“I don’t want secrets between us.” I unlocked the safe, and foul magic seeped into the room. “I would rather you know the worst before we go any further.” I shrugged like it didn’t matter, like I wasn’t doing my best to open my heart to him. “I want you to understand what I am, and what I have the potential to become.”
A nightmare.
A misery.
A monster.
The safe’s contents held no interest for him. “How long have you been collecting?”
“Since my first case.” I tucked the bag of ashes in the back and set the book in its usual spot. “Why?”
“Did you ever use them?”
“Uh, no.” I laughed as I spun the dial. “They call to me. Loudly. Answering seemed like a bad idea.”
The whispers had only grown in the last few weeks, and I suspected the less stain on my soul, the more susceptible I would become to the persuasion of those artifacts. Yet more incentive to relocate the safe.
“You’ve been hiding dangerous artifacts from the world since you were a teen lost in the throes of black magic addiction?”
“I don’t know if I would phrase it like that, but yes.” I flicked a wrist. “That’s not the point.”
Who knew what my toxic brain thought it was doing? Stockpiling weapons for when I decided to burn the world to the ground? I must have had my reasons. I must have had a plan. But I couldn’t tell you now what it had been. Could be I was simply too high to think straight enough to use them.
I had been shocked when I came to my senses and picked through the trove I had squirreled away with kleptomaniacal glee during my darkest years. I wanted to believe I was a guardian, and I had been, for a decade. Before that? I wasn’t as sure, and I didn’t want to examine it too closely.
The thing about addiction was, if you got high enough, you believed you were bulletproof.
Most likely, I had considered myself invincible. Far too mighty to lower myself to dipping into my goody stash.
“It’s exactly the point.” Asa took my hand and pulled me down next to him. “Even at your worst, you tried to be better.” He searched my face. “You want to believe the worst in yourself, just as you want to credit your successes to Colby, but it’s not that black and white. You were evolving before you met her. You were struggling to surface before you met Clay.”
“You’re giving me way too much credit.”
In the back of my mind, I had probably been building an armory to take over the world or something equally insane.
“You’re not giving yourself enough credit.” He cupped my cheek in his palm. “You never do.”
“One day, I’ll be the person I want to be, and then we’ll see.”
“There is no finish line for you, Rue.” The edge of his thumb brushed my lips. “You keep moving it before you cross it.”
A frown pinched my mouth. “You might be right.”
I wasn’t ready to accept pats on the back yet, but I could see there was a problem with my goal of hitting a specific target when I kept pushing the bull’s-eye farther and farther away.
“I am right.” He lowered his head. “You’re a good person. You have to make your peace with that.”
“This cocky version of you does things to me,” I admitted, sliding a hand down one of his braids. “It’s sexy when you stop hiding.” I flipped the end of his hair back and forth. “This doesn’t count as a hair job or something equally inappropriate, right?”
Sputtered laughter rocked him back, and he couldn’t meet my gaze, which was adorable.
“No.” He coughed into his fist. “Hair jobs aren’t a thing.”
“You understand I had to ask.” I kept hold of his braid. “You’re purring, you know?”
“I’m happy, not horny.”
Now it was my turn to snicker into a coughing fit. “You said horny.”