epilogue

SITRI

She’s whistling.

I stand on the balcony across the street from Isabel’s apartment and watch her smooth lips purse together as she whistles a Christmas song off-key. I didn’t even know she knew how to whistle. Not once did she do it the whole time we were together. With one slender hand, she plops a hunk of tinsel onto her tree. Her self-satisfied smile is infectious, and I can’t help but respond with a small twitch of my own lips.

It’s never aimed at me, though.

A long-forgotten sensation of loneliness, of isolation and disdain and bitter rage lies just beneath my skin. Human love, human emotion. Human weakness. A tragic flaw I can’t quite rid myself of, though I fight it like hell.

Isabel’s eyes move from the tree to casually glance outside. She sees me across the way, her body freezing slightly, curly hair framing her face like a halo. Then she gives me a curt nod to acknowledge my presence and turns her focus back to her Christmas tree. No warmth in her look. Nothing that reflects the centuries we spent together. Now we’re strangers, perfectly formal.

Perfectly nothing.

A strange pang settles in my chest for the briefest of moments as I remember the softness of her small, warm hand on my arm. The airy scent of her hair, the natural perfume of her skin. The surprised gasp of breath when I transported her to somewhere new, just begging to be explored.

Just a job, I tell myself for the hundredth time. Never anything more.

She suddenly turns her attention to her door and flings it open, squealing and clapping in delight when several friends pour inside. Including him. The sacrificial lamb who, in the end, saved her. From me, the big, bad, mean monster.

Really, I could laugh—so easy for them to paint life in black and white. Good and bad. So much harder to view the nuances, embrace the darkness in each of us.

I used to be like them. Flitting about my life, clueless, yoked by blinders I never even knew about. But it was so long ago I can barely remember now. I was willingly reborn as a demon, given power I never had in my mortal shell. Once that power coursed through my veins, I didn’t look back…not like she did. Hundreds of years, and she couldn’t shake off the shackles of her humanity.

I should pity her. But it’s hard to rouse pity when she’s obviously so damned happy without me.

The boy gives her a hug, closing his eyes and breathing in her smell, and I have to look away. My gaze wanders down the street below, slips and glides over the faces of a hundred more sheep, mindless chattel clomping about their day, arms loaded down with presents and decorations and other ridiculous desires.

A sharp cry on the corner draws my attention.

There’s a painfully thin teenage girl, her eyes flooded with tears, her fingers clawing at the arms of the brawny guy in front of her. “Don’t do this, please,” she says, her voice watery and weak. Everything in her body screams desperation, from the frantic tremor in her hands to the gnawing on her lower lip. Heavy mascara streaks down her cheeks. “I’ll do whatever it takes. But I don’t want this to end.”

“Sorry, but we’re done. This is over.” The guy pries her hands off his arm. His voice is firm but not unkind. “I can’t help how I feel. She makes me happy. And I haven’t felt that way with you for a long time now.”

“But—”

He shakes his head, turns and clips off at a rapid pace, leaving her staring, desolate, after his retreating form. Then her jaw tightens and she sucks in a ragged breath, crosses her arms in front of her chest. I can read her thoughts like I’m inside her head. There’s a glint of determination in her eyes—she doesn’t want to let him go so easily.

She’ll do whatever it takes to make him see she’s perfect for him.

The edges of a smile curl on my lips. Time to take my mind off what’s lost and focus on the opportunity in front of me.

After all, there’s work to do.