Page 62 of Angels Don’t Date

I let go of him so I could throw my hands in the air. “Your angels suffer, but it’s fine because they like suffering? How about this. I don’t like your angels suffering.” I jabbed his chest. “I hurt when they hurt.”

He slowly frowned down at me. “Really? Oh, you do. So much empathy.” His eyes softened and he sighed. “I’ve happily never had much of that, but if we’re bound, I suppose I’ll have to get used to it. That will make me a better Commander. My father’s retiring, and I’ve already been voted in. For three years I’ve been voted in, but I’ve dodged it.” He sighed again. “With empathy, I’ll be so easy to manipulate.” He shrugged. “All bad things come to an end.”

“You’re a Commander? How is that going to work with us…”

A sphere of flickering electricity appeared and then dissolved, revealing Pearly White and the other contestants gathered closely together in a crouch. “That’s what I call a finale!” Pearly said, straightening up and beaming around at the stones dissolved in weird patterns of what had been the castle.

Fellicci whimpered and put a hand to his face, over the werewolf’s bite. “I’m ruined!”

Banus growled at him. “Grow a spine, you nitwit! Who makes such a stupid deal? I should have bitten off your face sooner. That was the only redeeming part of this enormous waste of time.” He wandered off, raising his phone to call for a ride out of there, apparently cutting his losses.

Banus flashed an extremely attractive smile all around. “Well, I suppose this show is over. I need to get going.”

A stone gargoyle took that moment to land with a thud I felt through my bare feet. “Banus Jones, I’m taking you in for tax fraud.”

“Tax fraud,” I whispered, staring at the incubus.

He sighed heavily and his shoulders slumped. The gargoyle grabbed him over his shoulders and flew away, stones muscles flexing, and wings kind of similar to mine, enough to make me think that maybe they didn’t have to be a sign of my evil nature, because everyone knew that gargoyles were the defenders of humanity.

“So that’s what his deal was,” Richard murmured. “You don’t get a billionaire incubus on a dating show without a reason. Not that anyone wouldn’t want to marry you, but he didn’t know you. He did know that you’re friends with gargoyles.”

Was I friends with gargoyles? “But tax evasion? That’s just not very romantic.”

Richard eyed me. “What is romantic?”

“Well, our boat date would have been romantic if you didn’t life-bind me while I was sleeping.”

He tsked. “I definitely should have thought it through before life-binding you against your will.”

“You should have thought a lot of things.”

He nodded soberly. “Not to say that I regret it. It saved your life, and I’ve been well and thoroughly in love with you for years. Your life is worth any price.”

I thumped his muscular chest. Why did he feel so good? “You can’t be serious! Not any price. Your comrades suffered needlessly!”

“To defeat an evil creature, they are very happy to suffer. Angels are always full of suffering, this just give it some purpose.”

I glared at him. Of all the idiotic things to say! “How can you be so irresponsible? You owe them all an apology.”

He looked around. There were no angels. Where did everyone go? Pearly White was checking some equipment to see if it was salvageable, but it didn’t look like it. Everyone else on the crew seemed to have taken off when they had the chance.

“I’m very sorry,” he said loudly, lips twisting into a smirk.

I grabbed his shirt, or rather Mitt’s shirt. “Why do you keep wearing this?”

“Because someone keeps stealing all of my other clothes. I had a whole set of floral embroidered stuff, but the angels get their revenge. But they can’t steal someone else’s clothing. That would be wrong.” He rolled his eyes.

“So they torture you?”

“All the time.” That smirk. And those gleaming eyes, like he liked being tortured.

“Probably not as much as you deserve.”

“Certainly not.”

I had the flickerings of an idea in the back of my mind. I spoke slowly while I twisted my hands in Mitt’s shirt. “And so you can’t, in fact, buy your own fantasy wardrobe, because it’ll be stolen by the avenging angels? Then you need me to buy it and keep it for you.”

He went very still as he stared at me. His words were carefully devoid of emotion. “I need you. Yes. But only if you want me to need you. I’m not forcing you, and my father isn’t forcing you, and your father…” He made a face. “I’m sensing a theme. I’m truly, truly sorry I became one of the fools who didn’t see that you’re strong enough. More than enough.” He sighed and took a step backwards, but I was still attached to his shirt.