Angie Fox - ADS 03 - A Tale of Two Demon Slayers

Oh please. I backed away. How dare he hash out our relationship at a time like this? “I thought this was about my training.”

His eyes flared. “It’s all tied up, believe me.”

Okay. Well then maybe that was part of my problem. “I don’t belong here and I certainly don’t belong with you.” I’d felt it on some level since I’d gotten here, and I’d only grown more sure as time went on.

Did I really need another lesson like the one I’d gotten sitting outside his sisters’ door tonight? Alone. Knowing I didn’t belong and wanting it anyway.

It was torture and I refused to keep doing it to myself.

Dimitri opened his arms wide. “Come on, Lizzie. Tell me what you really think.”

He was the most annoying, infuriating, single-minded oaf I’d ever met. “I have no clan.” I didn’t belong here. When it came right down to it, I didn’t belong anywhere.

Didn’t he understand? “I can’t settle down. Not here. If I’m going to be a demon slayer—and I’m working hard to be a darned good one—I have to go where I’m needed.” Yes, the Red Skulls may be easy to get, but they were also the types who would follow me anywhere. After thirty years on the run, they didn’t know anything but the open road. Dimitri wanted a home and a wife. I couldn’t give him that. Not right now, at least. Maybe not ever.

He reared back. “Have you ever bothered asking me what I want?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Dimitri valued family above all else. He’d been willing to go to hell and back for the chance at a normal life.

I’d finally met a guy who wasn’t afraid to commit, and I couldn’t have him.

His eyes blazed. “You don’t know jack about what I want because we haven’t taken the time to stop and talk about it.”

“And now is the time?”

“Hell, yes.” He gripped my arms. “Everything has to fit in a nice box with you, doesn’t it?”

“It helps,” I said, purposely flippant.

“That’s not life.” He broke away. “In fact,” he said, backing toward the scarred wall, “you have to be okay with losing me in order to truly love me.”

“That’s ridiculous.” I’d almost lost enough people in my life without his making light of it.

“Is it?” He wrenched the nearest torch from its holder. This one had been used many times before. It burned low, almost to his hand.

“What are you doing? Put it away or it’s going to burn you.”

He held it at eye level as he stood against the wall. Shadows played over his wide shoulders and a fine sheen of sweat coated his chest. “Cut the flame.”

“What?”

“Cut the flame before it burns me.”

“Dimitri,” I demanded. He’d gone too far. I could fire and I was 99.9 percent sure I’d hit it. But I wasn’t about to play that game. “Stop it. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then don’t,” he replied.

Ridiculous. “Why are you doing this?”

“Other than the fact that I don’t believe you’ll hit me?” he ventured.

I braced a hand on my switch stars. “You always were the dreamer in the relationship.”

“And you’re the deflector,” he accused. “Not anymore, Lizzie.”

I stormed straight for him. “What are you trying to prove?” I shouted.

“That I’m here,” he ground out, back to the wall. “I’m not leaving.”

It was an impossible promise—completely out of place in the real world. People left. There was always a reason. I’d abandoned my friends and my coworkers in Atlanta to become a demon slayer. My adoptive family dropped me to an every-other-Sunday obligation as soon as they realized I’d never turn into the perfect country-club daughter. My biological mom had walked out on me when I was still in the hospital nursery. No matter how perfect you were or smart you were or organized—and believe me, I was trying to be all that and more—everyone left eventually.

So now, being the imperfect girlfriend who was about to lob a switch star at his head, I didn’t see any reason why Dimitri would stay.

“Damn it,” he spat. “Believe in yourself. Just this once—trust yourself.”

The flame inched lower, toward the edge of his hand. He had to feel it. It had to burn. He ignored it, his entire attention focused on me.

“You have amazing powers, Lizzie, and you won’t use them because you don’t even think they’re there for you. You don’t trust them.”

I watched the flames lick lower. “I don’t understand,” I protested, with more than a hint of desperation.

A rivulet of sweat trickled down from his hair. “Why didn’t you levitate outside?”

“What?”

“You climbed the damned rocks, Lizzie. Didn’t it even occur to you to use your power?”

No. The horror of it crept over me.

It hadn’t.

What kind of a demon slayer was I?

“You don’t trust your powers,” Dimitri said, “just like you don’t think my love for you is something that bolsters you, that fills you up. You look at me—and your gifts—like a damned obligation. It’s insulting.”

I opened my mouth and closed it. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“Don’t you ever imply that my loving you is a mistake.” His hand shook under the flame. “I don’t make those kinds of mistakes. Now back up and throw the damned switch star.”

Oh my word. The fire almost touched him. My palms sweated. I could feel the blood thundering through my veins. He trusted me. He loved me. Could I find it in myself to accept that?

I backed up to a place where I could—if I dared—make a good shot.

My fingers touched my belt and I unhitched a switch star. The blades churned as I held the glowing pink weapon out in front of me, watching the sparks of energy that flew from its blades. Then I hurled it at Dimitri’s torch.

I watched it with a mix of pride and horror as my switch star cut the flame away.

Dimitri, the jerk, stood motionless as smoke curled around him, the jagged remainder of the torch cut right at the edge of his hand.

“How did that feel?”

I swallowed, my mouth dry. “Awful.”

“Good. Then you won’t make me do it again.”

Dimitri tossed the ruined torch on the ground and closed the distance between us.

He swept me up in a kiss that stole my breath away. Electricity slapped through me, the charge of what I’d just done and what this man meant to me. I tipped my mouth up to his again and again as his arms closed around me. When I had him like this, so good, so right, it made everything else worth it.

“I don’t deserve you,” I whispered against his shoulder.

“You don’t.”

“Then why are you here?”

He tipped his head toward mine. “You know I’m willing to go to hell and back for the people I love.”

The very idea sent my blood pressure up a notch. “That kind of loyalty can get you into trouble.”

“It always does.”

I looked at him for a long moment, this man who wanted me to do the impossible. He believed it.

Did I dare?

He ran his knuckles along my jaw. “If you don’t believe in yourself, if you don’t trust your magic, you can’t use your magic,” he said against my lips. “It doesn’t mean the magic isn’t there. You don’t trust my love for you, so you dismiss it. But that doesn’t mean my love isn’t there.

“You can count on it.” He caught me in another mindsearing kiss before he pulled away, the intensity in his expression nearly taking my breath away. “And it isn’t going away, whether you feel you deserve it or not. Because it’s not your choice.”

I pulled him toward me as he shoved us both back against the scarred wall.

Tears clouded my eyes. “It’s not you,” I said, fighting to be strong. “I accept you. For heaven’s sake, Dimitri, you’ve given up everything for me. That’s the problem. It’s me. I can’t accept me and I can’t accept that my life will do nothing but screw up yours.”