I couldn’t breathe, and I hung my head and pretended it was all right as the black soaked in, coating me in another layer, molding to my sense of self and changing it. My demon marks throbbed, and I scrunched my eyes shut and listened to my pulse thunder. I accept this, I thought, and the band about my chest loosened. I took a gasping breath that sounded like a sob.

Tears were leaking out, and I realized someone had a hold on my shoulder as I sat with my back against the cupboards. “Jenks?” I burbled. I felt a moment of despair as I decided it didn’t hurt as much this time. I was becoming used to it. Damn it, I didn’t want this to become easy. It should hurt. It should scare me so badly that I never wanted to do it again.

“You okay?” he said, and I nodded, not looking up from his knees so he crunched before me. He had nice knees. “Are you sure?” he asked again, and I shook my head no.

His breath came and went, and I didn’t move, trying to realign my thinking. I was a demon curse practitioner. I was a dealer in the black arts. I didn’t want to be. I didn’t want this.

I brought my head up. Relief tricked through me as I saw only concern, not disgust, in his worried face. I pulled my knees to my chest and held them, breathing slowly. His hand was still on my shoulder, and I wiped my eyes. “Thanks,” I said, gathering myself to get up. “I think I’m all right now. It hit me hard is all.”

His green eyes were narrowed in concern. “The imbalance?”

I stared at him, then decided he must have been listening the night Ceri explained it to me. “Yeah.”

He stood and extended a hand to help me rise. “I never felt anything when I got big.”

My heart clenched, and I pulled my hand from his warm one after I found my feet. “Maybe you’ll get hit with it when I untwist the curse and you get small again,” I lied.

Jenks’s lips were tight with anger. “You hurt like that when you turned into a wolf too. I told you I’d take the black for becoming big. It’s mine.”

“I don’t know how to give it to you,” I said, depressed. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t.”

“Rachel, that’s not fair,” he said, his voice rising.

“Just shut up and say thank you,” I said, remembering him saying the same thing to me when he agreed to become big so nasty-wasty vampires wouldn’t bite me.

“Thank you,” he said, knowing exactly what I was saying. We helped each other out. Keeping track of who was saving whom’s ass was a waste of time.