[M__M 03] Misery Loves Company (20 page)

Then she got up and left, and I slumped in my seat, feeling more alone in the world than ever.

Chapter Twenty-Three

After Steph left, I stared into space. How many minutes ticked by, I couldn’t say, but I watched people come and go at the bar, listened to different voices laughing and swearing at the pool table, and smelled my dinner as it congealed on my plate. My stomach was too twisted to eat any more.

Well, I couldn’t say that had gone any worse than I’d feared. I could only hope that once Steph had a few days to think things through she’d get over it.

Like I’d done. Who was I kidding?

Cursing under my breath, I pulled out my phone. It would be nice if I had a message from Lucen, telling me he was back at The Lair, but naturally that didn’t happen. Why should anything good happen? That would be someone else’s life.

So where did I go? I didn’t want to head home and pace about my lonesome apartment, jumping at every noise and wondering if sylphs with straight razors were going to invade. I could go to Gryphon headquarters, I supposed, and resume my research for Gunthra. That made the most sense, except my head was spinning. The ability to concentrate was not something I had in abundance. And that left me where?

When I was younger and in this sort of mood, I sometimes went to Purgatory to dance off my stress. Maybe that was what I needed then. Not Purgatory, per se. I wasn’t dressed to get in, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to run into Devon two nights in a row, but physical activity might do me good. Boston was a great city for walking.

I finished settling the tab and left. The night was warm and humid, and I kept a brisk pace. It wasn’t long before my mood improved, and my heart beat a steady rhythm. Fear and angst were like a toxin that could be cleansed through a good sweating.

I wandered aimlessly and until my feet hurt, only stopping to check my phone at various crosswalks in case Lucen had gotten back to me and I hadn’t heard it over the traffic. But he didn’t, and after a few crosswalks, I quit checking, content to be left alone.

The night was alive and vibrant, filled with the rush of cars and a thousand lights lining the streets. I reveled in the anonymity. Here I was one face among many, not a freak but another twenty-something, so easily overlooked and forgotten.

At the next turn, I followed a group of men and women about my age as they crossed the street, and I realized I’d ended up along the row of clubs and bars where Purgatory resided. Outside the buildings, lines of impatient people snaked down the pavement, and Purgatory was no exception. Only the clothes people wore and the unnatural colors of their dyed hair distinguished them. I could hear thudding bass from the various establishments, and taste the tang of alcohol and smoke that clung to the air.

Exhilarating as it was, however, my feet were getting sore. I’d easily walked a few miles, and though the city seethed with negativity and excitement to keep me fueled, turning around and going home might be wise. Or it would be if it weren’t for the sylphs that could be waiting.

But maybe Lucen… I checked my phone for the first time in a while, but I had zero messages. Damn.

Sticking my phone away, I was suddenly irked by the laughter and good moods surrounding me. A woman in line at Purgatory screeched with delight about something, shattering the last defense I had against the darkness of my day. So much for my exercise-induced euphoria. I was crashing and burning, doomed to feel every last blister forming on my feet during the long walk home. Plus my stomach was realizing that I never gave it much for dinner.

“Jess?”

Lost in my sour thoughts, I jumped as a clove-scented arm landed around my shoulders. “Just who I was hoping to find.”

I stiffened, then extricated myself from Devon’s hold. “Were you? And what are you doing out here? Club’s that way.” I jerked my thumb behind us.

“I’m aware of that.” He adjusted the sleeves on his sports coat. “Dezzi’s got Lucen and a few others busy with the sylph issue, and we wanted to make sure you weren’t…” he examined me up and down, “…going to do anything stupid. You have a history, if you recall.”

Mostly that history involved sneaking into Purgatory and doing things Devon disapproved of. Fortunately, that wasn’t on my to-do list tonight. “Your faith in my good behavior is sweet. What could I possibly do?”

“I don’t know—stick that knife of yours into Assym?”

I ran my hand over Misery. “Tempting, but that would assume I knew where to find him. I was hoping Assym would be cowering from me in some dark hole, actually.”

“That’s conceivable. He’s a coward. As for me, since you asked, I just got here. When I sensed you nearby, I went looking. And here you are.”

This wasn’t the first time Devon had indicated he could pick my emotions out of a crowd. Lucen could do it too. According to Paulius, there were a few possible explanations. Either the two of them were simply that damn powerful, or they noticed me in a way they didn’t notice other people. Like how you could pick a friend’s voice out of background noise.

“I was out for a walk,” I said, wiping the sweat off the back of my neck. How bad did I smell? “A crappy day required exercise. But I’m leaving now.”

“Why don’t you come in?”

I pulled at my T-shirt. “I’m not exactly dressed for it.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re with me. You’re tired. Have you eaten?”

“Yes.” My traitorous stomach rumbled. It didn’t consider a few bites of my fish to count. “Sort of, but I’m fine.”

Devon held out a hand. “Come along, little siren. Isn’t that what Lucen calls you? Why is that?”

“It’s a long story.” Actually, it wasn’t, but I didn’t like Devon calling me by Lucen’s pet name.

“You can tell me about it while you eat, and also tell me why you’re in such a bad mood.”

I crossed my arms. “Do you have to pry into my head like that?”

“No, but I do enjoy it.” He waved his hand in front of me, urging me to take it. “Lucen should be free in about an hour. I don’t think you want to hang out by yourself, do you?”

I silently cursed preds and their emotion-reading abilities.
There, make you happy, Steph?

It didn’t make
me
happy, and I relented with a sigh. No, I did not want to be alone. “Yeah, okay.”

Devon took me around back, and we entered through the kitchen. “What is it?” he asked again after requesting food and wine be sent up to his office.

The commotion and normality of the scene weirded me out. “I’m remembering that the last time I was in this part of the club, it was deserted and one of Lucrezia’s addicts was holding me at gunpoint.”

“Oh, dearest Crezi. Fun, wasn’t she? I wonder how she’s holding up in prison.”

“Badly, I hope.”

Devon unlocked a door that opened into a dimly lit stairwell. “Someone’s feeling vindictive.”

“She tried to kill me. Plus someone’s in a bad mood.”

“Noted. Maybe I should have requested multiple bottles of wine.”

We climbed several flights and exited the stairwell into the end of Devon’s office opposite the elevator. Stupidly, I scratched my head. I should have known there would have to be a way to enter and exit other than the elevator in case the electricity went out, but when Devon closed the door, it blended so seamlessly into the striped pattern on the wall that it was near impossible to see.

“So why are you in a bad mood? Is it the sylphs or something else?”

I glanced over my shoulder as I paced in front of the wall of one-way windows that provided a view of the main dance floor. Devon’s office was soundproof, which made the spectacle two floors below amusing. People looked silly when they danced if you couldn’t hear the music.

Devon stood over his computer while it booted. No tie for him tonight, and he’d abandoned the all-black look, substituting a deep blue shirt that he’d left artfully un-tucked. It brought out his eye color, and once again, I had disturbing thoughts about how good he looked.

Not my type, I told myself. I liked guys like Lucen with his jeans and leather jacket, and his broad shoulders and chest. A guy who portrayed a rough-around-the-edges appearance, but who was anything but. A guy who could kick bad-guy ass, then go home and prepare a four-course meal and pair it with the perfect wine.

Which, of course, didn’t explain why standing next to Devon got me all hot and bothered these days. Devon did not do jeans and T-shirts, and although he might be hiding the compact body of a martial artist under his expensive clothes, he struck me as the sort to shun physical violence except when left with no alternative. Devon would whip out a gun or a knife sooner than throw a punch. Or, more likely, he’d call someone else to do it for him. That was the benefit of being Dezzi’s lieutenant. He was—almost—the boss.

Even with my immunity to pred-magic, I could have blamed my attraction to him on his power, except my blood quickened at only the
thought
of standing near him. That, no matter how desperately I rationalized it, could not be blamed on satyr pheromones.

I should not have come up here.

“Distracted?” Devon’s smile was all too knowing. “I asked why you were in a bad mood.”

I cleared my throat and sat on an arm of one of the several couches by the window. “No, it’s not the sylphs. I finally told my best friend that I’m not human, and she reacted pretty much how I was afraid she’d react. She stormed off in the middle of dinner.”

Devon tapped a few keys, then sat on the front of his desk. “So you were hoping your friend—who, if she’s anything like a normal human, loathes us—would miraculously be okay with your revelation?”

“Yes. I mean, it would have been nice.”

He made a thoughtful noise. “I never pegged you for an optimist. Reckless, yes. But this sounds delusional, even for you.”

“Gee, thanks. You’re really doing a good job of making me feel better. I should go home.”

“Jess,
you
can’t accept what you are. How can you expect anyone else to accept it?”

I’d gotten off the couch, but Devon’s accusation stilled my feet. I plopped back down. If he wanted an argument, I could do that. Bad moods provided me with plenty of energy, and I felt ready to channel it. “I do accept it. I
am
accepting it. That I could tell Steph the truth is proof that I’m okay with it. That I chose to live in Shadowtown is also proof.”

“Yes, you’re finally willing to call yourself a satyr. It’s a first step, but it’s not acceptance. Deep down inside, you don’t believe that’s what you are. You’re afraid.”

“Afraid?” I laughed, but it was a fearful laugh. Yet I wasn’t afraid. At least I hadn’t been until Devon’s words had sparked some fear in me. What the hell? “Your emotion-sucking sensibilities are on the fritz. What can I be afraid of? Losing my humanity? It was taken from me before I knew it was gone.”

“Exactly.” Devon slid off the desk and stalked toward me, hands in his pockets. His eyes shone with that same intensity Lucen’s got when he was riled up. It was both unnerving and mesmerizing. “You say that, but you don’t feel it. I think it’s a fear of losing the image you have of yourself as human. You have this ideal version of who you are in your head. You’re Jess the Martyr who was denied entry into the Gryphons because some evil people ruined your gift. So you became Jess the Vigilante, fighting the good fight for humanity against the terrible preds. And now you’re Jess who is a pred, and you can’t be the rejected martyr or humanity’s savior anymore, but you want to be. That’s who you believe you should be because that Jess is a good person. And this other Jess—you’re afraid she’s not good because she’s not all those other things. So you hate her, and you fear letting her to the surface.”

I moved away, trying to keep distance between myself and Devon. My stupid hands shook, so I balled them into fists. He was not right, and I didn’t need to hang around here and listen to him psychoanalyze me.

But if he wasn’t right, then why had his speech cut me to the bone? Why was I shaking? Why was my mouth dry?

“You’re wrong.” Brilliant rebuttal, but it was all I could get out. Wrong. Devon had to be wrong. I didn’t carry around some idealized version of myself in my head. I knew I wasn’t perfect. I was so very far from it that the idea was absurd.

Case in point—I wasn’t watching where I was going and I backed up into his desk and almost fell over.

Devon shrugged. “I could be. So prove it.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

“Idealized Jess is the perfect should-have-been Gryphon, but an edgy one. She’s even tamed a powerful satyr and is determined, despite all logic, that she can make her relationship with him work exactly the way she believes it should.”

“I’m well aware that my relationship with Lucen has to be fucked up by all human standards.”

“You are. You’re also aware that Lucen takes a satyr’s view of relationships and is encouraging you to do the same, and you’re resisting. Why? Because you’re afraid. Because even though not all human relationships are monogamous, you associate that sort of behavior more strongly with satyrs and don’t want anything to do with it. So you bury your fear and lie to yourself.”

I gripped the edge of the desk, wishing I could crush it. “I’m just not the sort of person who can dissociate sex from emotions. It has no interest to me.”

He laughed, pushing his hair out of his face. “You don’t have to dissociate anything to prove me wrong. That’s another lie you tell yourself.”

“I am not—”

But I didn’t get to finish my denial because suddenly Devon’s mouth was on mine, stealing my denial along with my breath. Stealing my resistance.

His lips were fierce, demanding I yield. The sweep of his tongue, his teeth lightly pulling on mine—the sort of insistence that drove pangs of longing straight through me, pooling between my legs.

I didn’t put up much of a fight. One heady whiff of his clove scent, one hint of aftershave the next time I breathed in, and I lost myself. I opened my mouth and welcomed him. His arms pressed against my own, the heat from his body making every muscle in mine tense. A soft moan rose in my throat as his hands cupped my cheeks, less forceful now that I’d surrendered, and I melted into his kiss.

Stop this. I don’t want this.
But my body paid no attention to my brain. It knew the truth, just like Devon had. I wanted this. I didn’t want to, but I had for too long.