Chapter 11 #3
“Speaking of other daimons…Rogue, was it?” Grace asked casually, her curiosity burning against my skin. I froze with my food halfway to my mouth, suddenly realizing this could become a very uncomfortable conversation, very quickly.
“Uh, yeah. Rogue. She won’t say anything.
A deal between us is binding with the goddess, backing out is a direct invitation to get your life ruined.
Besides, an unspecified favor from a daimon is too good to throw away, it’s basically a blank check,” I added with a shrug. The Goddess of Night was big on honor.
“She said she was a psychic.”
I snorted. “No. That’s just her devastating sense of humor.
” There was a sort of slimy, unpleasant crawl across my skin and it took me a moment to realize the emotion was coming from Grace.
Was that jealousy I was sensing? Interesting .
“Rogue is from the Oizys line. She can sense a person’s misery.
More than sense it, she knows the details of it, and can twist it into something worse. ”
“That’s…yikes.” Grace swallowed thickly. “She seemed so nice too.”
“When?” I asked, baffled.
Grace’s lips twitched. “She distracted the guy when I asked her to. And she called you, right? That was pretty nice of her.”
Thank the goddess Rogue called me, I couldn’t even think about what would have happened if she hadn’t.
I’m guessing Grace’s parents were her emergency contacts, and she’d have been whisked back to Auburn before I’d even known something was wrong.
That thought was…unsettling. Just another reason to hate the secrecy we had to maintain.
“It was my bad luck,” Grace added, brushing the nonexistent crumbs off her fingers onto her plate. “I exhausted my gift at work today. I knew something bad would happen at some point.”
I got the sense that what had happened in that store had shaken her more than she was willing to let on, but Grace was used to smiling through her pain. Maybe one day she’d feel comfortable taking off that mask around me, but I guessed we weren’t there yet.
It was a strangely disappointing realization, considering we’d only met a few days ago.
“I’m not sure you can afford bad luck right now, Gracie,” I murmured worriedly. I didn’t want to criticize her, especially after the day she’d had, but we both needed to be smart right now.
“I can’t walk away if someone needs me, Riot.
It’s like instinct takes over, I’m barely aware of what I’m doing.
” Grace’s eyes pleaded with me to understand, and I managed a strained nod, trying to tamp down my frustration before Grace sensed it, but not really understanding how this emotion sharing thing worked.
“What did you do to the guy in the store?”
“All agathos can absorb suffering—mental and physical. I took a lot of his mental anguish at once, which is why he fainted. And why my head hurts,” she added as an afterthought.
“Shit, you probably need Tylenol or something,” I muttered, setting my plate aside and jumping up to head to the bathroom cabinet. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
I returned with water and medicine, and Grace shot me a bemused smile. “You don’t need to worry, usually I just hole up in bed and sleep it off when I overdo it. I’ll be fine by tomorrow, off to work as usual.”
“Not happening,” I replied, appalled that she’d even suggested it. “You exhausted two different abilities—one of them at work —and caught an elbow to the face. You need a day off.”
Grace looked at me like the concept was completely foreign to her.
Surely, if her boss expected her to use her gifts at work, she was given time to recover?
It’s not like I’d worked a regular job to know how these things worked, but if they didn’t give her time to recuperate… it seemed a little exploitative.
“I guess I could,” Grace hedged. “It would be nice to rest before dinner at my parents’ house tomorrow night. I have to go every Friday,” she added, giving me an apologetic look.
“I’ll take the day off too,” I decided. It would be a convenient way to avoid Dare’s questions as well. “I’m going to be the sexiest nurse you’ve ever seen.”
“Without question,” Grace laughed, wincing slightly as the movement pulled the sensitive skin around her eye.
I took the empty plate off her lap and scooped her into my arms with a squeak of surprise. “Come on, Superwoman. You’ve had your carbs, now you’re going to sleep.”
* * *
As desperate as I’d been for a little morning makeout session, possibly resulting in Grace writhing all over me again, she definitely hadn’t been game for that this morning.
She’d slept like the dead—which meant I’d spent hours awake just staring at her like a lunatic to make sure she was still breathing—and when she’d woken up, she’d still seemed pretty groggy.
Plus, her eye was still all purple and swollen, which didn’t help. Maybe I’d ask through the grapevine how thoroughly that little worm was punished because I wouldn’t mind taking a few cracks at him myself, and I generally wasn’t a violent guy. Not my bloodline.
I could hear Grace on the phone in the living room with her boss while I attempted to silently make coffee in the kitchen. I wasn’t eavesdropping per se , but it was a small house…
“I know it’s very inconvenient for you—” Grace stopped abruptly again, as she had the entire five-minute conversation. I already hated her boss. Grace had been hesitant to talk about her, and I was pretty sure this was why. They definitely weren’t treating her right.
Contemplating a future with Grace seemed like a smart way to torture myself, but if I could really keep her, if we could find a way to live a normal life together… Firstly, I’d do whatever I had to do to make that happen. Secondly, I’d encourage her to find an employer that actually valued her.
Thirdly, I’d give her an orgasm last thing each night and first thing each morning.
“I absolutely will be there on Monday—”
I padded out of the kitchen silently, only to find Grace frowning down at the phone in her hand. “She hung up on me.”
“Does she always act like that when you take a day off?” I asked, handing Grace a coffee that was ninety percent hazelnut creamer.
“I’ve never taken a day off,” Grace replied, shooting me a grateful smile. “We don’t get sick. Overusing my gift would be the only reason to take a personal day.”
“Overusing your gift is a great reason for a personal day.”
“I highly doubt my mother will agree,” Grace replied wryly. “Family dinner is going to be a nightmare.”
“It’s a few hours away,” I said with a shrug. “I vote we see how many of your favorite teen romance movies we can watch until then.”