Blaspheme slipped into her scrub pants. What was it with him and rules? He’d gotten himself worked up about her no-touching directive the first time they’d had sex. At the time, she’d thought it was weird, but she’d written it off as Revenant not wanting to give up control. But it seemed that this was something very, very different.

“So… you follow every rule?”

“Rules exist for a reason,” he said gruffly, as if she shouldn’t question it.

“What if they’re stupid?”

“It doesn’t matter. If it’s a law, it’s law.”

She rolled her eyes as she shrugged into her scrub top. “I read once that there’s a law somewhere in California that says you can’t dust furniture with dirty underwear. Are you telling me that you think people should be arrested for dusting their furniture with worn skivvies?”

“No. That’s a moronic law, and people shouldn’t go to jail for that.” At her triumphant grin, he held up his hand. “But if it is, in fact, a law, people shouldn’t get pissed for being arrested because they broke it. Stupid or not, it’s the law.” He pressed on the wall, and a hidden panel slid out of the way, opening up his bedroom to an outdoor forest of gnarled trees and funky bushes with thorns as large as her hand. “But straight up, I’d kill anyone who rubbed their skanky underwear on my furniture. Fucking nasty.”

He tossed the bag of garbage and leftovers outside, and almost instantly, a dozen furry things she could only describe as raccoon-spiders scurried over and demolished the bag and its contents. The panel slid closed again, and she could just shake her head at the weirdness that was so normal to him.

She was so lucky her mother had chosen to raise her in the human world where, comparatively, very little was creepy.

“Revenant?”

He swung back around to her. “Yeah?”

“Why are you such a stickler for rules? I mean, I know you’re technically an angel, but you live and work in Sheoul. You were raised here. Sheoul is all about chaos and lawlessness. So why are rules so important to you?”

He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, and she suddenly knew this was related to his hellish childhood.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“No.” He swallowed again. “I… want to. I don’t know why, but I do.” He made a beeline for the little portable bar in the corner, but before he reached it, he halted, head hung low, as if he couldn’t bear to take another step. “Is your False Angel magic acting on me? Is that why I suddenly have this burning desire to confide in you?”

“What? No. Of course not. This is me. Not some kind of enchantment.”

“But you are a False Angel. It’s in your nature to enchant and deceive.”

He had a point about a False Angel’s nature, but she had no idea how to convince him that she wasn’t using any False Angel abilities on him. Hell, she didn’t know if she even could anymore.

“As a False Angel,” she said, feeling strangely uncomfortable about saying that, “I can choose when to use my gifts and when not to. I swear to you, I’m not using them.”

He eyed her, and she found herself desperately wanting him to believe her. To trust her. And at the same time, shame was a weight in the center of her chest, because she wanted him to believe a lie.

How messed up was that?

And then the truth of the situation hit her so hard she almost took a step back. She was falling for him. Falling for a male who admitted to killing vyrm. And wasn’t that the perfect cap on this epically crappy day.

“I’ll take you at your word, Blaspheme,” Revenant said. “And I never do that, so don’t make me regret it.” Before her brain could process a response, he continued. “The rules,” he said, thankfully getting back to the topic at hand, “are important because breaking them always has serious consequences. My mother taught me that.”

“How well did you know her?” Blas had assumed he’d been raised alone in the cell he’d mentioned the other day.

“She… chose to stay behind with me after Reaver was taken,” he said. “She used to tell me that laws should be created sparingly, because the breaking of a law, even one that seems insignificant or stupid, has consequences. But I didn’t listen. I was a rebellious kid with Satan’s blood winging around inside me. My playground was a torture chamber, and my best friends were the same cell guards who tortured me.”

Blaspheme could only stare in horror. She’d thought her childhood on the run was bad, but she’d never complain again. Ever.

“Revenant, I’m so s —”

He cut her off with a please don’t gesture. She got it – she hated pity, too.

“So my mother tried to warn me. Pleaded with me to follow the demons’ orders and never disobey their laws. Of course I did everything I could to get into trouble. I didn’t give a shit that they beat me.” He jammed his hands into his pockets and looked down, his head hanging loosely from his hunched shoulders. “It didn’t occur to me that my mother had to watch it. And because it didn’t occur to me, I kept breaking rules. Then, one day, while I watched, they beat her instead. I didn’t mean to break rules after that, but sometimes… fuck.”

He scrubbed his hand over his face, and when he was done, he looked tired. Defeated.