Chapter 29

It’s not the most flattering thing in the world when the guy you’re hate-crushing on associates you with vomit.

Not that Godric is a “guy.” Or that I’m hate-crushing on him. Or I am, in a literal sense. I hate him, and I want to crush him.

I still wish the ground would drag me into my eventual tomb already as he strides back from cleaning up, wings tucked away. He’s regretfully dressed again, in grey this time, with a backpack thrown over one shoulder.

I preempt whatever disgust he would splatter me with. “Every projectile vomiting instance was totally your fault! Hope you’ve learned the consequences of tossing me about.”

He only bores brooding holes into me. “I assume you collected the Angel Essence?” I nod dumbly, strangely deflated that he didn’t engage me in a nastiness fest. He produces a lab jar and blunt knife from the backpack. “Show me how you transform it into your Angelescence.”

“I told you how,” I mumble as I take the knife and start scraping into the jar he holds open. I see the moment the stuff becomes visible to them in the way Lorcan’s eyes widens, and Godric’s narrows. “See? I just scrape, and voila!”

I gesture for the jar once he closes it, and strangely, he gives it to me. The swirling mass is still the same colors, vivid and mesmerizing, if in a different consistency. But its tidal motion is different from the usual measured rhythm, pulsing like some kind of Morse code. It also changes direction as Lorcan moves. It’s following him, like a compass pointing towards its north.

Would other Angelescence do that within its owners’ vicinity, or is this something special to the Nephilim? Or to Lorcan in specific?

Guess I’ll make comparisons when I get more Essence from others of his kind. As I intend to. This is my so-called “power” after all. I may have use for it soon enough.

For future comparison and utilization, I have the un-scraped portion of Lorcan’s Essence, which will soon make its way into the bottle I keep tucked away in my magical bra. And neither of them is any the wiser. It feels great pulling the wool over Godric’s for-once-unseeing eyes.

But what would have his essence done? Would it have followed him, too, as if longing to reunite with him? Or would it have roiled and raged against its confines demanding a way out? Would it have shattered its prison, and tried to square off with me? What would it have done when it discovered I can subdue it, as I’m sure I can?

I’m getting sorrier by the second that I didn’t capture it. I would have loved to leash that ornery extension of him into submission.

As if reading my mind, Godric’s eyes harden, looking between me and the jar in suspicion. “Is that all you saw?”

“It’s not all I saw.”

Not a lie. I didn’t get all of Lorcan’s Essence. And I’m not mentioning I got none of his. Not until I understand why it reacted to me that ferociously. Maybe not even then.

No, no maybes. Most definitely not then, or ever.

I’m keeping any knowledge about his Essence to myself. I need any trump card for leverage against him.

I hand him back the jar. “I only take as much as what sticks to my hand. I never thought I could actually get it all.”

Also not a lie, just not the whole truth in this situation. I felt I could have taken his Essence—all of it.

He pouts in contemplation, and I again want to drag him down and lick those lips, even when no trace of blood is left.

I’m fighting the urge when his eyes sharpen in assessment. “You’re so unfit your body instinctively takes only as much as it can handle. But by the time I’m done with you, not only will you be as tough as a Pit Demon’s hide, but your old instincts will be wiped out and replaced by the ones I install.”

I mock-salute. “Sir, yes, sir.”

After he inflicts one of those singeing glances on me, he flicks his head at Lorcan. “You can leave now. I still have an hour with White.”

Lorcan pulls on his sweatshirt, smirking at Godric. “As long as you know it won’t take that long to ‘whip her into shape,’ mate. Don’t go breaking your new toy, eh?”

We both glare at Lorcan’s nonchalant back as he strolls away. Me because I can’t figure out his percentage of unfeeling Nephilim. And Godric probably on account of his irreverence, in front of me of all beings.

Then Godric turns to me. “Drop and give me twenty.”

Gaping up at him, I scoff. “I hope you mean twenty bucks. Though I still can’t give you those. Give me a year or so, and I can save up.”

A baleful glance. “Pushups—now, White.”

I shake my head. “Never done a single one. Twenty would need a miracle, if you Nephilim are into such things.”

“I know you attended mandatory school.”

“And you think they taught us PE? How sweet. As Owned slaves whose lives revolved around serving our masters, they let us attend school for only four hours, all focused on making sure we didn’t ‘graduate’ at the ripe old age of twelve or thirteen illiterate.”

His frown deepens. “So you never had any kind of physical exercise?”

“Apart from being on my feet fourteen hours a day at my demon’s dive—and doing everything else he ordered me to do, the moment he said it, the exact way he said it…” I shoot him a pointed, visual dagger between his eyes. “…no. I had to conserve the meager energy and calories I had for continuing to do so. You know, in an effort to reduce floggings to a bi-weekly basis.”

“No wonder you’re so weak.” But there’s something besides contempt and exasperation in his eyes now.

Realization? He never realized how the Demon-Owned live? How deprived and abused we are? How stunted? And what? He’s starting to sympathize?

What am I thinking? Sympathy? From Godric? Ha.

As if to validate my thoughts, he lifts his superhero chin and says, “That changes now.”

Backing away, I raise my hands. “Now now? Remember what Lorcan said! This toy is mucho breakable.”

“You’re no toy, White. You’re a weed that only grows stronger under adversity.”

“All those names you have for me. You’re so inventive, Goddamn.”

He makes up for the step I put between us, and his heat drenches me in delicious currents. “One more word and I’ll make them forty.”

“Go ahead. Make them forty thousand.” I push my sweatshirt up my arms and hold them up horizontally. “See these? Not happening. Not even one.”

He starts to open his mouth, only to shut it when his gaze flits to my spindly limbs.

Gotcha.

Poor nephilim. He wants to expedite my “transformation” so much, to get me out of his gorgeous hair faster, he’s trying to ignore his own assessment of my non-existent fitness.

Almost taking pity on him, I say, “I can try a few, from the knees.”

He grunts something I assume is assent, so I drop to the mat and attempt the move. I manage the lift off, my arms wobbling and aching. During the descent, they give out and I plunk face down.

As I flop on my back, he crouches beside me. “I thought I would have to start from scratch with you. It’ll take some strategizing to decide how to start below even that.”

“Yeah, waaay below.” I struggle to sit up, heart and body pounding with the exertion and his nearness. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

His eyes narrow with his signature fed-up expression, before he realizes I’m not being sarcastic, and they widen. “You are?”

I nod. “I’m even weaker than I thought. It’s really pathetic, and I hate it. I hate being helpless. So if you want to make me stronger, whatever your self-serving reasons are, count me in. All in.”

I extend my hand for a deal-sealing handshake, remembering his never-touching-me “preference” only when he ignores it.

As I kick myself for giving him another chance to treat me worse than dirt, he heaves up to his feet and stands like a monolith, smoldering down at me.

I can swear his voice has that reverb of momentous moments in movies as he says, “Then prepare to become stronger than you ever imagined possible.”