While he waited outside.
Baffled, he watched her quickly brush her hair, remove a retainer, and then sniff daintily at her armpits. Then, remembering that he could see her, she covered her face with her hands and appeared mortified.
He laughed at her antics. Though why he found them so funny, he had no idea. Not to mention, he was surprised that she could see her reflection while he and his kind couldn’t. It must be because she was part human that she didn’t have that part of their Apollite curse.
Slowly, she made her way back to the window and opened it. “Tell me that you didn’t see what I just did.”
Urian laughed again. “No worries. I didn’t see you sniff anything.”
“Oh my God!” She began repeating that in an endless loop.
He scowled at her. “Did I break you? Are you stuck like that? Should I thump you out of that rut?”
She stopped and turned back to face him. “What?”
“At leastthatworked.”
Cocking her head, she stared at him. “Why are you still hovering on the fire escape?”
“I have no choice. You haven’t invited me in.”
“Oh.” Then her eyes widened even more as she remembered he was a Daimon. She glanced around her room for a second as if debating whether she should break protocol. Finally, she bit her lip and whispered, “Come in.”
Urian slowly entered her bedroom. It’d been a long time since he’d been inside the home of anyone else. As a Daimon, he didn’t get to randomly venture into many places. Only those that were public domain, or homes of friends and family.
This one was very different from anything he’d been in before. Decorated in tans and pinks, it was very …
Feminine.
Right down to the posters of boy bands that littered the walls. “Interesting wallpaper. Duran Duran?”
“ ‘New Moon on Monday’ is my all-time favorite song. Do you like them?”
Not really. “More of a Krokus ‘Screaming in the Night’ or ‘Eat the Rich’ or a Sex Pistols ‘Anarchy in the UK’ kind of guy.”
She nodded. “Ah, that makes sense. Being a Daimon and all.”
A sharp knock sounded on her door. “Pheebs?”
She motioned him to silence. “Yeah, Mom?”
“Who are you talking to?”
She ran to her door and cracked it open. “Myself. Sorry. I’ll go to bed. Didn’t mean to keep you up. Love you.” She kissed her mom’s cheek, then closed and locked the door.
After taking a small detour to turn on her radio, she returned to Urian and pulled him as far away from the door as she could.
His heart pounded to be this close to her while she wore so little. And he couldn’t help wondering if she had on anything beneath her dorm shirt …
There in the dim light they stood. Not touching with barely a hand’s breadth of distance between them. Urian kept his hands to his sides and yet he could feel every inch of her body with his. Her presence was so vibrant that it was like an all-over caress.
Her dark eyes sparkled as she looked up at him with wonder and excitement. How strange that he who had lived for so long and had done so much evil in the name of his father felt suddenly reborn in those eyes.
Felt recast as something other than what he was.
A monster who killed innocent people in order to live.
Yet Phoebe didn’t see a Daimon to be feared or a demon to be hated.
