The Demon's Revenge (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 4) by Katherine Sparrow Page B

her around. They laughed and looked the part of the average young couple in love, even if he turned into a vicious wolf every full moon, and she would soon change.
    Behind Adam stood Merlin. My eyes swung to his, acting on their own volition. Anger, rage, and desire moved across his face before he smoothed his features into the still waters of an ancient wizard. We stared at each other. I fell into those eyes, into that place that I had returned to again and again in my life. That place that held all the love that I didn’t deserve.
    “You’re back early! Yay,” Lila said, and I heard the sound of another long kiss. “Oh, and Morgan is here. Crap. Morgan, if you could not throw any wicked spells at Merlin and mess up my place, that would be great. And Merlin, if you could, you know, not attack Morgan back, that would be….” Her voice fell off as she came to stand between us.
    “I won’t hurt him,” I said.
    “Because today is your day,” Merlin said simply, as though the sky was blue and I was dying and both carried equal weight. He saw it. Of course he saw it.
    I bit my lip and nodded. “My day,” I echoed.
    “What does that mean?” Adam asked. “Are you all right, Morgan?”
    “She isn’t and never will be, lad,” Merlin said. “She has done the most despicable thing a witch can. She has given up.” He strode past me into the room. I noticed a red scar across his hand. It was a scar from where I had hit him with a death spell. Odd. Our immortality should have healed it fully.
    “You’re just in time for Hell-door cookies,” Lila said, trying to sound cheerful.
    “Cookies?” Merlin turned and stared at me again. I got lost in it. There was a thin line between true love and mortal enemies, and Merlin and I had walked that line for far too many centuries.
    I let it all go, just as I would have to let everything go today.
    “Cookies,” I said and took in a deep breath and told them both about the unders causing trouble, about the Queen of Hell, and about our spell to find the door to Hell in order to close it.
    “A full day,” Merlin said mildly.
    I nodded. I hadn’t mentioned Lila’s episode with the patasola in Woodlawn Park, of course. Or what I truly planned on doing.
    “How about you guys? Did you find what you were looking for?” Lila asked.
    “Indeed and then some,” Merlin said and flashed a warning look at Adam, so swift that if he had not been my heart of hearts, I would never have noticed. What was he hiding? I itched to know, and then made peace with the fact that I never would.
    “It’s good to be back,” Adam said.
    Merlin added, “Your cookies smell good, but perhaps a tad smokey?”
    “No! I always forget my oven heats twenty degrees over.” Lila ran to her oven, pulled a crocheted oven mitt over her hand, and grabbed the smoking cookies out of the oven. “You two in?” she asked.
    Merlin nodded.
    Lila cut both of them in half so there were four pieces. We each took a piece. They were bitter and dry, and I ate it in two bites. I felt nothing, and wouldn’t, until the spell cooled and coalesced within me.
    Adam examined his half of the cookie. “You think the door to Hell has a doorknob?”
    “You think it just slides open like at the grocery store?” Lila asked.
    “I saw the door to Hell once,” Merlin said. All attention swung toward him. “It had both a knocker and a handle. That surprises all of you?”
    “I think we’re surprised you’ve seen the door to Hell,” Lila said.
    Merlin shrugged. He walked over to her couch and sat down. “Should I tell you the story? I think we have some time before the spell fully embeds.”
    “Tell us,” I ordered.
    He glanced at me and sighed. “Very well. Perhaps you will be able to relate to it. There was a time that I was lost. Lost for a long time.”
    I stood in the kitchen and shifted from foot to foot. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear this story after all. For he meant that he was lost after I had left him.