The sound rips the air and the Keres takes solid form again. I can see its terrible claws swipe toward her chest, ready to tear her heart out from behind her ribs.
I fling a bolt of lightning at its abdomen. The electricity catches it midflight and forces it against the lamppost. The Keres explodes into a thousand pieces, raining shards of stone on top of us. Daphne throws her hands over her head. Joe lies as still as death as bits of Keres fall onto his back.
Daphne hasn’t looked at me since I killed the Keres. I wish she’d look at me. She’s crouched over Joe, kneeling in the debris of broken glass and fragments of stone. She presses her fingers against his neck, and then holds them in front of his mouth.
“He’s okay,” she says softly. “I think he’s just fainted.”
I don’t say anything in response. I am too afraid to. Not until I see how she sees me now.
Now that she has seen what I can do.
Now that she knows I am not human.
Why doesn’t she look at me?
Daphne slowly rises, brushing Keres dust from her arms with her perfect, calloused fingers. Her hair drapes like a golden curtain in front of her face. She can probably see me, but I can’t see her.
“You killed it.” Her voice shakes, but I can’t tell if it’s out of fear or relief. “You killed that thing …” She takes a step closer. “… with lightning …” Another step. “… that came out of your hands.” Two more steps. “I saw it.” She is only inches from me now. “So don’t you dare try to deny it.”
“I won’t,” I say, wishing more than anything I could see her eyes.
“Good,” she says, closing three of the six inches that still remain between us. “Then you will know what this is for.”
Before I can react, Daphne attacks me. She lunges forward, crossing the last three inches of space between us. Her hands wrap around my neck, and she yanks my head forward against hers. I tense, expecting to be bashed in the face with her forehead, but instead, her warm lips close over mine. Her fingers slip into my hair, and shooting, tingling pain spreads through my skin wherever she touches me.
Panic overtakes my body. I feel my eyes go wide. I try to raise my hands to thrust her away. Is she trying to steal my breath? My soul?
There are stories of creatures that can do so, I am sure.
But it isn’t pain running through my body. It’s pleasure. Warm, radiating tendrils of it, curling through me under her touch. Her caress. It feels just as I imagined it would when she sang.
She presses harder with her lips, imploring mine.
I yield.
I melt.
I surrender.
My arms raise now, closing around her, pressing her closer against me. My lips give in to hers, parting, wanting, giving, beckoning for more in return.
Electric heat swirls inside my chest and shoots through my entire body. I pull away from Daphne just as a blue spark passes from my lips to hers.
She places her fingers on her lips, but I can tell she’s smiling.
“What … what was that for?” I ask, dragging in a deep breath, trying to calm the fiery nerves in my body.
Daphne tries to laugh, but it sounds like she’s out of breath also. She sweeps her hair away from her face. She smiles and her eyes fill with a bright happiness I haven’t seen in her before. “For saving my life. And Joe’s.”
She steps closer again, and I brace myself, hoping to Hades she will press her lips against mine again—wondering how she will respond if I do it to her before she gets the chance.
“For being honest with me,” she says. Her hands clasp my arms and she stares into my eyes. I can’t help but flex under her fingers. I want her to feel how strong I am. She laughs, and I know she’s on to me. Her fingers slide up and down my upper arms. Her touch feels so soothing over the scars in my right arm—my skin left uncovered when my lightning burned my sleeve away. Like I didn’t know just how badly the scars pained me until her mere touch made that pain lessen.
Harpies, my scars …
I start to pull away from Daphne, but I am too late. Her hand clasps tightly under the scars. “What is that …? What the hell?” Her voice falters, and I know she’s seen it.
Her name. Carved and scarred into my skin.
She lets go of me and backs away quickly. “What … why? What the hell is that?” Fear strikes into her eyes. “Are you insane?”
“I can explain …,” I start to say, but I don’t know if I really can. Not without exposing the whole truth. Not without breaking the most steadfast rule the Underrealm has placed on me. Not without losing every chance I have of ever getting her to fall in love with me.
“No. I don’t really want to know,” she says. “You’re sick, Haden. You’re sick and you obviously need help.”
From the way she looks at me now, I know any chance I had with her is over. She doesn’t see her friend standing in front of her. She doesn’t see her singing partner. She doesn’t see someone she would ever want to embrace again. She looks at me the way I feared she would after I killed the Keres.
She sees the real me.
She sees the monster that has come to take her away.