22. Valefar #2
His smile falters. “I’m just saying, the petition isn’t about making your life difficult. It’s about Bethie.”
“The petition—”
“She needs her dad.” He stuffs his hands into his pockets, posture too casual. “More than once a month.”
Vesper handles him with a composed precision that costs her more than it shows. “Then maybe you should start acting like one during the ninety minutes you already have instead of spending half of them on your phone.”
His face darkens, and he scrubs a hand down his face. “I’ve changed, Ves. Good job. Six-month sobriety chip for gambling and alcohol. That should count for something.”
I have stood in the Pit while greater demons negotiated for power, and I recognize the transaction immediately. Six months of good behavior, and Rick believes Vesper owes him something for it. The realization sends another pulse of heat beneath my skin.
I flex my hand once. “I suppose,” I say, “that I cannot torture this one either.”
They both look at me.
“The fuck?” Rick sneers.
Vesper parts her lips. Then…they spread into a smile, and she practically glows. “Actually,” she says. “Him you can.”
Rick blinks. I cross the room. I do not rush. Rick regards me like a deer in headlights, and the least I can do is allow him the full experience of understanding he does not deserve to even stand in my Lady’s presence.
I close my hand around his throat and lift him off the floor as if he weighs a throw cushion.
“Do it, Vale. Show him.”
As my Mistress commands. I release the glamour, giving this spineless weakling the unfiltered and unadulterated view of the predator from hell.
His eyes rocket open. He makes a pathetic sound.
My tail rises. I draw the tip of it slowly along the side of his face in a taunt, enjoying the sight of his skin paling.
I have a newfound appreciation for my multi-purpose tail.
Vesper stands beside me, arms folded across her chest, features filled with a long-overdue satisfaction.
“As a Duke of Hell, charged with the eternal torment of beings responsible for none other than the sin of thievery,” I truthfully quip, “I would be most thrilled to add your name to my registry.”
Rick’s hands fumble with my wrist, discovering it does nothing.
I cock my head. “I believe you are currently in possession of seven months of child support that has not reached its intended destination.”
Vesper says, beside me, pleasantly, “Nine months, actually.”
I snarl, burning my gaze at Rick. “This creature steals from his mate and still believes he deserves to breathe her air.”
“Ex-mate,” Vesper corrects. I crook a smile at her.
Rick makes a wet, panicked sound.
“Nine months,” I confirm. “You will transfer it. Now. All of it.”
“Okay, okay! I have the money,” he wheezes. “I’ll transfer now.”
“Ah, I say, low and dangerous. “So you are not merely a thief.” My claws tighten. “You are a liar as well.”
“They just gave me a signing bonus, okay?!” He transfers it with his phone. Vesper hugs her arms, chin held high, much like my proud chest.
I set him down. He drags in gusts of air. He balls his hands into fists. “What the hell are you?”
I snort. “The consequence of your continued incompetence.”
His mouth falls open. I rise to my fullest height. “I am the creature your daughter reaches for when she is frightened.”
When he steps toward me, Vesper steps in, attention sharpening on her ex. “Richard Dawson, if you go to the cops and tell them a demon tortured you, I’m sure that’ll go over great with the court. Good luck with your new job.”
Rick fumes, then tugs on the ends of his jacket before he stomps to the door, opens it, and goes. The door closes.
Vesper kisses me, deep and full. My tail plays with her curls.
“You were magnificent,” she informs me after much tongue.
“I could have been considerably more thorough.” I grin, showing my teeth.
“I know.” She kisses me again. “I’m proud of you. I love you. And I’d like to share some things with you. Come here…” She invites me to sit beside her on the sofa.
I sit beside her. She leans into my shoulder, and my tail winds around her arm before slipping into the curls at the back of her neck. “You know,” she says after a moment, “you’re remarkably good at not asking questions.”
“You tell me what you wish me to know.”
Her mouth curves. “Yeah. That’s why I usually end up telling you anyway.”
I kiss the top of her head. She folds her hand into mine. “You already know about the drinking. The gambling. And apparently now the cheating.”
Heat threatens beneath my skin again.
“I am aware.”
“Those are basically the headlines.” She settles deeper against me. “The footnotes are messier.”
I wait.
“He wasn’t always awful, Vale. That was part of the problem. When I met him, he was charming and funny and made me feel like the center of his universe. Every time things got bad, I kept waiting for that guy to come back.”
“And he would.”
“For a while.” She sighs. “Counseling. Apologies. Six months of good behavior.” Her mouth twists. “Sound familiar?”
Quite unfortunately.
“His drinking…” Her voice cracks, and I lean in closer.
“It might not have been the only reason, but I had multiple miscarriages. Then I found out he’d been siphoning money from my accounts for years to cover gambling debts.
Meanwhile, everyone around me had an opinion about what I should do differently.
Work less. Be a better wife. Sell the shop.
Forgive him again. I tried. Of course I didn’t sell the shop.
It was my baby through all the heartache. Until…”
My tail goes still in her hair, and I hum gratefully, “Bethie.”
“The last time he cheated, I was pregnant with her. Then one night he was drinking, lost his temper, and put his fist through a wall.” She says it plainly, not like a wound being reopened.
More like something she has already survived.
“By then I’d started recording things. Texts.
Phone calls. And the hole. I packed while he was gone and left. ”
“Good.”
She laughs softly. “Very nuanced response.”
“I possess others. They involve considerably more violence.”
“We can compare fantasies sometime. Mine involve papier-mache and a voodoo doll.” Her thumb brushes over one of my claws.
Warm curiosity blooms inside me
“I spent a lot of my life being told what belonged to everyone else,” she says.
“My time belonged to the church. My marriage belonged to God. My body belonged to Rick and apparently my money. Even my shop was selfish if it took too much of my attention.” She touches the ring in her nose.
“Sometime after Rick cheated on me the third time, I decided I was done asking permission to own my own life. I credit Harold for some of that.”
“Demons do not belong to ourselves either,” I say, breathing in her hair. “We belong to Lucifer. Our bodies. Our service. Our choices, until he decides otherwise.”
Vesper lifts her head and studies me. “Huh.” She squeezes my hand. “Two peas in a pod.”
I consider this carefully. “I do not particularly wish to be a pea.”
She laughs. “It means we have more in common than we thought, Big Guy.”
“Ah.” I tighten my fingers around hers. “Then I approve of the peas.”
She kisses my cheek. “Good.”
A small sound carries from Bethie’s room. Vesper glances toward the hallway. “And speaking of the best decision I ever made…”
She slips down the hall and returns in short order with the little beastie on her hip. Bethie rubs her eyes, her hair doing something chaotic as she holds her stuffed elephant. No teddy bear in sight.
Vesper bounces her once and smiles. “What do we think about pizza tonight, Bethie? Daddy finally sent us a check.”
Bethie stares up at her. “Da Da,” she says.
Vesper purses her lips. “Well…that’s a new one for her. Yeah, baby. Da Da sent us some money.”
Bethie’s gaze moves across the room. It finds me. She extends her arms. “Da Da,” she says.
The word echoes like a church bell ringing something sacred. Vesper goes still. I go still.
Bethie strains forward, both arms reaching, with the complete authority of a princess who has named a thing and expects the universe to cooperate.
“Pwecious. Da Da.”
I am seventeen centuries old. I have existed across geological epochs. I have navigated the infernal hierarchy of hell, and I have survived things that would unmake most beings. I have faced Lucifer himself.
I have never, in seventeen centuries, been entirely unable to speak.
Vesper and I share a gaze. Tears shimmer in her vision like star drops. But a soft smile curves her lips. “I believe there’s a permanent opening, if you want the job, Valefar.”
Bethie strains again. “Da Da.” Vesper surrenders her.
I take the toddler, careful with something so small and so significant, and Bethie settles against my chest with the wholeness of a child who has found home.
Head rising, she blows a raspberry. Satisfied with herself. I press my lips to her forehead.
Something enormous moves through me, through the mold of what I was but everything I have become in the space of nearly five months in this house. And I have no words, no category, no name for what it is.
I hold Bethie tighter. “It would be an honor. My little beastie,” I say.
She pats my cheek, then kisses it.
Vesper orders the pizza.