“Do you want to know how I felt at that moment?” I asked, poking him again for good measure. “It felt like … for the first time in a very long time, I had a man who wanted to have something meaningful with me! A man who cared about me … about my needs … about my feelings!”

“Hey!” Ezra piped up from somewhere behind me.

“Sorry, Ez! Present company excepted. But … maybe can SJ and I have a moment to sort out … whatever brain snap he’s having right now?”

I swiftly turned and gave Ezra a pointed look. His eyes widened, and he backed out of the living room. When I heard his bedroom door close, I turned back to SJ, who stared mutinously out the window behind me.

On the floor beside us, the Hounds had shifted into their ferret forms and were cavorting merrily with Luci as if I wasn’t desperately trying to wrap my head around his change of heart.

“What happened down there to make you come back like this?”

“Clarity,” he muttered. “That’s what happened. We are not compatible, and⁠—”

I snorted. “We seemed pretty darned ‘compatible’ last night.” I peered up at him. His strong jaw was hard with tension. He didn’t respond, but his eyes looked … miserable.

“You know what I think?” I asked, wincing at the wobble in my words. I swiped at another traitorous tear. “I think you’ve fallen in⁠—”

“Don’t!” His voice was an agonised warning. “Do not make ridic⁠—”

I stomped my foot and growled like a mad beast. He snapped his mouth shut.

“You’ve fallen in love with me, and you’re scared,” I snapped, poking him again. “You’re so afraid … because this isn’t what you expected to happen between us.”

“That’s not⁠—”

“I’m not finished!” Another poke, and he flinched. “You’re scared of how strong your feelings are because there are so many barriers to this working between us.”

Another tear swipe. Another poke at his chest. “You’re not human—so what? We kind of worked out that’s not a barrier for me pretty early on, didn’t we? Everything else we can work through …” I wiped again, but I was fighting a losing battle against a burst dam of tears. “If you do have feelings for me, you’d want to try. I know I want to.”

He inhaled deeply. I didn’t dare to breathe.

“I do not.”

A strangled laugh tore out of me. “Liar.”

“I’m not lying!” he snarled, with the tone of someone who knows they’ve been caught and is doubling down in their duplicity. “I do not want you! I might feel … enough guilt that I seduced you last night⁠—”

“Seduced me?” I scoffed. “Don’t flatter yourself! I came to Hell hoping the night would end up with us in bed together!”