I was glad of the dim light, because my cheeks burned white-hot.
“You are absolved,” I told him quietly. “But I will still be staying with Aliena, so I suppose you are free to do whatever mischief you usually get up to.”
“Mischief?” he cried, looking offended. “Where would you get such an idea?”
I smiled, shook my head, but still moved in to kiss him one more time. “There,” I whispered against his mouth. “Will that sustain you until morning?”
“I did not truly know hunger until the first time you kissed me, May,” he answered, drawing me closer with his hands around my waist. “And now I starve each moment you are out of reach.”
“You are ridiculous,” I laughed, gently extricating myself and walking backwards toward the cottage. “Good night, my demon.”
“Sleep well, Mayhem,” he called after me, “because tomorrow I am going to work you, and your shadows, to the bone.”
“Darts. Dagger. Shield. Whip.” Devil ran quickly through the list of shadow-weapons I’d been able to conjure. I formed each one in rapid succession before he took a few steps away and held up his arms. “Alright, nowusethem.”
I ran through the list again.
The darts were thin, obsidian-like shards, which I could call up five at a time. I launched them toward him from my palm, but on their way across the clearing, they turned back to shadows, merely tapping his bracers. Frustration bubbling in my chest, I formed a small knife and threw it. That one missed entirely, bouncing off the tree behind him and immediately dissipating. Perhaps I needed to work on my aim as well. My buckler shield of shadow worked, but only against the soft ball of light he hurled at me. We had not yet tested it against anything more dangerous.
The whip seemed to be the only thing I could keep solid for more than a few minutes, but wielding it effectively as a weapon was nearly impossible. I gripped the handle and jerked my arm, sending it cracking out through the air, but all I managed to do was nick his boot. Even after ten futile attempts, he just stood there with his arms crossed, frowning.
“You can’t even keep a solid form,” he griped, stomping toward me. “If it isn’t solid, it won’t protect you from anything, and it can’t do damage to anyone else.”
“The dartsaresolid…until they make contact. And the whip too. I can feel them in my hand!”
“But I can barely feel when they hit me. Your power is soft, and so are you.” He looked angry, but I knew it was just concern. We’d been at this for five days now. Every morning, I had my usual lessons with Oberon, and then after lunch, Devil would try to teach me everything my grandfather refused to.
“I amnotsoft,” I growled.
He leaned in only an inch from my face and hissed, “Then show me.”
Fury shot down my limbs and they moved of their own accord. My leg snapped out and side-swept his, while I reached up to try and twist his arm around his back. He had insisted on teaching me basic hand-to-hand combat skills too, but neither of us had counted on me being better with those than with my magyk. Devil said it was because I was small and full of rage, and I couldn’t disagree. A lifetime of working the Abbey’s garden had strengthened my muscles to the point where it only took me a few seconds to get him on his knees, arm twisted behind his back.
But I knew he wouldn’t let me win that easily, especially not with a free hand. He whirled and grabbed me under one arm, flinging me to the side, where I landed hard in the grass. After blinking up at his stupid smirk for a moment, I rolled, hitting his calves and shoving hard with my shoulder so he toppled onto his side. He tried to kick free, but I scrambled up, pinning his thighs between mine and then seizing his wrists and slamming them onto the ground above his head. I knew he was letting me win, knew he could have the situation reversed before I could blink, but I didn’t care this time. Knocking him around a bit had gratified the angry creature in my chest, even if my victory wasn’t perfectly earned.
“Now,thiswould be the perfect time for you to solidify those shadows,” Devil panted with a broad grin. “I am at your mercy. You could have me trussed up like a pig in no time.” I let my magyk out, let the vines crawl along his arms and twist around his wrists, then tried to form them into shackles. But I still could not convince them to change from smokey shadows into solid things. Devil held my gaze, then shifted his lower body, pulling one of his legs up.
“Whatare you doing?”
He answered by pressing his thigh between mine, then rubbing it up and down. “Trying to teach you something about your magyk.”
“What exactly is this going to teach me?” I asked, my breath hitching involuntarily as the hard muscles of his leg made contact with the most sensitive part of my body. Even through the layers of clothing we both wore, it felt far too good.
“How to let go,” Devil murmured. “How to stop holding yourself back. You aren’t taking what you want. That’s why you cannot wield the power properly, because it will not obey someone who still doubts herself so deeply.”
“Andthisis how you would cure me of my self-doubt?” I spat.
“You want this,” he whispered, yanking one of his arms free from my grip and seizing the back of my neck. He pulled my face down so our lips barely grazed, breath mixing into each other’s mouths. “But you do not think you should take it. Just like your power. You are still afraid of becoming what you were meant to be, and of taking what you want—what you know you deserve.”
He pressed harder and I let out a ragged sigh, then let my body sink into his, consumed by the feeling of intimacy. The air around us stood still, balanced on a knife point as I wavered, half of me desperate to believe that taking what I wanted and damning the consequences was the right path. But the other half held back, afraid to leap, afraid of what I might lose, or what I might find…
“No!” I gasped, wrenching myself out of his grip and rolling to the side, then onto my feet. Devil let out an animalistic snarl and pulled himself up too.
“Gods be damned, May!” He stalked toward me, hands pressed on either side of his head. “You are still so…so—”
“So what? Spit it out!” I cried, suddenly angry again.
“Sofuckinghuman! Pious and prudish and preoccupied with whatever virtue you imagine you have left. Let it go!”
