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I sat and pulled the first book off the stack, and Ren grabbed the next.

We read in companionable silence for several hours, and more than once I’d been so absorbed I’d forgotten he was even there. Ren had made us another coffee and a snack, and we discussed some of the weird things we found. It was nice actually. I would’ve found this impossible before, concentrating on reading with him right there. I would’ve been hyper focused on him. Not anymore.

Several hours and three cups of coffee later, I finally found something. I scanned the page, then looked up at Ren. “I’ve got it.”

“What does it say?” He got up and moved around beside me, scanning the page I’d been reading over my shoulder, then straightened. “Fuck. That can’t be good.”

No, it most definitely was not.

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Chapter 22

Ren

* * *

Rune sat back on his leather couch, shirtless, trousers undone, and sipped his morning coffee. A female rushed out of his bathroom. She darted glances his way, but Rune was staring at Jasmine in a way I did not fucking like.

The other female scooped up her shoes and headed for the door.

Rune’s gaze slid from Jasmine and the pile of books we’d returned and focused on his retreating companion. “What are you forgetting, Kelsey?”

She stopped and turned back. He said nothing, just waited. She rushed back to him, and he reached up, fisted the back of her hair, and pulled her down for a hard kiss. The female whimpered. I glanced at Jaz, and she was bright red.

My little female couldn’t hide how she was feeling. She never could. I’d just forced myself to ignore it, until now. Now that she didn’t seem to care in the least about me anymore.

She’s not yours.

I’d decimated any feelings she’d had for me a week ago, which was seriously bad timing, since I wanted her now more than ever. Now that I felt the changes inside me, the way her healing was pulling me from the shadows and into the light. No, I’d never recover from what that monster made me do, I’d never forget, but I didn’t feel as if I were drowning, suffocating in a sea of horror and despair anymore. I could fucking breathe again.

I hadn’t been to my cliff since the night I hurt her and Willow and Warrick followed me there. I hadn’t thought about going there or the difference in the way I’d been feeling, until last night when I sat with Jaz poring over books and managed a whole twenty minutes without remembering. Without seeing blood on my hands, or hearing the sound of agonized screams. Something had definitely shifted inside me, and it was because of Jasmine.

She licked her lower lip, and I wanted to pull her to me and kiss her. I wanted to beg her to let me kiss her the way Rune was devouring the female wriggling on his lap.

Jaz shifted, her gaze darting to me, then away.

Rune finally let her go. “Back in bed,” he said low, gritty.

The female rushed to do as he said, and the massive demon turned back to Jaz, now with an obvious fucking hard-on. “Care to join, little witch?”

I barely choked back my snarl.

“I’ll pass, but thank you for your kind offer,” she said with a humorless smile and a good dose of sarcasm.

“I promise you’ll like it,” he drawled.

“And I promise I’ll slit your fucking throat if you say shit like that to her again,” I growled out.

Jaz spun to me, a frown on her pretty face. The three mourning cloaks that had been sitting on her shoulders, fluttered around her head, giving her away. I’d pissed her off. Again. “Maybe you should wait downstairs,” she said to me.

That wasn’t happening. “I’m not leaving you with him.”

“You’ve interrupted my morning,” Rune said. “If you’re not going to join in, then get to the fucking point.”

“Halcapio,” Jaz said. “Defined in the demon physiology book I borrowed from your library as one who consumes living souls for subsistence. What can you tell us about soul eaters?”

His silver gaze narrowed. “Why?”