“Wait until you catch a whiff of the remover,” I said, smiling evilly.
“Nice try.” He barked with laughter as he glamoured the polish off with a twist of his fingers. “Hungry yet?” he asked, yet again. He had been dropping these not so subtle hints every couple of hours since he had gotten here. I was starting to think Ryder was paying him to ask that question. Either that, or he couldn’t wait for Ryder to take over.
“I fed from him yesterday,” I replied flippantly. I’d done more than feed; I’d jumped him as soon as he’d come to my room, ripping his clothes off before he could even grasp what I was doing and gorged on him. Not that he’d complained when he’d figured it out.
He’d slammed me against the wall, even though he’d made sure to not hurt my midsection, and after I called him dirty names for being gentle, he’d made me scream his name until I’d lost my voice. He’d also broken the bed, which, hey, you wouldn’t hear me complaining about it.
“Why are you always so nice to me?” I asked Ristan as he leaned back and put his hands behind his head on the bed leisurely. “Out of everyone here, you seem to be the most willing to help me.”
“You make Ryder happy, Flower. I like him better when he is happy. He hasn’t had an easy life, and I like seeing him happy with you. I am also here to protect you from anyone seeking to harm you. Besides, it gets me out of the tedious bullshit that the others have to sit through, like holding court and listening to everyone bitch and moan over what they think they are entitled to.”
“Oh,” I replied and exhaled slowly, considering what he’d said.
“Still—” he was cut off; his eyes flashed red and began swirling.
“Ristan?” I asked. When he didn’t answer, I moved to touch him.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Danu’s voice said from behind me. “You touch him, and you will follow him into the vision, child.”
I spun around and leveled my gaze on her. She was dressed in an elegant light blue outfit of lace, and silk. Her black hair hung loose, falling in gentle waves around her slim hips. “You,” I said, barely above a whisper.
“Me,” she agreed with a beautiful smile on her full mouth. “It’s time to choose, Sorcha. Life or death?”
“That’s pretty vague, Danu; even for you,” I replied, placing myself firmly between her and the Demon who seemed lost inside the vision.
Her eyes went from Ristan’s slumped form on the bed, to me, and back again. “Interesting.”
“Still waiting,” I continued. I didn’t trust her, and I sure as hell didn’t trust her with the Demon after the shit he’d told me.
“It’s time to choose whether or not you will allow Faery and your children to die because you insist on hanging onto that last thread of humanity you have inside of you. That last little bit of disbelief. It’s your choice. I cannot make it for you. I had thought, given who I had paired you up with, that you would be an easy sell. Adam caught on and embraced it, even as he was in Transition,” she replied softly as she took in the wide variety of nail polish.
“I can just choose to accept you?” I asked guardedly. I wasn’t born yesterday.
“Of course, Sorcha,” she said, holding up bottle after bottle and examining each one at her leisure. As if she had all the time in the world. “There really isn’t a catch, so please stop assuming I am a monster. You are being rather rude, considering I am here to help you.”
“No one in this world does anything for free.”
“We do, my child, if our existence depends on this world surviving,” she replied inside my head.
“Stay out of my head,” I warned.
“I’ve been inside of your head since the day you were created. I set the events in motion that created who you are and who you were meant to be. Ryder was only following what I’d given him for his path. He had to see the evil, which he’d been born of to stop it. You had to endure hell to become a warrior and protector. Sometimes living through something so horrible will shape our minds, and make us stronger in the end. Like you.” She turned and continued her perusal of the polish. “Of course I didn’t want them to die; they were a perfect match for you. The Guild was the perfect place to hide you while you came into womanhood. Transition came much faster than I expected, but of course Ryder figured out the clues and found you sooner than I had intended him to.”