Page 103 of Hellbound

“Wow, that’s an entire college education,” the traveler replied with mock awe.

Vale’s fractured human guise twisted in a sneer. He straightened impossibly taller, looking as indignant as a pillar of living smoke wearing a human suit could.

“At a public university, perhaps, my dear Cal State Long Beach dropout.”

For a second, Marian wasn’t sure what was going on with Tori’s face. The anger turned to shock. Her lower lip quivered. Then Tori started bawling.

Before Marian could process the change, the traveler rushed past Vale for the door. The monster looked down at Marian instead of where the traveler had gone, as though her face might explain whatever the fuck had happened.

Tori caught Marian’s gaze just before she disappeared and threw her a watery-eyed wink.

When Marian looked up, she was standing beside Vale, who scowled down at her. Only then did Marian get to appreciate how discomfited he looked by seeing Tori in tears.

“I stated a fact,” he said flatly. “Why is she crying?”

“I feel like I shouldn’t have to explain to you why it’s upsetting to have your personal details thrown in your face,” Marian dropped her wary gaze to the garment bag. The cracks of his broken features stretched as he smirked at her.

Marian shuddered. “You’re a lot to take in without warning.”

He showed her his back as he laid the garment bag across the bed. “Do you really find this form that unsettling?”

Fuck yes I do. But that didn’t ring true. “This form specifically? Kind of. You in general? Definitely.”

When he turned around, his shadows retracted rapidly back into him until there wasn’t so much of a flutter of otherworldly movement about him. Even his eyes reverted to their usual glacier blue. Marian found herself staring at a completely human-looking Vale.

“Better?”

Marian blew out a breath. To her surprise, she found no improvement in the change. Though twisted and sinister-looking, his previous form was the truth.

The man before her was the lie, and Marian was fucking sick of lies. “Can we get this over with?”

He waved toward the bed. “Get dressed.”

Ugh. Marian skulked to the garment bag and tugged the zipper down. What would it be? Glittering silver to pair with Tori’s gold? Something cold and metallic like him?

But her brows shot up to the ceiling as the plastic parted and revealed a swath of black wool.

It wasn’t a dress at all; it was several pieces. A charcoal damask waistcoat. A white shirt with a starched collar and long ruffled sleeves. A gold tie lay draped over the jacket shoulder, the same shade and satin as Tori’s dress.

Marian frowned down at it. “This is a suit.”

Vale stood beside her; hands folded behind his back.

“It seems so,” he replied, his words dripping sarcasm. “Now get dressed.”

“You want me to—”

“Meyer, you have thirty seconds to begin, or I will dress you myself.”

Marian snatched the garment bag off the bed lightning quick. “Fuck, OK. Now get out.”

To her unending relief, he slipped his hands into his pockets and headed for the door.

Putting the suit on took little time, but it was the tie that drove her to shuffle barefoot to the bedroom door and ask the monster for help.

“How do I tie this?” She flapped the gold satin at him.

Vale pushed his way into the room, ignoring Marian’s emphatic demands that he just tell her how, not show her. When she finally fell into a defeated silence, he held out a hand.