Dark Champion (Flirting with Monsters #4) - Eva Chase Page 0,8

before this whole Ruby problem had exploded in our faces? He needed to see me as a real person and not just a walking disaster.

I lowered the fry and tamped down on my urge to shoot my mouth off, speaking more honestly instead. “I understand I’m in an incredibly serious situation. If I let myself dwell on it too much, I’ll end up rocking in the corner like I belong in a mental institution, and I don’t think that’s going to help either of us. But I definitely don’t think it’s a laughing matter either.” I spread my arms with a clink of the chain. “You’ve got me at your disposal. What can I tell you to help you make up your mind? Ask away.”

Omen gave me a narrow look, as if he suspected me of setting him up for some kind of prank, but he leaned himself against the wall opposite me as if he was settling in for a longer conversation. “Well, since you’re offering… Why don’t you tell me some more about what it was like growing up with that fae woman who helped your parents? Now that you know the whole story, is there anything that stands out? She must have known the Highest and their minions were after you.”

I sucked my lower lip under my teeth, thinking back. “I don’t know what other bits of memory Luna might have glamoured over—but maybe you’ll notice if there’s a gap I don’t realize while I’m talking.” He’d been able to break one glamour in my memories already.

“Start talking then.”

Lord knew when I’d ever get another invitation like that from him. I drew my legs up on the cot. “Honestly, it was pretty predictable considering I was an essentially mortal kid being raised by a shadowkind. Luna would find us an apartment in one city or another—I’m not totally sure how she even paid for them, but maybe her glamours did the job there too—I’d go to school and all the usual human things, and then every year or so she’d get nervous that the people who’d killed my parents might find us and we’d move to a pretty similar apartment in a different city.”

“She never said anything to indicate she was watching to see if you’d show any powers, or that she was worried you might hurt someone?” Omen asked.

I shook my head. “No. I would definitely remember that. Maybe she didn’t realize that’s what the Highest expected to happen. She was pretty carefree about most things other than avoiding getting murdered.”

Even though it’d been twelve years since the Company’s hunters had killed her, a pang shot through me at the loss. I could picture so clearly how she used to sashay around the apartment to whatever ‘80s band she was currently particularly obsessed with, her sparkly hair swishing in its scrunchie-d ponytail, her wings showing in glittery glimpses here and there when she completely let loose. The way she’d always find the perfect joke to make in her melodic voice to reassure me if some asshole kid at school had picked on me. The joy she took in dressing me up in frills and sequins, and her playful grousing when I’d developed enough of my own taste to start chucking those clothes in the back of the closet in favor of darker hues and simpler designs.

I couldn’t think of any moment when she’d seriously criticized me, let alone made me feel there might be something terribly wrong with me. Maybe she hadn’t been built to fill a parental role, and maybe a fae couldn’t produce the same sort of maternal love a human could, but she’d cherished me beyond all reason. She was the only person in my life that I could really remember who’d never been anything but fully devoted to me.

“The time when I guess my powers had the most reason to come out—but didn’t—was when I was a kid and this shadowkind jerk thought it’d be fun to work his mind control voodoo on me to use me like a puppet.” I’d told Ruse about that incident before, but talking about it out loud made my skin itch. I resisted the urge to hug myself. “Luna told him off and brought me home. She didn’t ask anything about how I was feeling. I mean, it must have been pretty obvious how shaken up I was with the way I was crying, but she didn’t seem concerned that I might lash out. She just