The hard line of his mouth relaxed slightly. “Glorious?” he said.
She nodded. “I’ll cherish the memory of him rolling around in his own puke for the rest of my life. But it cost me my job.”
“I’ve heard,” he said. “It wasn’t my intent to make you lose your employment.”
Rose waved her hand. “No need to be so modest. You planned it all out brilliantly—getting me fired, cutting off my only source of income, all the while positioning yourself as my hero and savior.”
Declan’s eyebrows came together. “That is brilliant. I wish I would’ve thought of it. Alas, I was simply being charitable to a fellow human being. Brad needed to talk. All I could do was lend him a willing ear.”
Declan the Good Samaritan. She grinned. “You also generously lent him your fist.”
“Well, you didn’t expect me to slap him with an open hand. One simply doesn’t.” Declan smiled back. It was a genuine smile, and it transformed his face. Instead of a blueblood, in the space of a moment he became a man, a living breathing man, irresistibly handsome, and funny, and someone she wished she knew. The effect was shocking.
Rose looked at her feet, trying to hide her eyes before he saw her reaction. Which was the real Declan? That was the question.
“Back to Brad,” she said. “When he hit me with a bat, I flashed at him. It was a low flash, and it didn’t kill him, but it hurt him very badly. I still hear him screaming in my sleep. As far as the Edge is concerned, that particular crime has been punished. Now you’ve opened a new can of worms.”
“But it was a glorious can,” he reminded her.
She laughed in spite of herself and looked up at him. “Quite. Brad got his ass handed to him, and the Simoen family retaliated by making my job disappear. I don’t blame you for it. Nobody could’ve predicted that my job would evaporate. But at the end of the day, I still have no way to feed my family.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“It’s like a complex mathematical equation,” Declan said. “The balance must always remain at zero.”
“It doesn’t always. People get away with all sorts of things. But we do like to balance the books. People will give you a chance to settle things yourself, but if you go killing and maiming people left and right, pretty soon the entire town will pool its resources and take you down no matter how powerful you are. Let’s go back to Rob. He’s a worm, and propositioning me was a low thing to do. It was humiliating. I humiliated him in return. We’re even, and what’s best is Rob thinks that nobody knows about this but the three of us. He’ll remember it and you, and he’ll try to kick me if he gets an opportunity, but it’s not like he was beaten in public and became the laughingstock of the Edge. If you go after him and pummel him into pulp, he’ll have to retaliate. The Simoen family is large and wealthy. My family is very small. I shouldn’t probably be telling you this, but all I have are my brothers and my grandmother.”
“I deduced that,” he said. “I know that you love your brothers and wouldn’t rely on them for protection unless you had no choice.”
“I think you understand now,” she said. “I can’t compete with the Simoens. My flash is very hot. But if you beat up Rob, I might never get a chance to use it. The Simoens might just shoot me from some tree and nobody would blame them.”
“That’s wrong,” he said.
She shrugged. “It’s the way things are done here. I appreciate you making an effort to understand. I know that it must be very odd to you, seeing as the bluebloods are the ultimate authority in the Weird.”
“That’s not strictly accurate. The law is the ultimate authority. We’re simply better trained and educated to enforce it than most other people, but we’re as bound by it as any other citizen.”
“What does the law say about forcing a woman into marriage?” she asked.
“The law applies only to the citizens of the Weird, and you aren’t one.”
Ouch. Always on the outside looking in. Rose got up and brushed off her jeans. “Well, it’s good then that you’ll lose and head back home empty-handed.”
“I won’t lose,” he said. “But from now on, I’ll attempt to keep the social rules of the Edge in mind.”
She blinked, surprised. Declan had more twists and turns than Rough Butt Creek, which ran through East Laporte. First, he saved Jack. She could rationalize that—after all, if he intended to marry her, it was in his best interest not to stand idle while her brother was torn to pieces. But then he rescued Amy and her children, and followed her into the Broken, and now he conceded he was out of his depth, something she thought would’ve shattered his icy bearing. “Why did you save Amy?” she asked him.
“Why wouldn’t I? She was in trouble, and it was in my power to help her. That’s what any reasonable person would do. Why did you? You were ready to be bait to save a child of Leanne, who, by her own admission, tormented you in childhood.”
“That’s different.”
He leaned forward, interested. “How?”
Rose searched for words. She hadn’t really given any thought to why she had done it. She had reacted on instinct. “He’s just a boy,” she said finally.
“And if it was Leanne in that room, trapped? Would you still have gone to save her?”
“Yes.” How exactly did he turn the tables on her? She should be the one asking questions.
“Why?”
She pursed her lips. “Because nothing Leanne had done to me would be as awful as being torn apart alive by those creatures.”
“It was brave of you,” Declan said.
She didn’t care what he thought, she told herself. His opinion didn’t really matter.
“Let me stay with you,” he said.
“Not in a million years.” Declan, the blueblood, was dangerous. Declan, the human being, was ten times more so. “You really should stop trying to get into my bed, Declan. It won’t happen.”
“If I was trying to get into your bed, I’d do something along these lines.”
In her short dating life, Rose had been hit with a few “come hither” stares, but Declan left them all in the dust. He focused on her to the exclusion of all else, not really staring, but gazing in fascination, as if he were pulling her onto a tightrope above a chasm and didn’t care if they both plunged to their deaths as long as she came to him. It pierced her defenses, and Rose blushed, suddenly awkward and hyper-aware as if she were a teenager catching a boy looking at her and realizing for the first time that she was a woman.
“Rose,” he said, as if tasting her name in his mouth. “Let me in.”
She simply shook her head. It was all she could do.
“Shall I strip and try to entice you with my manly body?”
And just like that the spell was broken and she laughed. “It won’t work, but if you do want to make a spectacle of yourself, who am I to stop you, Your Excellency?”
Declan sighed. “ ‘ Your Excellency’ is the proper form of address for an ambassador or a bishop of the Zoroastrian or Catholic faith, as they style themselves as ambassadors of their God’s will. I’m neither a bishop nor an ambassador. When it comes to societal niceties, you’re hopeless. But have no fear—I’ll arrange for lessons. Lots and lots of etiquette lessons. Luckily, I have both money to hire the best teachers and patience to wait until you learn.”
She bristled, and instantly his face snapped into that blueblood stone-hard expression.
“I’ll get your things,” she told him and turned.
“You work very hard, and you’re too proud to take charity,” he said. “I find it admirable. But there’s a fine line between proud and unwise. As you pointed out, you’re a single woman in charge of two boys. You’re unemployed with no prospects of obtaining a new position, you’re facing a danger of unknown magical origin, and you’re ill equipped to deal with it. I need a place to stay. I’m willing to employ you as my hostess and will defend you and your brothers against this danger or any other for the duration of my stay. I have already sworn not to harm you and your family. You get money and a capable adult male under your roof, while I get a room and three meals a day. To turn me away is both foolish and irresponsible, and you’re neither.”