Dusk Avenger (Flirting with Monsters #3) - Eva Chase Page 0,42
of us? Panic jabbed through my chest, and my grip on his hand tightened. “No. There has to be a way to get it off.” I just didn’t like thinking about how bloody those ways might be.
Omen glanced at Thorn. “You know your way around a blade.”
The warrior bowed his head. As he opened the drawers beneath the kitchen counter, I tugged Snap down beside me. He turned to me. “I had a feeling, in the hotel room—I knew it was dangerous for me to be with you. You all could have been captured or killed, and it would have been my fault.”
“Not your fault,” I said firmly. When his gaze started to slip away from me, I touched the side of his face to bring his attention back. “Hey. It’d be the fault of the assholes who put that mark on you. I know you don’t remember it, but you’ve helped us so much. We need you. Don’t you want the chance to see them totally shut down?”
“I don’t know how much more I can do.”
“I do.” I kept all my focus on his moss-green eyes. “And even if you weren’t going to stay with us, would you really want them to be able to track you down any time you came mortal-side again? You’d never be safe here again.” I couldn’t imagine Snap having to give up everything he’d taken wonder from in this world. He’d make that sacrifice if he thought it would protect us, because that was how he was, but he’d never stop missing the color and flavor his home realm lacked.
Just like I wasn’t sure I’d ever stop missing the passionate devotion he’d brought into my life.
That thought brought a lump into my throat, but I kept holding his gaze. “If we can get the mark off you, do you think you can handle the pain?”
He hesitated, his forked tongue flicking across his lips. “Yes,” he said softly. “Yes—to be able to stay here. To keep up with the mission. To have all the fantastic things I haven’t gotten to experience yet.”
“Good. Then think about all the fantastic things you have had already, and I’ll keep holding your hand, and we’ll pretend Thorn isn’t even there.”
Snap drew in a breath and squeezed my hand in return. His eyes became distant as he must have thought back to some favorite of the new memories he’d accumulated in the past day—the grandeur of the hotel? The rush of the RV’s speed? Or maybe the simple pleasure of his fruit salad, knowing him.
As I watched his face, I could see Thorn applying a carving knife to the devourer’s forearm at the edge of my vision. I restrained a wince at the smoke that unfurled from the cut. Snap blinked, and his jaw tensed—the only sign that he’d felt it. He could be as stoic as the warrior when he needed to be.
“Tell me your favorite things here,” he said abruptly.
Recently? Lying on a cramped bunk bed with your arms around me. Seeing your face light up at a taste of honey. I swallowed hard. There were plenty of other things too.
“Listening to music,” I said. “Letting the beat move through me. Singing along, finding ways to play with the words. You haven’t gotten to do any of that yet. Opening those cages and watching the beasties big and small leap free. Burning the places that belong to the assholes who built those cages down to the ground.”
Thorn had opened up a gash wide enough that the smoke was billowing now. His expression was as pained as I felt seeing it.
“There’s the mark,” he said. “Barely larger than the head of a pin. I think I can scrape the silver off with the edge of the blade.”
He braced himself, and a flinch ran all through Snap’s body. The devourer closed his eyes with a hiss. His fingers clutched mine so hard my hand ached, but not half as much as my heart did.
Then the warrior was tossing the knife into the sink. Omen stood ready with the roll of gauze they’d procured for my injuries days ago. He’d smeared a little of the green paste that helped contain shadowkind essence on the pale fabric.
As he bandaged Snap’s arm, the devourer’s shoulders sank down. His head dipped toward me. “Thank you,” he murmured.
I wished I could kiss him. I wished that was still something he’d take joy from. “Any time,” I said with forced cheer.