Page 49 of Wicked Flavors

Gwen didn’t have anything to say to that, but it still bothered Ambrosius how she was avoiding his gaze. How she found the energy to fight with him—even under duress, no less—escaped him. Ambrosius cupped her chin and drew her now amber eyes to him.

“You’re a warlock, my bittersweet. As long as you’re a warlock, you will continue to crave and devour humans until you go back to the earth. Youcan’tchange that,” Ambrosius said. “So, stop fretting over a mortal man, who would so easily have harmed you if you hadn’t been a monster.”

That spark in her eye was back. The one that she had whenever she was angry with him. It made her breath go heavy, made her skin look warm. Gwen looked like she wanted to murder him.

Good.

Ambrosius much preferred her angry and vengeful than whateverthishad been. He welcomed it as her hand smacked his away from her chin. It was anger and her need to devour that would keep her alive, not her humanity.

“Even if I accepted that—which Idon’t—it doesn’t change the fact that I’m in the apartment of a man who is dead,” Gwen snapped. “I don’t remember it clearly, but he was screaming. The walls aren’t super thin, but there’s no way someone didn’t fucking hear him!”

It appeared she was moving on from her littlemoralityissue, and that suited Ambrosius just fine.

“Yes, he along with every otherfuckinghuman out tonight are screaming at the fireworks in the sky,” Ambrosius reminded her. “No one heard him.”

As if to prove his point, a particularly loud firework boomed somewhere nearby. Ambrosius sighed, rinsing the washcloth before reapplying it to her mostly clean face.

Gwen jerked her face away, a hand circling his wrist as she glared at him, “That still doesn’t fix the problem that my neighbor is dead and my DNA is all over this place!”

Ambrosius laughed and allowed her to shove his arm away. Care for the dead, but none for those who were alive. Howfitting.

“Your ‘DNA’ won’t even be there, you silly girl,” Ambrosius tossed the soiled washcloth into the sink.

“What are you talking about? I scratched the hell out of him—” Gwen raised her hand, displaying her partially blood-stained fingers to him. “I have him under my nails, there’s no way I’m not on him!”

“Gwen, do you really think I would let you leave this apartment without covering your tracks?” Ambrosius asked. “I’m almost insulted.”

Before she could argue, Ambrosius waved his hand in the direction of the body. Traces of Gwen’s essence slowly sifted from the corpse and dissipated, melting into nothingness. Ambrosius even took the extra care to clean allthe blood and ichor, going so far as to iron out the man’s wrinkled shirt. Aside from the look of horror on his face, there wasn’t any sign of a struggle on the man’s body.

“That should take care of your concerns for now. At the very least, you won’t automatically be put on a list of potential suspects—not that they could stop me. Regardless, you’ll have to be careful moving forward. I won’t always be here to help you clean up,” Ambrosius explained as he adjusted his jacket.

Gwen hopped off the counter. “You’re saying this is going to happen again?”

“My bittersweet, I do enjoy our conversations, but you have a tendency of cycling through the same things over and over—”

“I don’t even knowwhatI did to him!” Gwen exclaimed as she stood before him. “At least tell me what I did, so I know how to handle this!”

Ambrosius felt his patience wearing thin. The evening had been vastly interesting, but he was only willing to strain himself for so long. The ache in his hip was pulsating, a sharp hook that anchored him to the pain. Ambrosius weighed the option of concealing the information from her, but relented when he realized it didn’t really matter how she fed, as long as she did so.

“You devoured his emotions, my bittersweet,” Ambrosius said. “All of them.”

“W-what do you mean—I—I ate his emotions?” Gwen glanced at the corpse. “How the fuck do youeatemotions?”

“The way you just did, of course.” At her tired glare, Ambrosius shifted, pressing onto his cane. “My powers are based on the nature of the unseen. I believe humans call itpsychic phenomena. Every demon has their own particular talent and their own unique palettes. I’m particularly partial to the corruption and subsequent fear of the human spirit.”

“You eat spirits?” Gwen blinked.

“No,” Ambrosius denied. “Well, not in a while. When there were less of you around, we would devour human souls whole. Nowadays, you outpace us quite a bit, and demons have grown gluttonous. Why eat an entire soul when you can sample them all?”

The answer didn’t seem to please her either.

Oh, bittersweet, you’re going to make eternity very difficult for us, aren’t you?

“But if you eat spirits, why did I…”

“Your appetite is based on your preferences, Gwen. You may have my power in your veins, but how they choose to appear is entirely your essence. I wasn’t lying when I said all I did was give you a push. You don’t…” he trailed.

Ambrosius knew he could never take back his next words, but he was too tired to continue the chase. And Gwen looked … well, it didn’t matter what she looked like.

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