The Wounded Heart

by K. D. Worth

  I leaned in close enough to kiss but paused to study every inch of his face from his intentionally messy hair to the little freckles on the tip of his nose. “You don’t have anything to be jealous about, that’s for sure.”

  He studied me back, eyes crossing a little we were so close. “You swear?”

  I held up my pinky—our ultimate personal oath. “Pinky swear.”

  Letting out a sigh, he hooked his pinky with mine and pulled me in for a little kiss. “Okay, then.”

  I glanced around to see if anyone had noticed the PDA and smiled when no one had.

  A kiss in Paris?

  It might be cheesy, but I couldn’t think of anything more romantic.

  Though still exhausted from the crossover, I wasn’t in a hurry to go back to our dorms. After Slade’s frightening revelation, he’d left us here and that was almost like permission to stay and enjoy one last hurrah before we were put on lockdown. Right? I was already depressed about my parents’ divorce and ashamed of keeping secrets from Max, but now this shade business? And the fact that shades were magnets to nightmarish spirit zombies?

  Maybe a little stroll hand in hand with my boyfriend in Paris was just what I needed. Otherwise I might explode with worry and anxiety over everything happening in my life. Surely no different than expecting an aspirin to heal a broken leg, but I would take what I could get.

  “Did you notice anything?”

  Max shook his head. “Notice what?”

  “That Slade left us here,” I hinted. “He said we couldn’t go anywhere but the dorms, but he didn’t say we had to go right now. He knows where we are, so as far as I see it, we have permission to stay until he calls you, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess it does.” His grip tightened a couple times. Max’s hand sweated and so did mine. Warmth simmered inside my chest, something unique that only Max could do to me.

  “Yeah,” he repeated, moving in to kiss me.

  That breathless hesitation, those delicate heartbeats right before we kissed created quite possibly the most perfect moment in the universe. Nothing in the world mattered during those milliseconds, nothing but peace, harmony, and love. In that instant, the pressures piling up on me were a distant memory.

  His lips gently brushed mine, and I turned my head to take the kiss deeper, to let my tongue play with his for just a moment.

  Pulling back with a sleepy smile, he stroked my cheek.

  Every inch of my skin tightened, some areas more than others. Being with Max, touching him intimately, always took me outside of my own thoughts and fears. Though the sensation was temporary, I lived for these moments. As soon as they ended, however, reality consumed me once more. But for now—I kissed him lightly—I could almost forget my afterlife was crumbling around me.

  I let out an airy chuckle. “I guess people are right. Paris is the most romantic city in the world.”

  He lowered his hand to my forearm, and then we played with each other’s fingers as we held hands. “This city is pretty cool. But it would be cooler if we could find our own place. Somewhere just ours.”

  “Like the diner where you bought me ice cream?”

  He gave me a shy grin laden with meaning. “I was thinking more like your old dorm room.”

  Heat flared across my middle as I remembered being alone with him, shirts off, hands roaming, the kissing, the thrusting…. Awkwardly, I cleared my throat. “Yeah, that would be cool.”

  As we gazed into each other’s eyes, the longing and want was so electric it always surprised me we didn’t create sparks.

  How many times had we lamented that we really had nowhere to be alone?

  When we weren’t training in the library, we lived in dorm-like housing Slade had conjured. At first, I’d thought I would be staying with Max, but Slade sat us down with instructions to lay off the physical part of our relationship and get our lives in order first. Unlike when the brothers at Camp Purity talked to me, I hadn’t felt dirty or ashamed with the way Slade handled the topic. In fact, I’d been grateful he’d sent us to separate rooms because going much further than we’d already gone had scared me at the time, no matter how much I wanted it.

  No, I didn’t feel guilty kissing Max or ashamed of my feelings for another boy like I had in the past. Death was a surefire way to drop human stigmas and prejudices—even if it couldn’t change personalities. But after three months, being alone together had become almost a mission. With the other reapers always around, however, and the rule of “no closed doors”—even Heather and Tristen had to follow that one—I didn’t know if we would ever get the alone time we both constantly fantasized about. Stolen kisses, quick groping sessions in the library, and secretly touching Max’s butt when no one could see had become torturous foreplay to a main act that seemed like it would never happen. Max’s best friend Meegan always hung out with us too, making it almost impossible to get more than five minutes of real privacy. We even suspected she’d been assigned to chaperone us.

  “You know this is the first time we’ve been alone in a while?” I told Max.

  He smiled and kissed my cheek lightly, the gentle touch making my heart skip. “Yeah, all alone in a crowded city. I think Slade might win for the world’s best cockblock.”

  I threw back my head and laughed loudly. The woman at the table next to us glanced over with a frown, which soon morphed into an amused expression when she noticed our clasped hands.

  “But we’re here. In Paris,” I said, giddy with rebellion. “Do you want to go see the Eiffel Tower? We’re really close.”

  “Have you seen it already? Um, I mean, did Slade take you?”

  Though it was stupid, I really liked Max being jealous. But I couldn’t tease him too much. Max was more sensitive than he liked to admit. “No, he didn’t. We just have coffee here once in a while, and we don’t stay that long. This café is the only part of the city I’ve seen. But I looked it up on my phone, and I think the Eiffel Tower is next to a park down the street. Do you wanna go?”

  His face lit up. “Absolutely.”

  We got directions to the Champ de Mars from the garçon, and he assured us in a thick accent, “You boys will not get lost. C’est très simple. Follow that street and you cannot miss la Tour Eiffel. Just watch for pickpockets, vous comprenez?”

  After promising we would, we paid for the coffee with the euros Slade had given me. Hand in hand we left the café and headed down the street. The cool morning was perfect for a walk, and a gentle breeze fluttered the trees above us. We could still hear the musician playing, but the chords eventually melted into the delightful, busy sounds of the city.

  But not even the charm of Paris or Max’s hand in mine prevented me from flinching when someone passed us. Slade had been shielding us in the human realm, and though it was broad daylight and he doubtless still shielded us, the realization that otherworldly things were out there, searching for me, sent a chill down my spine. I rolled my wrist with the new bracelet, hoping it really could ward off evil. My heart thumped in fear when we walked by a small alleyway. But only a wrought iron gate lay hidden there, not a lost spirit hunting for me or any ominous black shadow beings.

  After a short stroll, the narrow sidewalk gave way to wide-open paths surrounded by green space. The garçon hadn’t been kidding. It really was très simple to find the park.

  “What do you suppose the shades want with me?” I whispered, watching a couple joggers out for their morning cardio and a pregnant lady walking her dog.

  He stopped and looked up at me. “Kody, I don’t know, but I’m gonna find out.” His confident, firm tone managed to ease some of my increasing nerves. “It was pretty stupid of me to think that I was being followed by wraiths.”

  “How were you supposed to know the difference?”

  “Exactly,” he said, annoyed at himself and Slade for keeping secrets. “I should’ve figured it out because they weren’t aggressive like the first two that followed us. I just thought I didn’t care enough to be afraid anym
ore after you….”

  I squeezed his hand, feeling so guilty that Max grieved my death for eight months when it had barely felt like twenty minutes to me. “I’m so sorry.”

  He forced a smile, I could tell. “You didn’t do anything, remember? And as far as the shades go, all the ones I encountered never did anything scary. I never even saw them, just felt the air get cold. They sorta lingered in the shadows, and I told them to go away. They weren’t threatening like those wraiths were. Like Slade said, they’re just spirits who’ve lost their way, ya know?”

  I made a face. “But the wraiths aren’t.”

  He pursed his lips tight, determination flashing in his brown eyes. “That’s what I’m here for. To protect you from them. Don’t worry. I’m going to keep you safe. I promise.”

  His conviction soothed me and I smiled. I wrapped my arms around him tight, squeezing his shoulders and pressing his face into my neck. The weight of the secrets I kept from him was irrelevant, because Slade had been right per his usual. I would tell Max and it would be okay. Danger might be headed our way too, but it didn’t matter as his arms coiled around my waist. Not for the first time, I realized how perfectly we fit together. “I love you, Max.”

  He flinched. “What did you say?”

  I lowered my arms, swallowing nervously.

  We’d never said those three little words to each other before.

  Taking a deep breath for courage, I repeated, “I love you, Max.”

  The smile on his face was brighter than the sun in the sky. “I love you too, Kody.”

  MAX—Chapter 4

  “SLADE?” I opened the featherlight door, entering one of those Japanese houses made of bamboo and paper I’d only seen in movies. There were even silhouettes of cherry blossoms and mountains painted on some of the white panels.

  Totally not what I expected.

  Given Slade’s penchant for weaponry, I’d imagined we would be having my first “lesson” on an archery field, or at a shooting range, not a fancy yoga studio. If he told me to say Namaste, I would laugh right in his face.

  Looking very Zen, Slade sat cross-legged on the floor, wearing white pajamas, and facing a set of open doors. When he remained silent, I walked over.

  “Shoes off.”

  Magically my shoes disappeared, and I mumbled an apology as I joined him. I nearly gasped from the view. An expansive mountain range lay before us, the sun sparkling across snowcapped peaks that seemed to have no end. The hazy cloud cover dancing in the distance gave it a mystical feel.

  “Where are we?” I whispered, the sanctity of the place lowering my voice.

  “Where I like to come sometimes.”

  The almost holy surroundings made me refrain from any sarcasm to his nonanswer.

  Slade’s chuckle startled me, out of place in this austere environment. “That’d be a first.”

  Even a magical Japanese studio didn’t damper his cantankerous attitude.

  Feeling a bit of the awe fade, I asked, “Are you gonna teach me how to use my lightning powers here? The walls are paper, won’t they catch on fire?” When I gestured around the room, right before my eyes, my clothing changed. I now wore the same style pajamas as Slade, but mine were dark blue. “Thanks for the warning.”

  “They’re not pajamas. It’s called a gi.”

  “If it looks like duck, quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck,” I said. “And these look and feel like pajamas, so they’re pajamas.”

  Chuckling, Slade stood, towering over me. His shirt was not fastened, exposing a bare chest completely void of tattoos—curious. What happened to all of his ink? No chest hair either, which made me wonder if he shaved it. The visual of Slade in the shower covered with shaving cream as he manscaped had me stifling a giggle, but I quickly pushed the image out of my head before he saw it.

  “Come.” He moved into the center of the room and gestured for me to stand in front of him.

  Keeping my tongue in check, I waited, bouncing on my toes with anticipation. I couldn’t wait to learn how to use my lightning power to protect Kody from the wraiths. I wasn’t too worried about the shades because they’d always been easy to scare off. But the wraiths were an entirely different mater. If they came anywhere near my boyfriend, I needed to be able to blast them straight back to hell.

  A flutter of heat simmered within but it didn’t expand.

  Try as I might, I’d never been able to redirect the warmth Kody caused me to feel into something tangible like the power I’d experienced fighting those wraiths.

  Reapers were stone cold, but when Kody and I touched, I heated up everywhere. At first I’d chalked it up to teenage hormones from kissing a guy—among other stuff—but when I thought he’d died, my body had returned to its normally cold reaper state. Since we’d been reunited, however, the heat had returned. This morning, while both human, it had been even hotter. His presence changed my body temperature from deep within and made me feel alive. Just the brush of his hand heated me, radiating outward until my whole body burned—I shuddered.

  “Are you finished?” Slade interrupted.

  My cheeks flushed. “Finished with what?”

  “This internal dialogue. I don’t care how hot Kody makes you. We need to get to business.”

  Though I never really liked Slade snooping around in my private thoughts, it was my own fault for allowing them to drift in his presence. I knew he could hear everything, but sometimes I forgot, and my thoughts wandered to things I didn’t want him to know. On more than one occasion, I’d wondered if he was doing something to me, just to get me to spill my guts, but I’d never asked.

  “So are you gonna teach me how to use this lightning thing so I can kill some wraiths?” I asked to cover my embarrassment.

  Slade laughed in that patronizing but wise way that got under my skin because I knew he was about to tell me something that would make him smarter and me dumber.

  “Max, you don’t kill them.”

  “What are you talking about? I killed those two at the diner,” I challenged.

  “No, Max, you’re a reaper with some cool powers and stuff, but you don’t get to kill souls stuck between realms even after they become wraiths. The wraiths just went elsewhere. They just left this plane for a time. Think of it like an email that you delete. It’s still somewhere out in this Cloud thing that humans have, but it’s not really gone.”

  Well, that sorta took the wind out of my sails. But if I was being honest with myself—totally difficult but I was trying—I was glad that I hadn’t killed them.

  I didn’t like the idea of killing things.

  “Okay, so I didn’t kill them. I just blasted them away from Kody. Fine, whatever. Do you kill them?” That wraith using the emo kid’s body had called Slade “the Hunter.”

  “Above your pay grade.”

  For crying out loud! Did he ever answer a direct question? Trying not to get too frustrated, I focused on the task at hand, not Slade’s reticence on Every. Single. Subject. In. The. Universe.

  “So how do I fight wraiths?” I asked. “I’ve done it once before, but—”

  “No, not today, Max,” he interrupted, and I couldn’t hide my disappointment. “We’ll get to that soon enough. For now I need for you to clear all of your thoughts.”

  Yeah, if I could do that, I wouldn’t have to worry about Slade reading them, would I? But rather than saying that, I said, “Okay. But how?”

  “Be calm. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Immerse yourself in the sounds of silence. Listen.”

  I shook my arms, trying to loosen the joints and psych myself up. I had to do this for Kody’s sake. Obediently, I shut my eyes and took several deep breaths through my nose, attempting to listen to the silence.

  Around us, a mellow wind fluttered the paper walls. Snow shifting on the mountains outside echoed in the distance. My pulse pounded in my ears. Thump, thump, thump. Each slow breath I took sounded raspy and wet, louder than the last. The building groaned a little as it
shifted. Crack, crackle.

  How did one listen to silence if there was noise? Didn’t the very word silence mean lack of sound? The longer I stood there being quiet, the louder everything became. How was I supposed—?

  “Max, you’re not being calm.”

  Opening my eyes, I fought to control my temper. “Look, Mr. Miyagi, I don’t see how doing yoga in pajamas or trying whatever weird Zen thing this is will keep Kody safe.”

  “Just calm down.”

  “Maybe I could be calm if I knew what was really going on.”

  Hey, worth a shot, right?

  Slade put a hand on my shoulder. “I understand you have questions, but I told you, you’re not ready for all the answers.”

  “Why not?” I knew I sounded like a petulant child but I didn’t care. “You dropped the bombshell that the shades are after my boyfriend. Why can’t you just tell me why?”

  The frustration in his face was evident. “Max, if you knew what I did, you’d shit your pants.”

  “That’s reassuring,” I scoffed, crossing my arms as my pulse quickened.

  He stepped away, speaking louder than was comfortable in this place. “Can you please stop arguing with me? Just this once?”

  On the verge of sudden tears, I managed to spit out, “I’m not arguing with you. I’m upset. I’m frustrated and I’m scared of what could happen to Kody. How can you not get that?”

  “Good.”

  “What do you mean good?” I snapped.

  “I want you to be upset.”

  “Why?”

  He turned those piercing gray eyes on me. “You should be concerned. You need to be afraid for Kody. That will, that desire to protect him, your love. All of that is the source of… what do you call it?” There was no mistaking his amusement. “Oh yeah, your lightning power.”

  Taken aback, his teasing tone didn’t annoy me like usual. Hadn’t Slade said love was the only power stronger than the wraith’s desire to live? Maybe that’s what I needed to conjure my power again.

  Finally we were getting somewhere!

  “Max,” he began, placing his arms behind his back—a drill sergeant in a gi. “Obviously meditation is not your strong suit. Your mind is too curious and too busy. Perhaps we can work on that later. Let’s try a different route. Close your eyes and concentrate on a memory. A memory of Kody. Something personal to the two of you.”