YUKI IS STILL AT the hotel I left her at, a couple cities away from Philadelphia. It’s only been a few days, but we’re rarely parted for that long or for that distance. Nothing short of me making her leave would ever convince Yuki to leave me. I learned that truth many years ago.
“What have you been doing?” she asks as she stands with her arms folded in the doorway of the hotel room.
I force her back into the room so that I can get inside, and then I close the door behind me. She continues standing with her arms folded. Her eyes are cold. She’s angry, but she isn’t going to express it in words or in anything else but this look and posture.
I say, “Distancing myself from the girl doesn’t work. I can’t find any angels, except for the ones near her. I decided I’m going to keep my eyes on her to see what I can learn.”
Yuki continues being standoffish. She even takes a few steps back from me when I walk farther into the room and seat myself on the bed.
“There are things in life beyond killing angels, you know,” she informs. “You’ve done enough. You’ve killed angels for over eighty years now. You could always just move on and forget about all of this. Have some fun like other demons. Terra is paradise. The angels basically don’t have a presence here, not when it comes to keeping demons in check. All the killing you’ve done has only made Terra safer for us.”
“There is nothing else,” I say. Then I growl. “My rage has not waned.”
Yuki finally drops her hands to her sides, making her seem slightly less closed off from me.
She says, “There is another option. I can kill the girl for you. I can get in and get out so fast that the angels won’t know what hit them. I was there, too. She didn’t affect me the way she affected you. If she’s gone, things will go back to the way they were before.”
“She didn’t affect me in the beginning either,” I state. “Drake did say she was the key to defeating demons. She must have some kind of power over us, and for whatever reason, it has a hold on me and not you—for now.”
Everything I just said sounds like a long shot. I don’t actually know if the girl would do the same thing to Yuki that she did to me if given the chance. I’m stalling. The truth is this: I don’t want the girl dead. My beast would sooner rip me apart than allow the girl to die. Even when my logician demands for her death, my beast is too powerful for my logician’s analysis to be acted on.
“Very well,” Yuki says curtly. “I will follow your lead, Arsen. I always have.”
I pull off my jacket and shirt and throw them onto the floor. My body feels stiff, almost like I’m still feeling the effects of that injury my beast and logician inflicted by fighting against each other. But that’s impossible. I get off the bed and turn on the water for the hot tub in our suite. Maybe the warm liquid will make this lingering ache go away.
I discard the rest of my clothes once the tub is filled, and then I sink into the soothing water. I let the warm sensation wash over me. Then I close my eyes and submerge even deeper. This is better.
When I open my eyes again, I expect Yuki to be ready to join me, but she’s not. She’s fully dressed and sitting down at the table, staring at something in her hand. I see only a flicker of it as it catches the light. It’s the same fiery crystal I gave her years ago, on the day we first met. She has never parted with it.
“Join me,” I say.
She replies, “Maybe later.” Then she places the crystal on top of the desk’s wood surface.
That’s unusual. I bring my arms to the edge of the tub and rest my chin on top of them. I watch her for a few moments, but she doesn’t move.
I shouldn’t ask this. I don’t really care. But I ask it anyway. “Is something bothering you?”
She says, “Do you think the mortal world suppresses a female’s ability to conceive?”
“What? That’s what’s bothering you?”
She ignores me and continues, “I was thinking maybe it’s like how magic is suppressed here. It must be even rarer here than in Ilenima for demons to have young.”
“Suppressed or rare perhaps,” I agree. “But not gone. We’ve met demon twins who were born in Terra. Solanis and Exones. They’re naive idiots though. Especially Exones. Maybe you haven’t heard of many young demons because they get themselves killed more often than they survive.”
“Still, we haven’t met many natural demons during our time in Terra. You’d think there’d be more of us.”
“Fewer demons means more room and more power,” I say.
“That’s not the point. We’d both feel it if the time came for me to conceive, but we haven’t, even though we’ve been together all this time.”
“Why are you even thinking about this? It isn’t important. It doesn’t change anything.”
She turns her head to look at me. “Don’t you ever think about it?”
“No.”
She sighs, stands up, drops her clothes down onto the floor to pool around her feet, and then she walks to the hot tub’s edge. I make room for her, and she slips into the water beside me. She twists around so she’s sitting on my lap while facing me. She plants her lips on mine and provides just the escape I need.
But it’s not the same.
It doesn’t work like it used to. I haven’t been truly interested in this kind of activity for many years. I’d still indulge, and my beast would still derive pleasure from it, but rather than my beast enjoying the ride like I hoped it would, it’s hesitant and even reluctant.
It’s like that girl has completely changed the inner workings of my beast.