by Tara Fuller
The thought of Mya touching Gwen turned my vision red. In one swift move, I pulled my scythe from my belt and shoved her back against a wall. I balanced my blade against her abdomen, keeping it out of view.
“Tell me where he is,” I growled.
She licked her lips, desire flickering behind her gaze despite the blade at her belly. For Mya, this was nothing more than foreplay. “Taste first.”
I thought about going the other route. Signing up for another round of pain. But the memory of Rok’s fists and blades, the tearing and breaking, was still too fresh in my mind. I needed some time before I would be ready for that again. Now that Mya knew how special Gwen was, I couldn’t leave her with no way to protect herself. The demons wouldn’t leave her alone forever.
Then there were Mya’s lips, beckoning, offering to take away everything inside that was making me feel. If I let her have this light in me, she could make me numb. She could tell me where Tyler was. I could get Gwen out of here, away from me. Back to the kind of place she deserved to be. All it would take was a kiss.
I bit back the sick feeling, blocked off the parts of my mind that swam with visions of Gwen, and gave in. Seeming to sense my defeat, Mya smiled as she leaned up and meshed her lips to mine. Her greedy fingers gripped my hair while her mouth opened up under mine. She tasted like death. Like darkness and pain. Nothing about the kiss felt like the one with Gwen. This wasn’t a kiss at all. It was a feeding. And she was taking full advantage. The light, achy feeling that made me feel alive slowly rose up my throat, burning, clinging, clawing to stay inside. Mya groaned and breathed deep, pulling it free and drinking it down.
I choked on the bright, golden hope Gwen had sparked in me. Deflating under Mya’s fingers as she scratched my chest, pulled my hair. As she took away everything good and right inside me. I felt sick. I felt wrong.
It was enough.
I tore away from her mouth and she sagged against the wall, eyes glowing with satisfaction. Licking her lips, she wiggled against the blade still at her belly.
“While I like a little pain with my pleasure, the blade is a bit intense,” she purred. “Want to give a girl some room?”
I took a deep breath, and the smell of sweat and blood and ash clanged around in my dark, empty insides. “My patience is running thin, Mya. Tell me where he is. Now.”
“One more little taste?” She pouted. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
I grabbed the hand sliding down my stomach. “Not a fucking chance. Talk.”
She frowned and narrowed her gaze on me. “Word was getting around that a Heaven-bound was here and things got a little crazy. They took him to the outer limits of the city to keep him hidden. He’s been passed around a lot, so no guarantees, but last time I heard, he was in the Meat District.”
The Meat District.
I closed my eyes, and my stomach rolled. I couldn’t take Gwen there. If Mya was telling the truth, we were likely to find Tyler in pieces, if we found him at all. I could have him reanimated, but I didn’t know what good it would do. After that kind of torture, souls came back wrong. He’d never be April’s Tyler again. After being tainted by this kind of darkness, he’d be like me. A stain in the middle of the pearly-white purity of Heaven. If I kept Gwen down here much longer, she’d end up the same.
I shoved away from Mya and holstered my blade. Her scent dug its claws into me and her taste burned my mouth. I hated it. Wiping the back of my wrist across my lips, I backed away while Mya’s eyes stalked me hungrily, wanting more.
“Thanks for the fix, sexy,” she purred, planting a cold kiss on my cheek and skipping away in search of her next victim. The empty feeling she’d left me with came crashing over me like a wave, pulling me down, down, down until I could barely catch my breath. I stumbled forward and caught myself on the wall, breathing hard.
“Damn it,” I whispered, blinking away the spots dancing across my vision. In that moment, I’d never felt more weak. More wrong. I wanted Gwen. I didn’t just want her. I needed her, and I hated that. I selfishly headed for the stairs, intent on finding my way back to her before I passed out. If we were going to venture into the Meat District tomorrow, I needed to regain my strength.
When I finally made it to the door, I shoved, but it wouldn’t budge. I peeked in the crack and saw the corner of the nightstand, haphazardly blocking my way in. Resting my forehead against the door, I chuffed out a laugh. It wouldn’t have been enough to stop anyone who wanted to get in, but it at least would give her a few extra valuable seconds to escape.
“Good girl, Red.”
I contemplated sleeping outside the door, but the ungodly screams coming from across the hall gave me the incentive to get my ass up and into the room. I gathered up the last of my strength and shoved at the door hard, pushing it open just enough to slip inside. The room was dark, and Gwen was curled up on the edge of the bed, still wearing my T-shirt. She looked so small and beautiful, a light in the dark. I lost my breath at the sight of her. I wanted to offer myself up to Rok all over again as atonement for letting Mya touch me. For giving her Gwen’s precious gift. Looking at her now, feeling the dark, empty loneliness inside me, I knew nothing was worth what she’d given me. Not even Tyler.
I dragged my feet over to the bed and lay down beside her. I wanted to touch her. I wanted my hands and lips on her. I wanted us to exist in a world where that was okay, a place where I wasn’t someone who would hurt her. But I didn’t give in. Instead, I rolled over and faced the window, closing my eyes. After a few minutes the springs creaked, and Gwen’s body curled against mine, burrowing into my heat. Her lips pressed against the back of my neck, and her hands balled up against the space between my shoulder blades. I stopped breathing, afraid she’d move away. Afraid I’d give in and turn over to pull her into my arms. No way could I let myself do that.
“Go to sleep, Easton,” she whispered against my skin. “It feels nice.”
“I’ve never slept beside anyone before.”
“Neither have I,” she said, her voice soft and sleepy.
Her slim arm slipped over my waist to hug me close. I shuddered out the breath I’d been holding and hesitantly placed my hand over hers, holding it to my stomach.
And then, I did something I hadn’t done in nearly five hundred years.
I slept.
Chapter 17
Gwen
I woke to the sound of screams and reached my hand out, instinctively searching for the boy I’d slept against all night. Disappointment settled in my chest when I didn’t find him. What would it have been like if we lived a world away? If we simply…lived? Would he want me if Balthazar weren’t my father? If he weren’t so broken? If I weren’t so naive? My throat ached with the unspoken questions as I sat up on the creaking bed.
The exposed springs had dug into my skin during the night, leaving sore spots all over my body. Easton sat on the edge of the bed tying up his black boots. He looked mesmerizing in the morning, hair tousled, bare back flexed as he bent over, stretching his scars. I wanted to touch him, to run my fingers over the serpent tattoo that stretched down the side of his neck and curled around his shoulder. I couldn’t help but wonder what those muscles would feel like as they moved under my palms. I’d never get the chance. Not after last night.
He looked over his shoulder. “Hey…” He gave me a small, sad smile that bordered on uncertain. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes.” I looked away, playing with my hair, trying not to think about the kiss. About the way he’d rejected me. About how right Sky was about…everything.
Easton watched me, gaze intense, and I stood to get out from under his stare.
“Are we leaving?” I grabbed my dry clothes from the dresser and laid them out on the bed. I placed my hands on my hips and eyed the sleek black pants, wondering how I was going get them back on. I’d never had to dress before. The first time I’d put these on I’d been in soul form. Now I had this ridiculous body to work around. The fact that I was goin
g to have to do it for the first time in front of Easton wasn’t helping matters. Every move he made was smooth and deliberate. Allowing him to see me messing up something as simple as putting clothes on after the rejection he’d handed me the night before wasn’t the way I wanted to start my day.
He stood, eyes wary and tired. “Is there any use in trying to talk you into staying here while I go follow up on a lead?”
“No. You should probably save your breath.” Struggling to pull the tight leather pants up my legs, I stumbled and fell against the bed, using it as leverage to force them over my hips. Easton watched me, amused, as if he was holding back a laugh.
“I’m no expert in how all of this works, but isn’t it rude to watch a girl change clothing?” I huffed, placing my hands on my hips.
He raised a brow. “Is that what you were doing? I thought you were having a seizure.”
I threw one of my boots at him but he caught it easily against his chest, smiling. And Easton’s smile, it was devastating. A smile that dismantled me and put me back together all wrong on unsteady legs. I tucked my hair behind my ear and looked away, not knowing what to do with the way my heart was pounding away inside. He didn’t want me. Continuing to show him how badly I wanted him was only going to make this harder. What was I doing? Why couldn’t I be like Sky? Like every other angel flitting around the heavens? Focused on the job. Incapable of wanting…of falling.
I turned around, giving him my back, and stripped his shirt over my head, working quickly to replace it with my own. When I turned around, Easton was frozen in place, eyes fixed on me, dark and intense. He abruptly dropped his gaze to my boot in his hand and cleared his throat.
“Do you even know how to get these back on?” he asked.
“Not really,” I admitted. “But I’m sure I can figure it out.”
He rounded the bed and stood in front of me, distracting me with his pants, slung low around his hips, and bare chest. I held out his shirt to him.
“Want to trade?”
He smirked. “What’s the matter, Red? Too much for your innocent eyes to handle?”
He was joking, but he had no idea how much truth hid behind his words. He may have seen himself as an unworthy mess, but to me, he was perfect in every way that counted. In every way that made my heart pound and blood rush too fast through my body. I looked at him the way Tyler looked at April. And for the first time, I finally understood his fear, the reason he hesitated when all I’d wanted was for him to take the leap. He’d been afraid of this awful gnawing hurt inside. When I didn’t respond, he shifted on his feet, looking unsure of himself.
“Sit down. I’ll give you a hand with these.”
I sank down on the bed and placed my hands in my lap, not knowing what to do with them. Easton knelt before me and wrapped his fingers around my calf, lifting my foot onto his knee.
“You have a nice smile,” I said. “Underused, perhaps, but…nice.”
“Underused, huh?”
“A little,” I teased.
“Well, there hasn’t been a lot to smile about down here the last five hundred years,” he said, sliding the boot onto my foot, lacing, buckling, strapping my leg in.
“And what is there to smile about now?”
I wanted him to say me more than I wanted anything. I didn’t expect it, but just like the humans I helped, it didn’t stop me from wanting it.
He slid my left boot on. “You mean other than pretty angels who tell bad jokes and are too brave for their own good? Not much.”
“You think I’m brave?”
“I think you’re stubborn,” he said, a half smile playing at the corner of his lips. “And yeah…I think you’re brave.”
“My jokes aren’t that bad.”
He snorted. “That’s debatable.”
“They made you laugh.”
He fastened the last buckle and looked up at me. Our gazes met and held, fire igniting, ice thawing in the silent space between us. His hand lingered on my leg. I was painfully aware of the heat of his skin burning through my leather pants, leaving an imprint I’d never be able to forget.
“What makes you happy?” he asked.
What made me happy? No one had ever asked me that before. My world wasn’t about taking happiness for myself. It was about giving it. I chewed on my bottom lip, thinking about snow and stories and fireworks.
“I like to watch people read,” I admitted. “On Saturday mornings at this one library, they have people who come in and read to the children. I like the funny stories the best. When the room is filled up with children’s laughter, it’s so easy to get lost in it all. To pretend for a moment I’m not invisible or different. I like the travel books, too. The ones with lots of pictures. It’s a way for me to see parts of the world Father would never let me venture to.
“I like Christmas and snow angels. The way the fathers look with their faces pressed up against the glass in the Saint Anthony’s maternity ward when the babies are brought into the nursery.”
I thought about the way Easton’s lips had pressed against mine the night before. How perfectly our mouths fit together, like they had been meant to be that way all along. My fingers had gravitated to my lips and I pulled them away, feeling my cheeks heat. Easton made me happy.
“I liked kissing,” I whispered.
“Red…” he started, gaze dropping down to my lips. “Last night was—”
On the other side of the wall, a fresh round of screams pierced through the crumbling, charred drywall. Easton closed his eyes, and his grip tightened on my knees.
“Don’t say it was a mistake,” I blurted out. “Say it won’t happen again. But don’t say that it shouldn’t have happened.”
He watched me intently, jaw clenched. “Do you understand why it can’t happen again?”
I looked away, not liking the wet, burning sensation building behind my eyes. The pressure in my chest, swelling, aching. “I’m sure you have an arsenal of excuses to keep me away. I don’t need to hear them. You were clear last night. You don’t want me. I don’t really need further explanation.”
He narrowed his gaze. “You think I don’t want you?”
“It’s fine,” I said, my voice almost a whisper. “I’m just…I’m just me. I get it.”
I wasn’t tall and elegant like Sky. Dark and exotic like the reaper Anaya he had spoken of. I was just naive little Gwen who couldn’t seem to stay out of trouble. I had no idea what I even expected to happen if he actually cared about me in the same way. He was right. My father and the laws of our world would never let us be together.
Easton placed his fingers under my chin, forcing me to look at him. “First of all, you aren’t just anything. You’re everything, Gwen. Everything I’m not allowed to have.”
I hesitantly met his gaze and instantly wished I hadn’t. The honesty and longing there made my chest ache and my willpower crumble.
“Because I’m an angel,” I whispered. “Because you’re a reaper.”
“Because I’m me. Your father would never allow you to be tainted by someone like me. If I let myself be with you like that, I’ll never be able to walk away from you,” he said. “And you need me to walk away from you, Red. You really do. The people I love…they don’t just die. They burn.”
He thinks loving me means destroying me…
A hot tear escaped the corner of my eye before Easton wiped it away. Before he could pull back, I placed my hand over his, holding it in place, wondering if he’d ever give me this again when we were done here.
“I’m not worth crying over, Gwen,” he whispered.
“You’re worth everything to me.”
A scraping knock at the door shattered the moment between us. Easton shot to his feet, grabbing his shirt from the bed. He pulled his T-shirt over his head and held a finger to his lips.
“Bathroom,” he whispered, pulling his blade from his belt. “Now.”
I nodded and slid off the bed, hurrying to the bathroom to hide. Inside, I press
ed my back against the wall next to the door, breathing hard. What if it was the demon from downstairs? Would Easton be able to fight him off? What if he hurt Easton? I didn’t think I’d be able to stand by and listen to that happen. My thoughts drove frantic circles in my mind.
Hot fingers touched my chin, and my eyes flew open. Easton clamped his hand over my mouth to keep the scream in. His gaze narrowed until I nodded to signal that I was calm. He pulled his hand away to place a shard of glass wrapped in leather into my hand, then dropped his pack at my feet.
“If anything happens…” His eyes searched my face, looking uncertain. “Do whatever you have to do to get out. Get home. Okay?”
“What about you?” I whispered.
“Leave me,” he said without hesitation. “Say okay, Red. Say you’ll do it.”
I swallowed and nodded, knowing that agreeing meant I would have to stay true to my word. “Okay.”
His gaze lingered on me for seven seconds. I counted. Seven seconds that felt like an eternity while somehow still feeling like not enough.
“Okay,” he said.
And then he was gone. I looked down at the blade in my fist. It felt wrong, sitting there snug between my fingers. In that moment I had no idea who I was supposed to be. Reaper. Angel. Just another lost soul. But I knew this much…I was his. And there was no way I was leaving him behind, no matter what I’d promised.
Chapter 18
Easton
I should have kissed her again.
I shouldn’t have. But I couldn’t stop the thought from snaking its way through my mind as I readied myself for whatever was in the hall, beating the door from its hinges. I’d pushed a bigger piece of furniture in front of the door last night, but it would only hold for so long. With Gwen looking up at me with big, clear eyes, her feelings for me shining bright as the sun…it had been nearly impossible to stop myself. To not lean down and capture the words on her lips, taste them, swallow them down. I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the door, shoving it all into the overpacked I-don’t-have-time-for-this-shit compartment in the back of my mind.
