Holy Hell, I hoped I was right … I gazed up at him, waiting for him to say something. His expression was thunderstruck, but his fingers were sliding up my ribs, my shoulders and throat until he was cupping my face.

“I’ve been avoiding you this past fortnight, Mouse,” he admitted, the bald truth of his words softened by the way his thumb caressed my jaw, the way his eyes glistened with feeling as he gazed down at me. “Not because I don’t want to see you—I always want to see you—but because there is … pressure, from my family, to complete my test run on the Soul Token … on you.”

I swallowed around the sudden lump in my throat, as heaviness settled in my stomach. “So, does that mean that we’re … that no matter what happens here …” I gestured between our naked bodies, my fingers trembling. “That this has to happen? That you have to take my soul?”

His lips tightened and he shook his head, his hands finding my shoulders and gripping me. “No. I won’t let that happen. I just need … I need more time, to work out how to undo what I’ve done. I don’t … I don’t believe that we can just return the piece I took the same way that I took it. I’m scared to try that, because it could end with the Token sucking more of your soul into itself, and I don’t …” His face crumpled, and like a flash, his arms scooped me into him, holding me so tightly against his big chest. “The last thing I wish is to cause you more pain, Mouse.”

“I wish you’d come to me and told me all of this instead of trying to worry through it on your own,” I mumbled. “We could have figured this out together.”

Slowly he released me, looking down at me with wonder in his eyes. “I thought you … after that morning, in this very bed, when you … when we … and then your expression changed. I thought you’d come to your senses, realised that you didn’t want … this … with me, when I’m who … what I am.”

A giggle erupted from me. “You fell into the miscommunication trope trap, SJ!” I cackled, wrapping my arms around his neck. “I warned you about that, didn’t I? It’s just lucky you came to your senses and invited me to your little Hell Shenanigan tonight, or you might have ended up needing to do some serious grovelling.”

“I did not invite you,” he grouched. “I would never have invited you into danger like that, to be accosted by my … by my own father, of all demons! If the Hounds hadn’t …” His eyes darkened, his mouth tilting into a scowl. “The bloody Hounds!”

I squinted in confusion. “Beezle and Bub?”