His eyes widened. “Not if I can help it.” He looked away from her, a lock of dark wet hair falling into his face. “Andi, no one can know what we are. Or what we do.”
She gave up on covering herself, as his words sank in. “Wait,” she began, trying to manage this U-turn in her mind. “Why save me from getting burned if you’re going to kill me?”
“What?” he whirled on her and laughed. “No. I’m not going to kill you.”
His protest seemed genuine. “But you said—”
“No.” He shook his head and grabbed her shoulders. And where she hadn’t been able to feel the acid burning her before, she could feel him now, the heat emanating from his hands. She wanted to grab his wrists and pull them down around her. Was that really her or just his ‘spell’? “You’re safe with me. You’re always safe with me. I swear. It’s just that…you might not remember all this tomorrow.”
She stepped back reluctantly. “And why is that?” Complicated emotions swam across his face, and it took him so long to answer, she made a guess. “You’re cursed? And people forget you when they’re not looking at you?” Was that what Auntie Kim had meant?
He barked a laugh. “I wish things were that easy. But no, there’s a room here that I have to take you to before you leave. It’ll help you forget things.”
Andi double-blinked. “After everything I’ve seen? That seems incredibly unlikely.”
He spread his hands into the water in front of her and bowed his head. “And yet, it’s true.”
Why had he told her?
Because he felt like he had to.
Because acting on anything he felt right now—no matter how badly he wanted her, without telling her—would’ve been fucked up. And there’d been a brief window when he could’ve been with her. Her body’d wanted him already; he could scent it this close to her—even in the water like they were—but he’d finally seen it in her eyes.
And so, he’d blurted the truth out to save her from himself. Now. While he was still strong enough. Before any of the things he ached for could happen.
Fool, his dragon chastised from a distance.
Damian closed his eyes and shook his head at his dragon and himself. Selflessness was not a trait often found in his family—or indeed, in any of the Unearthly—and it seemed to cost him more strength than his fire did. But his own mother had been lured in by some “situation” like this. He would never curse another woman to the life he’d watched her lead—one she’d had no choice in.
Meanwhile, Andi was talking at him. Peppering him with questions as her panic rose—another way in which she is delicious, his dragon noted—and he shook his head further.
“There’s no point in explaining anything else,” he said firmly, cutting her off mid-sentence. “More answers will only lead to more questions, and they’re all a waste of time.”
He looked down and saw the fear in her eyes—not quite wild, but getting there—and ignored the small dark voice in his head that said his dragon was right; her fear was beautiful and would that he could scare her more.
“You want me to forget me…you…this?” she sputtered, looking around the waters and then at him again. “No way.”
“You have to. It’s not safe.”
“What about Austin?”
“He’s different.”
She crossed her arms again—this time defiantly and below her breasts—and it made him want to pick her up and bury his face in them.
Cut that out, he growled at his dragon.
You think that’s me? his dragon laughed.
“I’m different!” she protested.
“You are.” It was the truth. It had been a very long time since he’d allowed himself to think dark thoughts, and yet somehow, her presence summoned them. The things he could do to her if given time. All the ways he could make her scream. He swallowed, getting control of his urges. “Very different. And yet, all of this is way too dangerous for you.”
“Why do you get to be the person to make that decision?”
“Because I’m the one who involved you in the first place.” He advanced on her, slowly corralling her toward the shore. “You’re less than twenty-four hours out from the only world you’ve always known. How terrible can it be to return?”
She stood her ground. “If you pick me up… If I am picked up by one more man today—I don’t care what you can turn into—I am kneeing you in the balls. Which I have pretty good access to right now.” She glanced down into the water pointedly.
At the thought of her fighting him, Damian bit back a smile. She fights you because she wants you, his dragon explained.
You have no idea how humans work, he explained back.
“It’s just not safe for you to know, Andi. Humans shouldn’t deal in Unearthly business. They wind up injured—like the man you cared for earlier tonight. And like you, here, now.” He reached his hand out toward her rib cage, longing for an excuse to touch her again. “I don’t want to pick you up and carry you to the Forgetting Fire. Don’t make me.”
He left his hand out and willed her to put hers inside of it. She hesitated, looking at him closely, searching for some mercy in his face. Finding none, she finally took his hand. He pulled her closer with it, and together they started walking back to shore.
What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck. Andi’s mind was spinning, looking for a way out. “And so we’re both going to forget everything?” Andi picked the least bad option and tried to keep the fear out of her voice.
“No. Just you. I’m immune.”
She stopped. “And, what, you’ll just whisk me back to my apartment, with no explanation?”
“Pretty much. You’ll wake up in bed and feel like you’ve been sick—it’ll excuse the lost time.” He lifted her hand out of the water like he was asking her to dance, propelling her forward again.
“And I won’t remember being here?” How was such a thing possible? “What about taking the job?” She’d emailed herself a reminder! And it was in her personal calendar even—the old school one she kept in a notebook in her bag!
“Every remnant of me and this place in your memory will be erased.”
“Then…how are you going to pay me?”
“There will be a bank error in your favor.”
“How very Monopoly of you.”
He snorted softly in response. They were both at waist height now, and she took the risk of looking over. Goddamn. Everything about him was amazing, and soon it wouldn’t matter because of magic fire.
“Wait! What about the burn?” She pulled her hand out of his and twisted to see herself again. “Will that go away too?” He inhaled but didn’t speak, and she squinted up at him. “It won’t, will it? Because if you could magic it away, you would’ve just magically healed your friend.” The longer he was silent, the more she knew that she was right. “So now you’re going to put me back into the world with an unexplained scar? No.”
“What do you mean, no? Andi—” he began.