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I took it and placed it on the counter. “Oh… uh… Is it safe to eat?”
“I wouldn’t give it to you otherwise.”
“Well, I don’t know. I don’t know you, and I clearly don’t know Maverick either.”
He nodded. “Plate yourself something. Let’s go sit.”
Lux brought two coffees to the table where Stone was already sitting, and they plucked potato chips from a bowl while I shoveled forkfuls of ham and cheese quiche into my face, followed by some strawberries and mango.
“I’m sorry, Tess. This really isn’t like him. I don’t know what he was thinking.”
“Can you explain what he’s done to me?”
Lux nodded. “It’s deadly for a seraphim to claim a mortal unless we also share power stores, which makes you a rare hybrid now.”
I’d never asked for this. I’d never wanted immortality. Sometimes, I wasn’t even sure I could bear to live out the expected seven or eight decades. “Meaning what?”
“I’m not completely sure. As I said, it’s not common, but you obviously needed stasis.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re aware we feed off of mortal emotions?”
He was feeding off me like Ivan did?I shook my head. “I am now. More or less.”
“On the mortal plane, that’s what gives us our magical strength and power. But it’s volatile, and when we run out, we need to sleep.”
“But not just overnight?”
He shook his head. “It’s more like a weeklong coma.”
I hated the idea of having to sleep like Ivan with his wraithshade. “That’s what I just woke from?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you here?”
“Sometimes I’m really not sure anymore. But while the mortal plane isn’t perfect, sometimes it’s easier to accept foreign imperfections than the ones at home.”
I searched his face for clues, but there weren’t any. His features were kind but serious. “Something happened in Hell to make you run away?”
“To make a long story short, the seraphim sector is fascist, the devil sector is anarchy, and the fae sector is impossible to get into.”
I blinked at him, trying to take it all in.
“All I know is that we’ve been working hard lately to evade seraphim hunters.”
“What’s a seraphim hunter?”
“The seraphim don’t allow refugees into the mortal plane. They want us to return.”
“They’ve been hunting you the whole time you’ve been here?”
“More or less. Some centuries are quieter than others.”
“And it’s not like him to go insane like that?”
His lips formed a straight line. “That’s not what I said, but it’s not like him to claim someone for any reason. Not ever.”
