a fucking asshole!” Davarox yelled, staring up as rain blurred his vision and streamed down his face. At this point, the numb was welcoming to slow his racing heart.
