by Tara Fuller
I pulled away, and she watched me walk to the half-open window. I put my shoulder under it and shoved.
“Easton!” I turned to where she stood, hands clutched to her chest. “Don’t go. We can leave. Right now. We don’t need to stay here.”
I knew what she needed from me. She needed me to hold her. Tell her everything was going to be okay. Maybe if she’d been someone else I could have. But she wasn’t someone else. She was Gwen. And I couldn’t lie to her. Everything wasn’t okay. In this place, it never was.
“No worries, Red. It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
I climbed out and into the ash-coated world. It was time to pay the piper.
Chapter 15
Gwen
The floor beneath the bed vibrated with the muffled beat of music from below. On the other side of the wall, someone was screaming, screaming, screaming. I curled my fingers into the mattress springs, wondering if they’d ever stop. If they were trapped in this hellish place for eternity, probably not. Somewhere Easton was screaming. I hadn’t heard him. But I’d felt him. His pain. His desperation. It had traveled through the fragile bond that strung us together, showing me things he’d never want me to know. Somewhere he was suffering. For me. I squeezed my eyes shut, but tears pushed past the barrier regardless. They rolled down the side of my face and sizzled on the still-smoking springs. I’d never cried before this. I didn’t like it.
I shivered despite the blistering heat, wishing I had my robe. The awful leather I’d been wearing was draped over the dresser, drying. When the furnace had blown, I’d done just as Easton had said and submerged myself in the water until the flames died out. To my surprise, nearly everything in the room had stood up to the heat. I guess everything that could burn had burned long ago. I couldn’t help but wonder where Easton had gone to escape it. Had he escaped it? A sick feeling bubbled inside me and I clutched my stomach to calm it. He had to be okay. If he wasn’t…
I curled into myself, whispering a quiet prayer, and then I heard it. A scrape at the window. My entire body stilled, paralyzed by fear. The window slid open and someone…something crashed inside. A groan rose from the floor, and I scrambled up from the bed, when a dark throbbing cloud of pain enveloped me.
“Easton?”
He pushed himself to his knees and unstrapped his belt and blade, letting them fall to the floor. The dark room kept his face concealed. I was afraid to see. I needed to see. He climbed onto the bed and collapsed beside me.
“Oh my God…” I brushed the hair back from his face. He winced under my touch. Bruises blotted out his pale skin, and blood beaded up from a cut on his lip. “What did you let them do?”
“I’m fine, Red,” he said, voice raw. He reached up and ran his fingers through my still-damp hair. “You listened.”
“Of course I listened. And you’re not fine,” I whispered, feeling his pain as if it were my own. I could see it. Dark, violent waves, pulling him under again and again. “You’re bleeding.”
He was bleeding for me. To keep me safe. My heart swelled, and an achy, unfamiliar feeling overwhelmed me.
He closed his eyes. “Maybe I like to bleed.”
“Maybe you’re an idiot.”
He cracked an eye open and chuckled. “Wow. I managed to get an angel of joy to call me an idiot. I’ve seen it all now.”
“And I just heard the infamous Easton laugh,” I retorted. “So I guess I’ve seen it all now, too.”
His gaze drifted down from my face, and his violet irises practically glowed in the dark. “Red?”
“Yes?”
“Where are your clothes?” He didn’t take his eyes off of me, and I suddenly felt self-conscious in nothing but my undergarments. No one had ever seen me like this. I felt out of control with his eyes on me. Like I was free-falling toward something unknown and didn’t want to be caught. I pulled my knees up to my chest to cover myself and wrapped my arms around my legs.
“They got wet in the tub,” I said. “I didn’t like how the leather felt against my skin.”
He finally tore his gaze away and stared at the ceiling, clenching his jaw. After a moment, he leaned up, groaning. He lifted his arms a little and cursed under his breath.
“Help me get this off, will you?”
“Your shirt?”
He nodded, so I reached over and gingerly helped him pull it over his shoulders. Once it was off, his head rested against the wall, and he grimaced. “Now put it on before I do something I’ll regret.”
I didn’t really know what he meant by that, but I was grateful for the clothing. And the view. Easton looked like a living piece of art. Muscles and scars defined him, telling stories he’d never himself admit out loud. His chest heaved, pushing and pulling the scorching air from his lungs. It was mesmerizing to watch, to see him like this…flesh and blood…alive. I suddenly couldn’t get past the need to touch him. It wasn’t just the overwhelming joy pulsing beneath my skin and pressing against my ribs, making me feel as if I were about to be torn in two. It was something else. Something undeniable, an ache that could be soothed only by laying my skin against his.
Without thinking, I ran my fingers over the ridges of his bruised abdomen, skirting around the large, gaping wound on his side. There was so much pain there. If he’d only let me, I could take some of it away. He grabbed my wrist. I looked up to find him watching me, jaw set into a hard line, eyes intense and smoldering.
“Don’t,” he growled.
“Please, let me help,” I said. “I can take some of the pain away.”
“At what cost?” he asked, catching me off guard. His jaw clenched as he watched me. “It’s an exchange, isn’t it? You give me a piece of Heaven and I give you the Hell that’s in me in return.”
I swallowed the dread, heavy in my throat, and nodded. He was going to push me away again. I couldn’t let it happen. I was desperate for this. Didn’t he understand I needed it as much as he did?
“Just this once,” I pleaded. “Please.”
His throat worked as he stared down at me, conflicted and hot and hurting. I ran my hand over his battered ribs. He hissed in a breath, and his head fell forward.
“What do you want, Gwen?” he whispered.
I stared at his chest, breathing hard, heart beating a frantic rhythm. “I want to touch you. And I don’t want you to stop me.”
He hesitated, but when I ran my fingers over the crisscross pattern of raised white scars that slashed across his ribs, he didn’t stop me.
“Are these from when you were alive?”
He tensed, but allowed me to keep exploring him. “Yes.”
I looked up. “Why did you keep them?”
His eyes searched mine. A muscle in his jaw flexed. “So I would never forget how I got them, why I’m here…what I lost.”
“They’re beautiful,” I whispered.
He closed his eyes and exhaled harshly. He was struggling, fighting some internal battle to give me this, to accept joy in return.
I resisted the sudden, overwhelming urge to close the space between us, to press my lips to his. Something so simple, and yet it felt bigger than the two of us put together. That should have scared me. If I gave in to such urges, I could be cast out, stripped of everything that made me my father’s daughter. But it didn’t scare me. It exhilarated me. In the back of my mind I could hear Sky’s warning.
Aren’t you tempted? Gwen, what if you fall?
I was. I wanted it with every fiber of this body. Every part of me felt jittery with want and anticipation. The sweet, addictive desire rolling off him told me he wanted it, too. Easton reached up and touched my chin, his fingers like a magnet drawing me in.
“I’m about to kiss you, Red,” he said, voice rough. “You should probably stop me.”
Heart racing, I reached up and traced the curve of his mouth.
“I don’t want to stop you,” I whispered.
Our lips came together like puzzle pieces falling into place. Inside, my blood began t
o simmer, spark, then all at once I was in flames, consumed by this feeling, this kiss, this boy. He grabbed my wrist, and his fingers slid up my palm and laced with mine. His lips were smooth and hot. Mine were cool and clumsy. I’d never kissed anyone, but somehow Easton coaxed me into knowing exactly what to do. He kissed me like he was starving. He touched me like I was made of paper and his touch might send me up in flames.
Fire and ice sang through my veins. Heaven and Hell waged a war in my heart. I didn’t think about falling. I only thought about Easton. The way his hands, hot and needy, slid over skin that had never been touched. The joy bubbling up inside me became an unstoppable force, and before I could stop it, it was there. Pouring out of my palms pressed against his bare chest. Filling Easton with light and love and all of the things he deserved, but never allowed himself to have. He groaned into my mouth and pulled me onto his lap, wincing, yet never stopping.
His pain hit me like a wall until I gasped at the force of it. My vision blurred and went black, but I held on to him, letting him guide me through the twisted tendrils of pain inside. There was so much, but deep down, under the darkness, an ember of light glowed. The deeper he kissed me, the more he let me in, the closer it got.
His hands slid up my thighs, my ribs, burning me, branding me, ensuring I’d never be the same Gwen after this. I reached for the ember of hope inside him. I wanted him to see it. To feel it. One of his hands slipped out of place and landed back on my hip, gripping me. His other cradled my jaw like he didn’t know whether to lock me in place or push me away.
“Jesus, Gwen…” he groaned against my lips. “What are you doing to me?”
“Don’t stop,” I whispered. “Not yet.”
I slipped my hands down and laid them over his wounds, feeling them heal beneath my touch. A fresh jolt of pain lanced through me, licking at my insides like a flame. I pushed through it, further, further… if I could just…
Easton tore his mouth from mine, breaking the connection. The ember disappeared into the darkness so all I could see was shadows and pain. I sagged against his chest, and heated hands touched my back.
“Gwen?”
Slowly, dim light poked holes through the dark, and my vision came back piece by piece. Inside me, joy and purity waged a quiet war, annihilating the lingering pain. Easton was breathing hard. His hair was disheveled, eyes frantic and worried. I touched his face and smiled weakly.
“Your bruises are gone.”
I’d helped thousands of souls in my existence, but none had ever felt like this. Easton was about so much more. I didn’t just need to take his darkness away. I wanted to. I wanted this…with him. I couldn’t imagine going back to a world that didn’t include him. My heart thudded happily in my chest, hurting in a way I thought I might crave forever. Hurting in a way that told me that even after I shed this skin, my soul would never be the same, that this desire would always be a part of me.
His brows pulled together. He touched my face, catching one of my tears on his fingertip. “I hurt you?”
I shook my head, grabbing for his wrist to keep him with me. “You don’t understand—”
He pushed me off his lap and jumped off the bed as if I’d burned him. “You let me hurt you? What the hell is wrong with you, Gwen?”
He paced across the room, tugging at his hair.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Don’t you feel better?”
He looked at me like I was crazy, stopping several feet away from me. “Better? Of course I feel better, Gwen. But…you took it. Why would you do that for me? Why?”
I swallowed the fear clogging my throat, and the words spilled out of me before I could stop them. I didn’t want to stop them. How could I when they were the truth?
“Because I love you.”
Easton paled and his hands dropped to his sides. He took a step back, and his throat worked as he swallowed. “Don’t say that.”
“Why?”
“You don’t know me, Gwen,” he said. “If you did…”
“I do know you.” I scrambled to my knees, feeling that everything that had built between us was crumbling before my eyes. I wanted to stop him from tearing it down, to force him to let me love him. To let someone love him. “I know there is more to you than you let people see. That beneath those shifting bones and temporary skin there is goodness and light and a boy worthy of so much more than he’s been given. Easton—”
“Stop!” He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. Hair fell across his face as he jerked his belt around his waist. “Just…stop, Gwen. Stop trying to fix me. When are you going to get it? I can’t be fixed.”
He grabbed his blade and strapped it to his belt, avoiding my eyes. An ache bloomed in the center of my chest. It wasn’t his this time. This pain was all mine, awful and unfamiliar. He shoved the dresser out from in front of the door while I watched him silently. I didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t want to be loved. He didn’t want to love me.
He stopped, hand braced on the doorframe, but wouldn’t look at me. “This can’t happen again, Gwen. It won’t happen again.”
He shoved out the door and slammed it shut behind him. The broken mirror rattled, and a piece of glass fell to the floor, shattering on impact.
Chapter 16
Easton
In a world full of temptation, Gwen was the only thing I’d ever been unable to resist, and I was going to burn for my weakness. Not that I hadn’t burned before, but this time would be so much worse. This time it would be an eternity of burning. Burning while knowing someone like Gwen was out there on the other side, forever out of my reach. I shut the door behind me and leaned against the sizzling metal. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She should’ve been easy to walk away from. I squeezed my eyes shut and slammed the back of my head against the door.
I just needed some distance. Away from her words. Away from the look in her eyes, loving me, pleading with me to love her back. She had no idea what she was asking. If she did, she wouldn’t have that doe-eyed, hopeful look on her face. If she knew what loving someone like me really meant, she would have been terrified. She should have been terrified. Just look at what one kiss from me had done.
I took off down the hall and slid my hand over my blade. One quick slit and blood slicked the palm of my hand. It didn’t work. My palm burned and throbbed with true, everyday pain, but the numbness never came. I was starting to think it didn’t exist anymore. Not with Gwen all over me. Her scent, her smile, her touch. Walk away? I almost laughed. I could run for an eternity and I’d never be able to escape the fire she’d started within me.
I hurtled down the stairs, toward the hell I’d just escaped. The sick truth was it was easier to face a bar full of savages than confront the truth in her eyes. I was a fucking coward. It was time to end this. We needed to find Tyler and get the hell out of here. I had to get her back where she belonged before I ruined her and she wasn’t welcome anymore. At the bottom of the stairs, the club was still in full swing, but then again, this was Hell. There was no closing time or limit on torture. It was a never-ending cycle that stretched out before me, dark and ugly.
It was my future. My forever. And for the first time in my afterlife…that bothered the hell out of me.
I shook off the hopelessness, pissed off that Gwen had forced me into wanting something I could never have. Ignoring the whistles and catcalls coming from the smooth-tongued succubi twirling around the dance floor, I pushed through the crowd. Coming down here without a shirt on, displaying my scars, wasn’t going to do me a damn bit of good. But then again, neither was seeing Red, half naked, with her flawless pearl-like skin begging to be touched.
A cold, dead finger slid down my spine, extinguishing the flare of desire inside me.
“Come back to play, reaper?” a familiar gravelly voice said behind me.
“Depends.” I turned around and flashed Mya my best grin. She smiled back at me with gray teeth and glowing eyes, tossing her long black hair over her shoulder. “
I’m looking for someone. Think you could help me with that?”
She pursed her glossy lips and trailed a finger down one of the scars on my chest. I fought the urge to shove her away and played along.
“What’s in it for me?”
“The next time I’m through, I’ll bring you something pretty,” I offered. “What do you like, sweetheart? Blond, brunette? Devoted husband, college quarterback with his bright future freshly snatched away? Name your candy and I’ll deliver.”
A hungry gleam lit her eyes, and a wicked smile curled her lips. “Right now, I’m in the mood for a reaper. Sexy scars, messy hair, and violet eyes. Mmmm… I can smell it on you.”
I swallowed back the bile in my throat, feeling sick. “Smell what?”
“Your happiness,” she hissed.
Gwen. She wanted to take away what Gwen had given me. Rip open the wounds she’d worked so hard to heal. A week ago, I would have given it to Mya willingly. A week ago, I couldn’t have cared less about what some naive angel thought or felt. Now the thought of Gwen hurting for nothing made me nauseous.
“Give me a taste and I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” Mya said, her voice going high and needy. “I haven’t smelled anything that pure in ages.”
I swallowed thickly and fisted my blade, hating what I was about to do, even if it was for Gwen. For Tyler. For a million reasons that had nothing and everything to do with me. “A soul was brought down a few days ago. One that wasn’t supposed to be here. I want him.”
Her eyes grew wide as her smile slipped. “I…I…don’t know.”
“Ah…” I tipped her chin up, forcing her eyes to shift back to me. “See there. You, my dear, have one shitty poker face.”
“You’ll never get out of here with him,” she snapped, jerking away from my touch. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You want to take him back.”
“He’s mine,” I said, simply. “I want what’s mine. His being here is a mistake. I don’t do mistakes.”
She laughed, a black, hysterical sound that gave me chills. “He belonged to Hell the moment that bumbling reaper friend of yours handed him over. You should cut your losses before you lose the other one. She really is quite pretty. She’s the reason you smell so delicious, isn’t it? I’ll bet she tastes even better.”
