She bristled. “It feels like one. You always make me feel like I’m second place and unimportant. With everyone. Whether it’s Kody or Caleb or Zavid. And now Aeron. I feel like you like everyone more than me.”
Was she serious? Or insane?
Or just whiney and annoying?
Nick couldn’t believe she had all the power she did and he had to placate her damaged ego. For real?
Yet he did. How could she be so needy and insecure? For that matter, how could she be so dense and immature?
He was the teenager. She was thousands of years old. Surely she didn’t need him to stroke her ego. Did she?
One look at the expression on her face and it was apparent, she did. How weird was that?
Sighing, Nick shook his head at her. “C’mon, Livia. Some of that can’t be helped, and you know it. You are a very attractive woman, and you tend to stand a little too close to me at times.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I love Kody, and I don’t want her to get the wrong idea about us. Nor do I want her feelings hurt. And not that I ever would, but I could sit naked on top of Caleb’s lap all day long, and spoon him in bed, and eat from his spork at school while he hand-fed and burped me, and she wouldn’t care. You sit next to me while she’s across the table, and it’s open war.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Fair or not, it’s how feelings work. I wouldn’t care if she sipped on a single straw with Brynna during lunch or licked chocolate sauce from between Brynna’s fingertips… or shared a single shower stall with her and LaShonda after PE class – in fact, I’ve had that fantasy a few times. But if Kody ever held hands with Caleb or kissed his cheek, I’d go Liu-Kang-Mortal-Kombat all over his giant, hairy ass.”
He narrowed his gaze on her. “As the queen of jealousy, you are well aware of how this works, so don’t play all innocent with me like you don’t know.”
“She should trust you.”
Yeah, right. “This isn’t a matter of trust and you know that. It’s a matter of respect. Kody trusts me and I trust her because we respect each other’s feelings when we’re together and apart, and we don’t play those games with each other’s emotions. I don’t try to make her jealous and she doesn’t do that to me. We don’t have to. So I’m sorry that you feel like you’re second place, but you’re not my girlfriend and you’re a little handsy with my body’s no-zones whenever you’re near me, so I do, and will always, maintain three car lengths’ distance between us at all times.”
And then she did what she always did whenever she was near him. She walked into his personal space and put her hand on his chest before she trailed her hand lower. “You and I could have a good time together, Nick. If you’d let us.”
He pulled her hand away as it neared the waistband of his jeans. “I don’t think of you like that.”
“You could.”
And that was the problem. “Yeah, and I don’t want to be that guy. It’s just a short jump from that to wearing obscene Mardi Gras beads and hanging out on Bourbon Street and sexually harassing women who’d rather switch teams than look at me. No offense, I don’t want to be the poster boy for why women should consider swearing off men altogether, for eternity. I’d rather be a stand-up guy who speaks well for my gender rather than a two-timing mandork.”
She scoffed at him and raked a sneer over his body that would have shriveled the gender of anyone who possessed lesser conviction. “You are a Malachai! Why don’t you ever act like one!” She shoved him. Hard.
Furious at her unwarranted attack, Nick tripped and hit the ground.
Livia unleashed her wings and took her demon form. Her breathing ragged, she stood over his body, glaring down at him. “You’re pathetic! Weak! Disgusting! You have all the power of the universe to take what you want and you never use it! What is wrong with you?”
In that moment, he fully understood what Aeron had tried to teach him earlier.
The difference between hatred and pain.
This was the pain Aeron had talked about. The anguish Nick had felt all his life of being worthless and despised, and of feeling like nothing. That desire not to lash out and hurt others in his hatred, but to prove them wrong whenever they’d judged him for things he couldn’t help. To show them that he wasn’t poor gutter trash to be thrown away. That he wasn’t invisible. That he was a human being with human feelings.
That he mattered.
This wasn’t hatred in his heart.
It was bitter shame.
And it burned like a hungry fire in his gut. Throwing his head back, he let the fury of it roll out of him in a fierce, deep roar. One that echoed through the forest and caused animals to take flight and flee in stark terror.
His wings shot out as his body instantly transformed to its true Malachai nature. Stronger and deadlier than ever.
The color faded from Livia’s face as she backed away obsequiously. She bowed low before him as she begged and pleaded for his forgiveness.