Page 91 of Baking and Angels

Beside the cooling plate on the counter, Helena’s electric kettlewhistled.

Before he could react, she snatched it up and brought it over to a pair of cups waiting for them with teabags inside. She filled them up to the brim, then took the time to tend to both, bobbing the teabags until they were completely soaked through and steeping properly. While she did that, he cut out another set of cookies to place on a fresh sheet ofparchment.

It was all very domesticand homey.

He pushed the combination of buttons on the oven that set the timer. “We have enough for a half batch after this,” Rafferty said, rerolling up the dough to one smooth flat surface with a wood rolling pin, in preparation to punch out the last of it.

“Are you happy?” Helena asked, leaning against the counter with her back to it as she picked up her tea before it had finished steeping to blow over the surface of the hot water. “I mean with the cookies?” she added, taking a sip.

“They are alright,” he said.

She cocked an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with them?” Casting her gaze over their bounty, she took another sip.

“They’re plain,” he said, and they were. While he had found a nice flower cookie cutter from one of Helena’s drawers to punch the dough with, there was no real style to them.

“But they taste wonderful,” she said, plucking up a second one and bringing it to his lips. She waited, a twinkle in her eye, until he finally took a bite of the still-warm cookie. It burst over his tongue, shattering into thousands of little pieces by the pressure of his tongue with a fresh, light flavor. He couldn’t help it; his closed his eyes, a moan rumbling from his throat atthe taste.

“You’re never going to get used to that, are you?” Helena asked, her amusement barely contained inher words.

“Never,” he agreed around his chewing. Her fingers slipped into his and he paused, holding the tastes on his tongue. But he didn’t dare swallow.

“I guess you don’t need to hold my hand anymore to taste anything,” she asked. Then he felt that same eerie shiver run up his arm from where she touched him.

“Yes, no more sucking the life from you,” he whispered as his other hand drew the cookbook closer to him on the counter, the first line of the prayer resting on his tongue along with the taste of lemon sugar.

Lie down, lost one, lie down,he recited the words in his mind. He just had to bring himself to say them out loud. And this would all be over.

“You never sucked the life out of me,” she whispered, her lips tickling his own.

“Don’t… don’t patronize me,” he whispered back, the intoxicating tendrils of her allure slippinginto him.

“No, it’s true,” she insisted, setting a soft kiss at the corner of his mouth. “It wasn’t like the first time when you swallowed the memory whole, and I felt this… void then. It was like I knew something was supposed to be there, but it wasn’t there anymore.” She picked up his fingers she had captured to brush them over her lips, her warm breath making them tingle. “But after that, you gave it back to me. Whatever you took, came right back, more intense than before. More delicious.” She met his gaze, her gold eyes burning through him. “It’s how I knew you loved me… when we could share the tastetogether.”

Whatever traitorous words lingered in his mouth died as her words choked them. What was she telling him?

His memory raced back to before, when he had been a demon and she had so willingly given him her memories of taste, to pay his price and feedhis soul.

“You mean”—he struggled—“I didn’thurt you?”

“Nope,” she said, popping up on her toes to kiss the tip of his nose. “Anything I gave you, you gave me right back. You didn’t realize it?”

“No, I didn’t,” he said, shaking his head. “So when you gave me the energy back… I mean as weare now…”

“Yes, we both get everything we need. Maybe if more demons realized that sooner, there would be less need for, you know, all the bullshit you all do.”

His mind couldn’t comprehend it. This wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true.

It’s a trick. It has to be,his mind screamed. Demons don’t return energy. There isn’t enough for both. It was finite. She had tobe lying.

“I feel like ordering in tonight, I think the kitchen has been brutalized enough,” she declared, spinning to exitthe room.

She has to be lying,he told himself.

“Helena,” Rafferty said.

“Yeah?” She paused at the swinging kitchen door.

He didn’t answer immediately, instead looking down at the flattened cookbook under his palm, the words of the prayer staring at him in surreal, faded ink. “Lie down…” he tried to say, but the pain in his heart forced his mouth around the first words of the prayer and his eyes closed.

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