Page 24 of Mage Massacres

“Fuck that. I’m going to check on her,” my demon growled.

I didn’t want anyone to follow me, though. What I wanted was to throw a ten-minute fit to get all this bullshit out of my system. And then take a nap… And maybe masturbate, not necessarily in that order.

Surely an orgasm would help me perk up. Oxytocin or dopamine or whatever, I needed all of it.

“I don’t want company right now, Stone. I need a minute.”

“You’ve had plenty of minutes by yourself.” He gave me a blank look as he stopped in front of me. “We don’t have to talk about anything, but I’m not leaving you out here by yourself after that.”

“I want to rage, and I don’t want to turn that on you. I’ll be shit for company and conversation. I’m pissy and borderline homicidal, and I’ve been lying to myself about how long I could remain calm with all these fucking emotions.”

He raised a brow at me. “And what else have you been lying about?”

I paced back and forth before kicking my shoes off. The chilly temperatures were all but forgotten as the cold grass touched the bottoms of my feet. I left a trail of burned footsteps behind me, only to heal the yard with my next pass.

“I don’t want to save the supernatural species,” I finally whispered, dropping down to sit in the grass.

Hellfire warmed my palm, and I let it drip over the sides of my hand onto the ground. I manipulated the flames, making them dance as Stone sat beside me.

“I don’t like most of them. I don’t want to put all this effort into ungrateful people. I hate the idea of being a hero. I want to be the villain,” I admitted.

“You’re not really lying about that, Kitten.” He pulled half of my fire, morphing it into art as he suggested, “Think of it as work.”

I groaned obnoxiously, both at his suggestion and the fact that I couldn’t make a fox out of flames, but he kept going.

“You don’t have to like your co-workers to get your job done. You do have to be civil, though.”

“That sounds like you’re telling me to play nice with the world.”

“Sort of.”

I stared in awe as his fire fox leaped through my flames and transformed into a wolf. I had control, but I’d never seen it at this level. Not from someone so young, anyway.

“Can’t we just burn it to the ground and call it a day?” I mused, reaching out to pet the wolf.

It snapped at me as he chuckled. “You don’t mean that.”

“No,” I grouched, turning to him as I scrunched my face up. “Well, maybe.”

“You’re mad, and you have every reason to be. I followed you out here to check on you, but I’m also mad. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t leaning toward violence. I needed to walk away.”

I hummed in agreement before asking, “What else do you lie about?”

“To you or the world?”

“You lie to me, too?”

“Not purposefully, no. But I knew York was missing. I didn’t know who you were or where he was; I did know that someone was following him, though.”

“You had his, uhm, box?” I fumbled for the word, not remembering what he called it.

My demon nodded, biting at his lip. “That weird leather box full of druid trinkets? Yeah. I stashed it with the rest of his stuff when he told me what was going on.”

I thought about what he was saying for a few moments before replying, “That’s easy enough to overlook. You didn’t know me. You didn’t feel the pain that caused me.”

And it was. How could I be angry with him for not telling me when he didn’t even know me? It was a little irksome that he waited so long, but we’d gone to find York the day after I’d met Stone. I didn’t think that was something to tell a total stranger about.

He spoke so quietly that I nearly missed it. “I felt it yesterday. Was it the same?”