“For now,” Omen said. “The Company of Light could attack at any—”
“I know. But they’re going to have to wait too. I need at least a few minutes to process this identity crisis. Just—just leave me alone.”
I spun on my heel and stalked to the stairwell. Hurrying back through the funhouse, I barely registered the punching bags brushing against my shoulders or the warped reflections showing me only my own wan face. As I stepped out of the building by the camper van, my legs wobbled. Once I’d climbed inside the back of the vehicle, I tugged the door shut and burrowed under my blanket, cuddling Pickle against me.
The tiny dragon squirmed around and nuzzled his scaly head against my chin. I gave his neck a comforting rub. “The boss man was awfully mean to you, sticking you in that fire, wasn’t he?” I paused, and a lump lodged in my throat. “Is that why you like me so much, Pickle? Because somewhere inside me I’ve got smoke for blood?”
Had Luna known and simply never told me—was that why she’d been willing to raise me? What did it mean about my parents? Were they even my parents? Did I have parents at all? I’d never heard of a shadowkind of any sort being born rather than simply coming into existence out of the ether of their native realm—never heard of a single mortal-shadowkind pregnancy despite the many liaisons between the cubi kind of both sexes and their lovers-slash-meals.
But of course, I obviously wasn’t a shadowkind, at least not much of one. It was only a fragment of my being that emerged in tense situations.
I’d never heard of anything like that before either.
Even under the blanket, I felt it the moment another presence wavered from the shadows into the van.
“Sorsha?” Snap said, his voice tentative.
I forced myself to uncover my head. The devourer sat on the bench opposite me, his golden curls glowing with the rising sun but his moss-green eyes dark with concern.
He probably didn’t even understand why any of this bothered me. Working supernatural voodoo and bleeding smoke was business as usual for every being he’d spent much time around before me.
“Can I do anything?” he asked, softly and simply, and somehow that was exactly what I’d needed to hear. He couldn’t really do anything, but—maybe I didn’t actually want to be left alone right now, not completely.
“Come here?” I said, scooting as close to the wall as I could to make room on my bench.
Snap smiled and moved to join me. Pickle scuttled away with a little snort, presumably deciding he wasn’t interested in being the filling of our cuddle sandwich.
There was even less room on the bench than we’d had on the bunk back in the cabin, but Snap managed to lie himself down beside me without toppling over the edge. He slipped one arm around my waist and tucked his chin against my forehead, cocooning me in his bright warmth.
“Omen wanted us all to make it seem like there was some kind of attack, to scare you,” he said. “I told him I wasn’t going to help, but he went ahead anyway. He gets very… determined sometimes.”
I leaned into his embrace. “I guess he wouldn’t have gone to those lengths if I hadn’t been so stubborn about insisting I couldn’t do anything magical.”
The devourer was silent for a moment. “That scares you. That you could influence fire in some magical way?”
Okay, so he could understand more than I’d given him credit for. It was fair to say I was scared. Possibly even terrified, not that I wanted to admit that out loud.
“And that there might be other powers I don’t know about. Just… not knowing what I might be capable of, what I even am, and what else from my past must be either a lie or a total mystery.”
“I think it’s amazing that you have a force like that in you. You’re even more special than I already realized.” He pressed a light but possessive kiss to the top of my head. “But not knowing if you can control a power, one that could also hurt people… It feels pretty horrible, doesn’t it? I believe Omen only wants to help you learn how to find that control. Or I could help, if you’d rather that. I’m not sure how to, but I’d try.”
The lump in my throat returned with a pang of affection. I hugged him even tighter. “I appreciate that. I’ve never been scared of you, you know. No matter what power you have that you’ve decided you shouldn’t use, it’s obvious you can control it. I’ve never worried that you’ll hurt me.”
“I’m glad,” Snap said, “but I hurt people before, and I can’t forget that. That’s how I make sure it doesn’t happen again. I don’t think you would in the first place, though.”
His faith in me made my heart ache even if I couldn’t say he was right. There’d been plenty of people I’d wanted to hurt over the years. In the heat of the moment, if I knew I could with barely any effort at all… but then, that was all the more reason to learn what the hell I was doing from beings who were experienced in the supernatural arts, wasn’t it?
Maybe dealing with this puzzle wouldn’t be so bad with Snap by my side. And Ruse… and Thorn…
My thoughts slipped back to the delicious dream Omen had woken me from, and then to last night when I’d been ready to give myself over to Ruse yet again. Was my greediness fair to the guy holding me right now and all his passionate devotion?
“Snap,” I said. “Does it bother you that I might hook up with Ruse again, or even Thorn? It’s not that I don’t want you—I do, a hell of a lot. I just…”
I wasn’t sure how to explain it. But Snap seemed to already understand that too. He shifted against me, fitting me even more perfectly against his body.
“I’ve seen you with them,” he said. “And I can tell—the energy you have with them is a little different than with me. There’s something you get that’s different.” He paused, his embrace tightening. “I wish very much that I could give you every conceivable thing, but I’m not sure that’s possible. And if it’s not, I don’t want to take anything away from you. That would be incredibly selfish, wouldn’t it?”
“For a lot of people, wanting to keep a lover to yourself would be a pretty normal feeling.”
His hum reverberated from his lean chest into me. “I’m not a person, and I don’t want to be like those sorts of humans. What I like the most when I’m around you is seeing you happy, and if they bring extra happiness that I can’t, then that’s a good thing.” He ducked his head, his lips grazing my forehead. “As long as you’re still mine.”
I wouldn’t have thought I’d ever agree to that kind of claiming, but who was I kidding? The possessiveness in his tone only set off a warm glow around my heart. The devourer had made an indelible mark there, one I suspected no supernatural voodoo could ever erase now.
“You’ve got me, all right,” I said.
I felt his smile against my skin. “At least I know the two of them—I know they’re worthy of having you too.”
A better question would be whether I was worthy of any of them. Snuggled up against Snap, I wanted to be. I wanted to be a woman who could not just stage jailbreaks and sway fire to my will but also handle the hearts of those who cared about me with the care they deserved in return.