Looking at the diminutive blonde in his bed next to him gave him pause in his train of thoughts. For someone whose mind tended to ramble on without much pause, it came to a screeching stop as the gears that wound around grind against each other. Olive green met her new set of green eyes and something akin to guilt slid across his face. What it was really was something like trepidation, like he realized just how bad it all sounded. But that was how it always went – he clung like a parasite to the first pretty damsel he set his eyes on and dragged her down into his own level of hell with him, all the while sucking their life away. All at once, his heart slammed into his chest. For a second, James thought that it had stopped beating again and even lifted his hand to thump himself on the chest, clearing his throat when he did so. It made him blink, then awkwardly he moved his hand up to rake through the dark spikes of his hair.<br/><br/>“Don't look at me like that,” he accused in a hushed voice. Only it was an accusation aimed toward himself, not her. “Don't look at me like I'm the monster here,” he pleaded, his voice edged darkly. Fabric whispered against his comforter as he rose up to reach for her, fingers tracing her cheek as his eyes took a plunge into her own. “I'm trying--”<i>not to be a monster.</i><br/><br/>“It's a lot more complicated than it sounds. Anastasia, the demoness you're actually considering turning into the good guy here, does not have a savior's bone in her body.<i>Rescuing me </i>was just a demon's trick into garnering a favor from something that should have died in that cave, to be found much later as a skeleton, rotten and forgotten. What she did was damn me instead. Rather than end my suffering in that cave, she cursed me instead. If someone wanted to perform a selfless deed, an act of mercy, they would not have stolen their humanity from them and sentenced them to walk around in constant pain. No, the<i>Map </i>finds pleasure in<b>this</b>,” he growled out the last and slipped his hand from her cheek to snatch up her palm to place it over the pulsating heat on his leg. She knew damn well what it looked like bared to the air. “And whatever favor the she-bitch decides to cash in won't be a pleasant one, Lane. Demons don't have goodness in their hearts; they are wicked things.”<br/><br/>He couldn't go full on defensive though. James closed his eyes and settled back down, his hand releasing her hand. His entire frame flopped down on the bed and rolled over onto his back so that he could look up at the ceiling. The stubborn set in his jaw slackened as his expression eased back into something easier to manage, despite the fact that his brows remained furrowed as his eyes flickered around the pictures of his thoughts. “But she did save my life,” he remarked aloud. He went back to what he had initially said, grinned wryly as the words left his mouth, then chuckled low and ironic. “And she wants a life in return.”<br/><br/>And here he was trying to act like he couldn't guess, that he didn't know already. His head tilted to look over at the young woman. She didn't need to know the weight of his world. She was too young to understand how much he hefted up on his shoulders. His heart seized. He alleviated it with a shuddering sigh and stretched out his arm, his hand warm as it wrapped around hers to tug her closer. “C'mere.<i>Come here</i>. I want to hold you.” Maybe he needed to hold her – to hold<i>something</i>– so that he didn't feel like such a shithead. Or to give the illusion that he could have someone. “None of this is fair to you, I understand, but if you want to be treated like an equal, there's a lot more to this shit show. Anastasia might be the demon I'm hunting, but Aislinn came before her and started it all. But Amata is the woman that Anastasia is targeting. Or... at least, she's targeting my daughter, Mia.”<br/><br/>He visibly flinched when he revealed those three names, knowing that there was still the question of all the A's. He responded to that now with another mirthless chuckle, “I guess I have a type when it comes to A names. Maybe I should avoid them all together and stick with girls whose names don't start with that.” He jerked his arm to tug her playfully, even turning his head to grin and wink.