The Devil's Favourite Obsession

The complete way Lily had been seeing Cixi shifted.

The girl behind the counter, with whom she had been working for six months, was no longer in Lily’s private accounting. The girl who smiled genuinely was a woman who had been hurt at a specific college by a specific man, and left the college because of it, and despite being, in any of the six months of their shared shifts, able to say the sentence aloud.

If she could get Cixi back with her college friends, they could sort out all the misunderstandings. Then Cixi would not have to keep running from them, and it was possible that it could bring peace to her heart.

Silviya truly missed Cixi. Good friends could not be replaced. So she made a plan. A soccer match. Meeting in public. Nothing could go wrong there.

She worked on the plan diligently. She did not tell Cixi. But she knew Cixi was going to love it.

On the other hand, Zoyar was back at the cafe. He was holding all his meetings there now, as if it had become his den.

When he was not in a meeting with scary-looking men, his attention went to Lily.

Lily pretended not to notice.

Meanwhile, Cixi was looking at Zoyar in a new light. Cassian had showed her, previous night, what he was. If Cassian was what he claimed, then the men Cassian sat with in ordinary rooms were, more likely than not, the same species. She had never studied Zoyar’s face closely. She studied it now, and could not name what she was seeing.

Did that mean his associates were demons too?

She slipped behind the counter and busied her hands with the cups.

”Lily. I have a question.”

”Shoot.”

”Have you ever looked in a mirror, and instead of your reflection, seen someone else?”

Lily’s frown arrived slowly before she turned. ”Horror movies are your new thing now? Bored of the true crime?”

The joke covered a spike of worry underneath. Was this the depression finally landing? Six months on from the Felix business. Was this what depression looked like on CCixi?Lily smoothed her face before Cixi could catch her reading it.

If she ever met that Felix guy in person, she was going to kick him in the groin and smash him into pieces. She kept the promise inside her chest.

”Tell me.” Cixi’s voice stayed low.

”I would visit every temple in the city.” Lily shook her head, thinking of someone else’s face inside her own mirror. She knew she would faint on the spot. ”Or a psychiatrist. To check I was still all right. Why.”

”No reason. Just wanted to know how you would react.”

Cixi turned the answer over.

Temple. Psychiatrist. Lily was the right kind of normal.

Cixi was not. Because she didn’t consider going to any such places. She was cursed. She was immortal. Or she had been, until Cassian had laid a mark on her neck while he was pleasuring her. Did the mark mean he had or might have fallen in love with her?

Her eyes widened with cocktails of emotions. She did not know whether relief or foreboding sat heavier in her chest. Relief that the curse might have snapped. Foreboding that she would age on one side of the bed while Cassian stayed untouched on the other.

She needed the Reaper.

The Reaper had never handed her the manual to her own curse. She had been discovering the rules one wound at a time. What kind of curse arrived with no instructions? She scoffed internally

”I will be going and taking customers’ orders.” Cixi stepped from behind the counter and crossed the floor to Zoyar’s table. Zoyar had already waved the other waitress off for another order.

”I will take this one,” Cixi murmured to the other girl. Understanding Cixi, she went the other way without protest.

Cixi arrived at the table, smiling at him. That smile never reached her eyes.

”Why are you here every day? Like this is your home.”

Zoyar’s brows lifted.

”I mean it. You had never come near this cafe before this month. What do you actually want.”

She already knew the answer. She had watched his eyes across three shifts. But now she wanted him to say it aloud.

Was Lily the whole reason? His face gave her nothing.

She already knew. She had watched his eyes across three shifts. She wanted him to say it aloud. But she wanted to hear from him.

Was Lily the whole reason. His face gave her nothing.

”Was it not obvious where my interest lay.”

Zoyar’s grin arrived slowly. His gaze travelled her face the way a man watches a child ask a foolish question. She had made a fool of herself. He wanted her to feel it.

”Who are you really.” Cixi held the pad in front of her chest, a thin barrier.

”I am Zoyar. I work for Binge.” His smile sharpened. ”Would you like my work address to verify.”

His rudeness slid off her. She had grown up on worse.

”Are you a-a demon.” She had another question for him. A very important one.

Zoyar laughed. Loud enough that the men at the neighbouring table turned their attention, then turned it back.

”Gangsters. Mafia. Assassins. All human.” He wiped the corner of his eye. ”I remain unsure about serial killers.”

His smile shortened. His gaze cooled.

”You would do well to remember how fortunate you are, Miss.” His voice dropped. ”That the Devil is enamored of you. For a question that insulting, from anyone else, you would already be lying in a pool of your own blood.”

Cixi forced a smile onto her mouth. It did not soften anything behind it.

”And you would do well to remember how fortunate you are.” She matched his register. ”That Cassian did not hear a single word you threw at me just now.”

Zoyar’s laughter died in his throat.

The silence stretched.

His attention pinned her. Yet she did not lower her gaze.

Then his mouth broke into a grin again, slower this time, and the laugh returned, low and amused.

”Indeed, Miss.” He leaned back in his chair. ”You know precisely how to wield the power you hold at this moment.”

He offered nothing more. He returned to his coffee as if she had been dismissed by his silence.

Cixi walked away from the table without taking an order.