Dusk Avenger (Flirting with Monsters #3) - Eva Chase Page 0,86

road ahead of him was so barren. “Are you actually going to put an end to the guessing game? I should have started a betting pool.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Sorsha said softly. “If you think it’s worth it, I’m all for it—but we’ll manage with the help we’ve got.”

My tenacious lover could be so tender when she wanted to be. Her acceptance of my hesitations made me all the more sure that it was time to end them. If I was going to reveal myself for any reason, it should be to ensure I’d done everything I could to make sure she survived the upcoming battle.

“We’ll manage better with more,” I said. “I’m not certain how this member of my brethren will react to being approached, though… Perhaps I should prepare you. You’ll want to pull over to the shoulder, incubus, so you don’t risk crashing our means of transportation.”

“You think very highly of the shock value of your secret identity,” Ruse teased, but he did as I’d asked.

When the vehicle was parked, he got right out of his seat and propped himself against the wall just beyond it, watching me expectantly. Antic bobbed on her toes with excitement.

Suddenly the act felt too momentous. I hadn’t intended to build it into some earth-shattering announcement. What would the others make of me when they saw what I was? Sorsha had taken my full physical form in stride—but she didn’t have the same awareness of the history most of the shadowkind would, and besides, she was hardly a typical example of her kind.

But then, none of the beings around me were quite typical, were they? They wouldn’t have joined this crusade to begin with if they’d been your standard shadowkind. I had to assume any goodwill I’d garnered with my contributions over the recent months would hold out against their feelings about my kind.

I inhaled deeply and allowed the energies I usually kept tamped down within this mortal body to rise to the surface.

My limbs and torso expanded. My eyes prickled as the heated darkness came over them, not hazing my vision but sharpening it to every movement around me. My feathered wings flared up from below my shoulders, arcing as high as the Everymobile’s ceiling and as wide as its windows even only partly open. This space was too confining to show my true shadowkind form in its full glory, but that might be for the best.

No snarky remarks came from the incubus. His lips had parted with the slackening of his jaw. He collected himself with a rough chuckle, but he kept staring. “Holy hell. I should have guessed. Of all the damned beings out there—” He shook his head in disbelief.

The imp had cowered back to the corner of the sofa-bench. Not the reaction I’d wanted to provoke, but an unsurprising one. She peeked at me through her fingers.

“I have no interest in hurting you,” I told her, my wingéd voice resonating from my lungs.

A scrabbling sound drew my attention behind me. Sorsha’s tiny dragon had emerged from the bathroom where he’d built his nest. At the sight of me, he stiffened, letting out a squeak with a flare of his nostrils. Then he flexed his wings as if to say, I’ve got those things too.

He didn’t scramble away, but he didn’t come any closer either. This might be the end of my amity with the little creature.

One of our number wasn’t taken aback, though. The devourer smiled at me, his wide eyes offering nothing but awe. “Of course you wouldn’t hurt any of us. You’ve been hurt yourself so many times to protect us. Your form is marvelous. Why didn’t you show us it before?”

Ruse let out another short laugh. “You never heard about the wingéd, huh, devourer? They have an… interesting reputation.”

His gaze had definitely become warier. I could accept that. It wasn’t as if we’d been the closest of comrades before. He hadn’t fled for the hills or hurled cutting remarks my way, which I could count as a victory.

“I’d prefer not to be judged based on events long past,” I said. “We all have questionable moments in our histories, don’t we?”

“Most don’t have moments that involve an entire war that nearly exterminated your own race—but by all means, let us focus on the present.” The incubus offered a grin that looked more like his usual playful self, and just this once, I was glad to see it. “You’ve stuck to smiting the right