Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
Richard was smiling down at me, blood trails still fresh on his cheeks. “That was fabulous! Think what we could do if we practiced.”
I blinked at him, and at the open sky of stars, the cold wind blowing down. I was cold in spite of having drunk so much of his blood, and I couldn’t seem to relax my grip on his hair. “That wasn’t fabulous! We all almost died, and worse, your angels suffered!”
He rolled his eyes, actually rolled his eyes, the belligerent wretch, before he gave me the tenderest smile an idiot had ever given someone. “Angels love suffering. It reminds us that we’re alive.”
I yanked on his hair. “Yeah? You feel more alive now?”
His eyes crinkled as he smiled down at me, never flinching, the impossible creature. “I love you, so, yes, you bring all the dark corners of my miserable heart to life.”
I let go of him so I could throw my hands in the air. “Your angels suffer, but it’s fine because they like suffering? How about this. I don’t like your angels suffering.” I jabbed his chest. “I hurt when they hurt.”
He slowly frowned down at me. “Really? Oh, you do. So much empathy.” His eyes softened and he sighed.
“I’ve happily never had much of that, but if we’re bound, I suppose I’ll have to get used to it.
That will make me a better Commander. My father’s retiring, and I’ve already been voted in.
For three years I’ve been voted in, but I’ve dodged it.
” He sighed again. “With empathy, I’ll be so easy to manipulate.
” He shrugged. “All bad things come to an end.”
“You’re a Commander? How is that going to work with us…”
A sphere of flickering electricity appeared and then dissolved, revealing Pearly White and the other contestants gathered closely together in a crouch.
“That’s what I call a finale!” Pearly said, straightening up and beaming around at the stones dissolved in weird patterns of what had been the castle.
Fellicci whimpered and put a hand to his face, over the werewolf’s bite. “I’m ruined!”
Banus growled at him. “Grow a spine, you nitwit! Who makes such a stupid deal? I should have bitten off your face sooner. That was the only redeeming part of this enormous waste of time.” He wandered off, raising his phone to call for a ride out of there, apparently cutting his losses.
Banus flashed an extremely attractive smile all around. “Well, I suppose this show is over. I need to get going.”
A stone gargoyle took that moment to land with a thud I felt through my bare feet. “Banus Jones, I’m taking you in for tax fraud.”
“Tax fraud,” I whispered, staring at the incubus.
He sighed heavily and his shoulders slumped.
The gargoyle grabbed him over his shoulders and flew away, stones muscles flexing, and wings kind of similar to mine, enough to make me think that maybe they didn’t have to be a sign of my evil nature, because everyone knew that gargoyles were the defenders of humanity.
“So that’s what his deal was,” Richard murmured. “You don’t get a billionaire incubus on a dating show without a reason. Not that anyone wouldn’t want to marry you, but he didn’t know you. He did know that you’re friends with gargoyles.”
Was I friends with gargoyles? “But tax evasion? That’s just not very romantic.”
Richard eyed me. “What is romantic?”
“Well, our boat date would have been romantic if you didn’t life-bind me while I was sleeping.”
He tsked. “I definitely should have thought it through before life-binding you against your will.”
“You should have thought a lot of things.”
He nodded soberly. “Not to say that I regret it. It saved your life, and I’ve been well and thoroughly in love with you for years. Your life is worth any price.”
I thumped his muscular chest. Why did he feel so good? “You can’t be serious! Not any price. Your comrades suffered needlessly!”
“To defeat an evil creature, they are very happy to suffer. Angels are always full of suffering, this just give it some purpose.”
I glared at him. Of all the idiotic things to say! “How can you be so irresponsible? You owe them all an apology.”
He looked around. There were no angels. Where did everyone go? Pearly White was checking some equipment to see if it was salvageable, but it didn’t look like it. Everyone else on the crew seemed to have taken off when they had the chance.
“I’m very sorry,” he said loudly, lips twisting into a smirk.
I grabbed his shirt, or rather Mitt’s shirt. “Why do you keep wearing this?”
“Because someone keeps stealing all of my other clothes. I had a whole set of floral embroidered stuff, but the angels get their revenge. But they can’t steal someone else’s clothing. That would be wrong.” He rolled his eyes.
“So they torture you?”
“All the time.” That smirk. And those gleaming eyes, like he liked being tortured.
“Probably not as much as you deserve.”
“Certainly not.”
I had the flickerings of an idea in the back of my mind. I spoke slowly while I twisted my hands in Mitt’s shirt. “And so you can’t, in fact, buy your own fantasy wardrobe, because it’ll be stolen by the avenging angels? Then you need me to buy it and keep it for you.”
He went very still as he stared at me. His words were carefully devoid of emotion.
“I need you. Yes. But only if you want me to need you. I’m not forcing you, and my father isn’t forcing you, and your father…
” He made a face. “I’m sensing a theme. I’m truly, truly sorry I became one of the fools who didn’t see that you’re strong enough.
More than enough.” He sighed and took a step backwards, but I was still attached to his shirt.
“Where are you going?”
His shoulders stiffened. “The show is over. Back to life. Back to war. Back to baking Vesper ridiculously opulent mini cakes that he doesn’t appreciate.
Unless you wanted me to do something else…
” He glanced up at me with the most come-hither anyone had ever hithered.
“That’s right. You probably want an annulment.
I’ll pay for a lawyer for you. You can’t be forced to marry someone against your knowledge and will. ”
If he needed me to buy his fantasy wardrobe, what could I do? I yanked on his shirt, pulling him closer to me. “I don’t think it was against my will, exactly. Didn’t I message you once that I’d marry you if you were a man?”
He stared at me for a long time before giving a tiny shake his head.
“I forbid you from forgiving my father so easily. It’s too late, you’ve already forgiven him.
You’re just too quick to let things go. You need to make him suffer.
Make me suffer. He married us against our wills.
And I life-bound us against your will. We deserve pain! ”
I rolled my eyes and let go of his shirt and took his hands instead.
His responding grasp around mine was so perfectly like home.
“I think having you for a son is enough suffering.” I winced.
“Also me for his daughter. Do you think the Vampire King is going to try that again, using me as a weakness against all the angels?”
“No.” His brow furrowed. “Did you just suggest that you wouldn’t be the best, most angelic daughter anyone could possibly hope for? You did. That’s heresy!”
I rolled my eyes. “So much drama. Are you sure you don’t want to become an opera singer or some kind of stage performer? Think, you could outshine Fellicci! That would be moderately satisfying, right?”
He tilted his head as he studied me. “You really don’t see how absolutely precious you are. Do you mind if I fly you to the cottage? The atmosphere here lacks walls and roofs. I feel like angels are hiding behind every broken turret, nosily listening in.”
I looked around, but there was no sign of an angel or anyone else. “My cottage?”
He swung me up in his arms like that was consent, and then spread his wings, and flew me in a blink, and then we were in front of the small building.
He carried me through the front door like he lived there while my head spun from the speed of the flight.
Not that I couldn’t handle speed when I flickered into smoke, but it was a very different thing to have someone else carry you so quickly.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he walked to the small overstuffed couch and flopped over on it, still holding me so I ended up on his lap.
“I’m trying to persuade you to stay married to me. Do you mind?” He tilted my chin so I was looking into his soft blue eyes.
Being so close, knowing that he wanted to stay married to me, it was enough to make it hard to swallow. “I mean, it’s strange to have you in my cottage. It doesn’t feel appropriate without a chaperone.” And now I was thinking of the music video. Was it warm in there?
He smiled sweetly. “That’s one of the excellent reasons to stay married: we don’t need a chaperone.
Another reason: I couldn’t help but notice that your father lacks a certain warmth and positivity.
My dad is a wonderful father. Pushy, stubbornly believing in you when you don’t believe in yourself, and always there when you need him, at least if you let him be.
He is likely slightly more diabolical than your father, but that means he’d be an excellent choice of babysitter if we were to have fifteen angelic terrors.
Plus the pets.” He got a gleam in his eyes as he considered the torture his children would inflict on his father.
There was more than a streak of sadistic monster in my husband.
My husband? Had I actually thought of him like that? But…