Chapter 22
twenty-two
RAE
Darius tried to talk me into taking a three-week honeymoon with him in the hotel that was known for it. I wasn't interested, so I gave him a counteroffer.
Two weeks of video games and attempts at making Chinese food together, in which neither of us left the house.
He negotiated it up to two and a half weeks, and I was so ridiculously excited that I didn't even try to talk him back down.
The time passed quickly, but the day before our honeymoon was supposed to end, my phone vibrated with a message from Grayson.
It wasn't the first time.
We had been answering calls and texts from our friends and family during the whole honeymoon. They all even came over for a movie night once, and Merrily had been informing all of us about the plans for the Goodbye Loneliness party.
Dare and I would have one day to get back into normal life after our staycation ended, before we went to his family's thing. Since Kat and Grayson would both be there, I wasn't opposed to it.
I'd be hiding away in our borrowed room if I got overwhelmed from all the socialization, though.
I scanned the message from Grayson, copying and pasting some of the information into different notes, so I could put it together when I really started planning.
"Did Mer send something else about the family thing?" Darius asked absentmindedly, his attention on the game he was playing.
The asshole had gotten just as good as I was at gaming when I was touching him. When he only had my shadows, he was a little slower. Not much, though.
"Nah, Grayson sent information about my next few targets." I dropped my phone on the couch beside me, grabbing my controller again.
"It's been a while, right? At least a few weeks. You haven't worked for him since our bargain."
My forehead creased. "No. I killed someone while you were working at the café."
I felt his gaze as Dare's head jerked toward mine. "What?"
"You were working. I was working. It went the way it always did."
He dropped his remote. "No."
"Yeah."
He plucked my remote from my hand. "Rae."
"What?" I finally looked at him.
He looked... angry?
"Are you mad at me for working?" I gave him an incredulous look. "You knew what I was the moment we met. I literally came to visit you guys as the Wraith."
"I'm not mad at you for working."
"You look pretty mad, and you just ripped the controller out of my hand." I gestured to it. "We're totally going to lose."
Dare looked down at the controller momentarily, then stiffly put it back in my hand. "I'm not mad that you were working."
"Right." My voice definitely gave away the fact that I didn't even almost believe him.
"I would prefer if I went with you when you put your life in danger like that." He was gritting out the words. It sounded painful.
"I get it, but I still think we need to have our own lives, Darius. I'm not in danger when I go after someone. My connection to the shadows is still more powerful than any other demons' in the city. Most of the people he sends me after are werewolves, anyway."
"A male werewolf could still hurt you."
"I'm going to pretend you didn't just suggest that I'm weak because I'm a short woman."
"That's not what I meant," Dare growled. "And most of your shadows cling to me now, anyway."
I pulled all of them away from him in a heartbeat, forming a spear, then a sphere, then a dumpling. That last one was just for fun.
When I released them, they went right back to Darius naturally, as if he was me. With his blood filling my body, he kind of was.
It was still wild to watch, though.
"They cling to you, but they're still mine. I'm plenty safe while doing my job."
"Even Merrily never went alone to kill people, and she is death," he pointed out.
"Merrily was dealing with the price of her magic. She probably goes alone now."
"No. Darke goes with her, because it's not safe to go fucking murder someone alone."
I let out a slow breath, trying not to lose my shit with the man who had somehow become both my mate and the closest friend I'd ever had, in a matter of a month or so.
"You would never say that to Callum or Grayson," I finally said.
"This is a deal-breaker for me, Dare. I told you from the beginning that we needed to have our own lives.
My mom never left the house without my dad, and it fucked her over.
She died because of it. Being mates can be all-consuming, and I will not be consumed by it. "
"You can't see the difference between hunting someone down alone and leaving the house? I had no problem with you driving across the city to visit Grayson."
"You didn't even want me to pack up my apartment alone."
"Some creep attacked you while you were there."
"He was peeking into the windows of my car. If he'd attacked me, he would be dead. I'm not going to change my mind about this."
Darius clenched his jaw. "Fine. Kill people without me, but don't go alone. Someone else needs to be there too, even if they're just waiting in the car."
"I'll get Kat to come."
He laughed humorlessly. "You think I'm protective? You bring Kat to an assassination, and Callum will lose his fucking mind. That bastard might legitimately kill you. Kat can’t go. It has to be someone who can step in to defend you when something goes wrong."
To defend me?
Did he legitimately think I couldn't physically protect myself, even without magic?
"If something goes wrong," I said sharply.
"When something goes wrong. You can't transport anymore. There is no get out of jail free card."
I stood up. "I'm going to take a shower."
"Rae..." Darius shoved a hand through his hair.
I strode into the bedroom, wishing I could slam a fucking door without being stupidly dramatic.
My shower was long.
Extremely long.
Darius didn't interrupt it.
I could see the situation from his perspective. I really could. He thought I was in danger every time I took someone out, and he wanted me safe. That was fair.
But he hadn't asked about my fighting skills.
He hadn't asked how close I got to most of my targets.
He hadn't asked how I started doing what I did, why I did it, or whether or not I'd ever been in any actual danger.
The answers to all of those questions mattered.
He thought Merrily could handle my job better than I could. She was obviously deadly, but she just showed up and killed people with a touch.
I had developed the necessary skills to the point that even Grayson, who had basically adopted me as a teenager, didn't worry about me while I was working.
Darius was looking at the situation from a fae perspective, and I was looking at it from a demon's. There was no getting around our differing opinions, but that didn't mean I was going to bow to his feelings on something like this.
What I did was important to me, and I was fucking good at it. He seemed to think I only succeeded because of my magic. I'd have to figure out a way to prove otherwise.
"Hey." Darius stepped into the bathroom as I finally turned the water off and grabbed my robe from a hook.
He slipped his hands in his pockets, his eyes moving slowly over my figure the way they always did.
His attraction to me had never been a question.
"I don't want to talk right now," I said, trying not to sound like a total bitch but probably failing.
I was still pissed.
Anything I said was going to be at least a little bitchy, and I didn't want to fuck up what we had going on any more than I already had by disagreeing with him about women's rights.
Or my safety.
"I don't want this to be a thing. I'll work on getting over it. You're free to do whatever you want. I told you from the beginning that you don't have to be all-in on our relationship," Darius said, feigning calmness.
I blinked.
Slowly.
Then blinked again.
"I don't have to be all-in," I repeated.
"Right."
"In our mate bond."
"Correct."
"In our relationship."
"I'll take whatever you're willing to give. It's plenty."
It sounded like he genuinely believed what he was saying, but I could see the anger simmering in his eyes. I could feel his frustration leaking through the bond between our minds, too.
He was ignoring his emotions and instincts to keep the peace.
Fuck that.
I wasn't interested in being mated to someone who lied to me, backed down, or pretended not to care about something that was obviously important to them. We needed to fight it out, verbally. We needed to have a fucking conversation in which he was actually willing to listen to me.
I had no idea how to get there, though. Nothing I said before seemed to matter to him.
"How noble of you," I finally drawled, striding into the closet.
Darius suppressed a growl, but didn't follow me. "It's not noble," he said, after clearing his throat. "I'm just not willing to lose my mate over this."
"I never threatened to leave you," I called from the closet.
"You said it was a deal-breaker."
"That doesn't mean I'm going to leave you over it."
"Then what does it mean, Rae?"
"It means if you tried to stop me, I wouldn't let you. There’s a big difference between that and leaving someone. “
"You killing me might actually be better for my sanity than leaving me," Dare said drily.
"I like your cock too much to kill you."
"And my hands."
"And the rest of you, Scorch." I stepped out of the closet. "Except your mind, at the moment."
"If it's any consolation, I frequently have issues with my mind."
"It's not."
Darius caught my hips before I could walk away, and he dragged me to his chest. "Forget this conversation happened. I'll pretend I'm fine with it. Let's go back to enjoying our last few hours of playing video games on the couch."
"Fine." I dragged his mouth down to mine and kissed him.
But I wasn't going to forget the conversation.
I was going to find a way to prove my point.