Page 3 of Bent Out of Shade
“Yes, darling,” Nav said absently, raking a lock of platinum hair off his brown skin.
Smirking, I nudged my ex, who blushed.
“What happened to not watching?” Eli muttered.
He’d informed me about a week ago that he and Nav were giving a relationship a go. I was thrilled that my gay ex-husband had found bliss with the best friend of the man I was stuck in relationship purgatory with. Would Laurent and I be as entertaining as the two of them? My smile dimmed. Maybe a better question was: would we ever get a chance to go on a date?
Eli pried my fingers off his hockey jersey with a scowl, smoothing out the wrinkles I’d made.
Sadie cracked her neck from side to side. “Okay, hold that chump down, Nav. I’m going in.”
He forced the demon onto its belly, pinning it in place with his staff. “Approach it from the side because its peripheral vision is rubbish.”
The crab-demon broke into a high-pitched, distressed chittering.
While Sadie waved at it like a photographer attempting to get a baby’s attention, her shadow sidled up next to the creature and laid its palm on a cluster of pustules.
Sadie shuddered.
“Gently,” Eli said. “Don’t break them.”
“Or I’ll die a painful death. Yup, I heard Nav the first thirty-seven times he warned me.”
“I don’t want to repaint,” Eli said mildly.
Sadie didn’t appreciate my smothered snicker.
Nav snapped his fingers. “Hush, the pair of you. What do you feel, Sadie?”
She narrowed her eyes. Unlike Delilah, her shadow didn’t have its own vision she could utilize. “A buzzing under its skin.”
“Can you catch its magic with yours?” he asked.
She bit her lip, her face screwed up in concentration, then shook her head.
“You said it was a long shot that she’d be able to null demon magic,” I said. “She tried. It didn’t work. Let’s wrap it—”
Sadie, Nav, and Eli turned identical looks of exasperation on me. I swear, even the demon looked annoyed.
Resigned, I swept out an arm. “By all means. Carry on.” I poked at a seam on a cushion, until Eli covered my hand with a look that said cut it out.
“Remember the visualizations I had you working on?” Nav said.
Sadie exhaled slowly. Her shadow moved its hand over the demon’s back, pausing and hovering over a back claw. “Here.”
“Now try,” Nav said.
The shadow’s light rippled like a wave crashing against the demon’s hard shell.
I leaned closer, engrossed despite my anxiety.
Sadie planted herself in a low squat. Her shadow rippled faster, but the demon continued to struggle, kept in place by Nav’s weapon. Finally, her shade fell apart, reforming on the ground like a normal one. “Its magic slips away. I can’t null it.”
Nav patted her head with his free hand. “It was a good try. Now we know that demons are a no-go for you.”
Letting out a relieved breath, I pulled off my sunglasses.
Bouncing on her toes, Sadie swung around to her dad with a gleam in her eyes. “Can I?”
