“Also not a surprise.” He took another bite and chewed. “And let me guess—you almost got married at some point, but it didn’t work out.”
“Maybe.”
“So that’s a yes.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“College was, it’s true.”
“Wait, why did you drop out?”
He glanced at the pan. “Mind if I have some more?”
“Not at all.” What she would like even more? For him to answer a question easily. “What about you? Did you ever marry?”
His harsh laugh was reply enough. “Nope. Not in the cards for me, as it turned out.”
“Sounds like I’m not the only one who almost made it to the altar.”
He paused with his seconds halfway to his plate. “You’re very smart, you know that.”
For some reason, the comment made her feel more beautiful than any other compliment he could have given her. “Well, the blond’s just hair color, actually.”
He hesitated again, his eyes narrowing. “Really?”
“I’d just gotten it done the night I met you, actually.”
When he seemed nonplussed, she frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Chapter Forty-three
Sitting cross-legged on her bed, Sissy had the book Adrian had given her on top of a pillow in her lap. Even with all the lights on, and her eyes being excellent, she was getting a tension headache from frowning at the tiny, faded writing.
Her Latin was so not good enough for this.
Leaning back against her headboard, she cursed softly.
“That bad, huh?”
Turning toward the open door, she saw Adrian standing there with a bag of Chips Ahoy!
He jogged the sealed cookies. “Want a little sin?”
“Yes. Please.”
As he limped in, she wished she knew how he’d been hurt. What had happened exactly. But she had a feeling that was seriously off-limits.
Sitting down at the foot of her bed, he did the deed of opening things up, and then offered the chocolate-chip cookies to her. She took four.
“You know,” Adrian said between bites of his own, “Eddie always did say that thing read like stereo instructions.”
“It’s nearly incomprehensible—and it’s totally discombobulated … like stream-of-consciousness stuff. No organization, just a series of random riffs.”
“Well, what have you got so far?”
“Can you people really do spells?”
“Jim can, yup. I’m okay at it. Eddie was better than I am—he used to tell me I had ADHD and that was the root of my problem. You need to focus properly.”
“Can you do one for me now?”
“Like I’m a trick pony?”
“Come on. I need a break, and I’m honestly curious.”
Adrian popped another cookie into his mouth. Then he held out a palm. Frowning in concentration, he made a waving motion with his free hand over it.
“Presto!”
She leaned in. “What did you do?”
“I made nothing appear. Just like magic.”
Sissy started to laugh. “You’re a freak.”
“Too right. And an idiot. I should have brought up the milk.”
She looked down at the book again and got serious. “Tell me more about the mirror.” When he didn’t reply, she glanced back up at him. “Please.”
“You hit me with this even after I hooked you up with the Ahoys?”
Except he stretched out across the end of her bed, propping his head up on his hand. He kept munching away, somehow not getting cookie crumbs all over the place.
“The mirror, the mirror …” He shook his head. “It’s the ugliest f**king thing you’ve ever seen. Old and decaying, just like her.”
“Whenever I’ve seen the demon, she’s been young and beautiful.”
“Just another of her lies.” He rubbed an eyebrow with his thumb. “Like I said, the thing with her is, she needs that portal. She loses the mirror? She’s stuck on this plane, at least from what Eddie always told me. Now, you’d assume the easiest thing to do would be to break it, but if you do? You get sucked into the shards and you ain’t never coming out. The key would be to get control of the POS. Take it out of her possession and make it so she can’t get access to it. Logically, that’s the only set of chains you’re ever going to put on her.”
“You found me in that bathroom.” She put her hand across her abdomen. “To protect…”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you take the mirror with you when you left?”
Adrian blew out a curse. “Jim had flipped the f**k out when he saw you, and because he’d tripped her spell, she was coming back at a dead run. It was a choice between keeping the savior from attacking and probably getting shanked … or taking the mirror. We chose him.”
“So she’s killed someone else to replace me.”
The angel cleared his throat. “Yeah.” Abruptly, he reached out and put his hand on her knee. “Hey, hey … you need to stop thinking about all that. That’s not your biz.”
“If Jim felt that way, I’d still be in Hell.”
“Doesn’t mean you have to be a hero up here.” He took out another cookie. “Or down there.”
Sissy was quiet a long time. And then she heard herself say, “She hurt him.”
“Excuse me?”
“I saw Jim …” It was so hard to put it into words, and she didn’t know why she was bringing it up now. “She hurt him. Her … people hurt him. Bad.”
When Adrian didn’t reply, she glanced up. His face was set in stone, no expression to be found within the composite of his features. And that was when she knew … he’d had the same abuse done to him.
“Sissy, do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Don’t tell him you saw that, okay? It’ll kill him.”
“That woman needs to be stopped,” Sissy said darkly.
“That’s what Jim’s trying to do.”
Sissy was silent for a time. “There’s another thing I’ve been wondering. How did he get me out?”
“He traded a win for you.”
As those simple words sunk in, Sissy felt her head go a little fuzzy. “I’m sorry … he did what?”
As Duke traced Cait’s blond hair with his eyes, a feeling of dread hit him hard. You don’t suppose … oh, come on, there was no reason to be paranoid.