Page 105 of Demon's Beauty

“If you had asked me a month ago,” I say quietly. “There wouldn’t have been a single doubt in my mind. I was so… so… certain. I had a plan. I knew how it was all going to turn out, how it was always meant to turn out.”

“And now?”

“Now I don’t know a damn thing.” I let out a long breath. “Now everything is a mess, and I don’t know how to fix it or where I go from here.”

Finn makes a small, unhappy noise. “Soleil, I never meant to derail your plans or take you away from—”

“It’s not you,” I say, then huff a humorless laugh. “Or, well, it’s not you entirely. But I was already running before I met you. I freaked out. I can’t even say why, and that’s the most frustrating part.”

“You’re allowed to question things,” he says softly, soothingly, one hand rubbing slow strokes up and down my back. “You’re allowed to take the time you need and change your mind if you want to.”

“It would help if I had any idea what I wanted to change my mindto.”

“Talk me through it. What are all your options here? You’ve mentioned before what it would mean to Ascend, but talk me through all the paths you might take.”

I almost don’t answer him.

I almost brush the question aside and give him some half-hearted non-answer. I almost do what I always do and keep the problems to myself, handle them myself, don’t put the burden of my own emotions on anyone else.

But then I catch Finn’s gaze.

Crimson eyes so soft and understanding in the glow of the streetlamps. Expression open, trusting, like he really doesn’t mind helping me carry the tangle of everything I’m dealing with.

“Okay.” I think for a moment, take another a deep breath. “Path one. I Ascend. I devote the rest of my life to the coven, and I’m not allowed to marry or have a mate bond or put my loyalty anywhere else.”

“Path two?”

“I stay here with you. I leave the coven and see what kind of life I might have outside of it.”

As I say the words, I’m surprised by how tempting the idea is. Not tempting enough to erase everything else, but tempting.

“And is there a third path? Something in the middle?”

“Not really?”

Truly, it’s hard to fathom what that would even mean.

“And you can’t create one?” he asks with an affectionate, teasing lilt to his voice. “My talented, powerful witch? I find it hard to believe you couldn’t do anything you set your mind to.”

A flush of warmth surges through me, magick sparks in my chest, and I try. I really do. I try to find an answer, an idea.

The only thing I come up with is incredulous disbelief.

A third path is absurd.

It doesn’t exist.

“There’s no way Esme would go for me being half in, half out.”

“No one’s ever done it?”

“No one I’ve heard of.” I run a hand through my hair. “Though I don’t suppose they’d be willing to tell us, if there was. Total devotion is the only path. I’ve gone far enough in my studies and risen high enough in the ranks that to turn away now would be unthinkable.”

“To who?”

“What?”

Finn cups his hand around my cheek. “Who would find it unthinkable?”