I never planned on letting her be alone. Ever. But shit happened, and I wanted her to know that her new world was a lot more complicated since her soul was tied to mine.
Then, I let her try to attack me.
Spacing her arms apart, she hunkered slightly and pointed her fingers like talons. I arched a brow, curious where this was going. “What the fuck are you doing?” I asked. Was she going to try clawing me to death? Bending forward, she charged at me headfirst, ramming her head straight into my stomach. Not only was it a bad idea, but poorly executed because she was clumsy as shit and stumbled over a rock. She couldn’t have possibly thought she would knock me over. What was she doing? It was obvious she hadn’t listened to anything I’d told her.
Gwendolyn reached for my hands but that was a fool’s play. Nobody did that. Instead, I grabbed her wrists which pissed her off. She huffed and tried jerking away. I didn’t give her the chance. “Barron!” Her irritation had me grinning. Lifting her wrists above her head, I twirled her around and pressed her back into my torso. Then I placed my arms around her, crossed her arms against her chest, and held them there. “What am I supposed to do if I come across a demon as big as you? I can’t move you, let alone hurt you.”
I hated to break it to her. Her head wasn’t a weapon. While her back was turned, I said. “Don’t do whatever the fuck that was.”
“Let go of me,” she muttered trying to free herself.
“You’ve been through sickness. It’s given you a perspective that’s strengthened you, but down here that kind of strength alone won’t get you anywhere.”
She exhaled. “Don’t remind me of how freaking powerless I feel.”
I spun her around. Green eyes burned through mine, heating my soul. “You’re not helpless. See that red essence around you?” She glanced down and then up at me. “That’s me, dimples. I’m woven all fucking through you. Use it. Use me. That’s what it’s there for. You hold an abundance of power inside you. You’re far from weak down here. If you stop thinking and just feel it, I guarantee a lot will come naturally.”
“Is that the way it is for you guys? Everything comes naturally?”
“Fuck, no.” I chuckled. “A lot of blood, sweat, and death taught us how to fight and use our abilities to their maximum, but my essence knows everything I do. And it’s with you.”
“Strange. That makes me feel better,” she admitted.
“The other night you said you’d use my essence right up. What happened?” I cocked a brow.
“That was a coping mechanism,” she muttered.
I smiled. “Just like your pretending to sleep in hopes I’d leave your hospital room that night?”
“Exactly,” she huffed, cheeks reddening.
“Come on.” I took her hand gently.
“Are we going to your place now?”
“Eager?” I teased. “No. We’re going to the human world. It’s time for you to guide your first soul.”
“There you go with that creeper smile.”
Chapter 22
Gwendolyn
“Wait! Fucking Hades.” Barron snarled the words. “We just got here and you’re already about to fuck up.”
My skin tingled. His animalistic intensity made my skin tingle. I liked that about him. I liked him.
“That’s an eternal promise, Gwendolyn.”
Wrath’s words echoed inside my head. The knowledge of what I knew heated my skin and set me down a path I tried to avoid. It often led to hurt. The feeling of belonging somewhere was crippling, especially for someone like me. That momentary comfort with the other part of Barron still cut through me.
I’d always been optimistic, happy despite never truly having at least one person to call mine. I grew up learning that I had to look after myself. If I wanted to smile, no one else would make it happen but me. If I wanted to eat, I had to learn to cook. Although I had love and safety living with the Pattisons, I never opened up completely. To do so would have meant doing more than smiling. It required optimism. Problem was, I was cold, broken, and sick. I was tired of pretending that I was good with the crappy hand life gave me. I hated being cheerful, but I was so afraid if I didn’t no one would like me.
Truth was that many times I was just numb inside. I wasn’t happy. Empty was a better descriptor. I had a hole where my heart should be, and nothing else mattered. Except skating.
Skating freed me—I always wanted to soar. But, there was something I craved more.
How did people turn away from happiness when it came knocking?
I turned and glanced at the wild and furious man that knocked on my walls.
I wanted to tear down his defenses too.
“What?” I asked him, studying every inch of his cloaked form. My fingers splayed over his chest. Despite his nostrils flaring, his heart picked up speed beneath my palm. Mine responded to his, beating faster.
These moments were our truths. Hidden within each encounter was something we both left unsaid. I wanted a home. A place to let my troubles come unglued. Barron wanted peace. A place he could let his wrath lay dormant without ever being provoked.
We both had what the other was seeking. What happened if we stayed together? Would we trap ourselves within a new cage?
Did I want to pull him from his suppressed state?
Yes. Yes, I did.
In the end, that was all that mattered.
Wrath’s mark on my ankle was the path to my home. I’d believe that even if Barron pushed me away forever.
“You can’t enter the human world without cloaking yourself,” he said in an irritated tone. Then, he arched his brow over those dark brown eyes. Suddenly, my panties were soaking. That bad attitude turned me on. My desire hit an all-time high as I thought about the things he could do to me. I wanted to flirt with Barron, but that would be a tad awkward. After all, we were standing in someone’s yard wearing cloaks, and I held my scythe.
“Shouldn’t you have told me that before we got here?” I placed my hand on a hip.
“I’ve already cloaked us,” he informed me.
“Then, what’s the problem?”
“You still need to know how to do it.”
I grumbled and complained a lot, but it only took a few minutes before I learned how to hide myself. All I had to do was imagine a tent, and my cloak slipped over me.
“Let’s go.” Barron strode past me, up the porch steps, and through the front door.
I ran up the steps, but when I tried to pass through the door, I smacked into the sturdy wood. The impact jarred my body. Pain shot through my face and down my chest. “Ow,” I howled.
I grabbed my nose just as I heard a deep, rumbling laughter. “Think ghost, not solid.” I heard him through the door.
What a douche.
He was still chuckling when a female on the other side yelled, “Coming!”
I forgot she couldn’t see me and froze when she opened the door. “Hello?” She stepped out, and I carefully moved past her.
I huffed as Barron’s crinkled eyes lit up his face. Crossing my arms, I turned my head. He stuck his finger in my dimple when I did.
That man was obsessed about my dimples.
He gripped the stairway banister suddenly, then quirked a brow at me. “Think you can handle the stairs? Shit can be tricky.”
Was he really teasing me? That was so unexpected. My cheeks heated.
“Jerk.” I smile after he climbed the steps.
As I ventured up after him, an overwhelming presence hit me square in the chest. Not a presence, more like a sense of knowledge coming from the room Barron slipped into. Like a disease, the sensation was heavy on my heart. Death. It clung to the walls, and I felt every bit.
Music bled through the walls, thumping against the sole of my boots as I walked through the door the correct way that time.
Two minutes….
One minute…
Thirty seconds…
Death came for the strange man.
My Reaper sens
es told me his name—Jason Williams—and how he died. The recently departed was sprawled out in a gaming chair with a needle in his arm. It was terrifying to witness the waxy, ashen color a person’s skin took before dying. His veins stood out against his icky color and his body completely.
“Do you sense where he’s going?” Barron asked.
“I do.” A heavy, darkness clung around Jason. Bad. Something told me that meant the human did bad things.
“Jason?” Knock. Knock. Jason couldn’t answer his mother. A sharp pain hit me square in the chest for what she was about to discover. “Jason? Open this door right now! I swear to God you better not be—”
“Ready?” Barron asked.
I didn’t get to ask what he meant. The amped-up pounding in my ears drowned out the woman’s voice. Jason’s soul ripped from his corpse with a furious wail. The ghost took one glance at us and bolted.
“Just what has he done so wrong to run?” My forehead crinkled.
“Stop asking and demand the answer. In here.” Barron tapped his skull, then pointed in the direction Jason had gone. “Better hurry and catch him.”
My arms and legs trembled before I jumped through the wall after him. He was already in the next yard across the road. I took off like a bolt of lightning. My scythe never once slowed me down as I ran with it.
“Get back here!” I yelled just as Jason slipped through the neighbor’s house. It didn’t take long to get inside, but I couldn’t see which way he’d gone. In the family room, several young teens gathered on the couch and watched some sporting event. I flinched as two of them jumped up and chest bumped with excitement at whatever happened on screen.
Where did you go, Jason?
I scanned the hallway then made my way to the dining room. I glanced at the ceiling. Upstairs? Next house? Shit. What if I lost him? No, no, no. Closing my eyes, I sought him out in my head. Jason Williams. Jason Williams. Jason Williams. Instead of telling me where he was, my senses fed me information about him. Numbers assaulted my mind. A birth date. Death date. The cause of his death. Last, I got the reason why he was shrouded in darkness and going to Hell.
“NO!” the woman’s scream filled my ears. “Stop!”
“Shut up, bitch!” Jason threw a punch hard enough to silence her for several minutes as he undressed her.
When she started yelling again, he was raping her.
Brief flashes of faces and vile acts rushed at me. I had the displeasure of seeing it through his eyes.
Jason’s disgusting thoughts—the privileges he thought should be his—played out in my mind. The more I heard the more I was convinced that he was a twisted man who saw no wrong in his ways. Lust consumed Jason each time he glanced at a woman.
Once it was over, fury burned in my chest and made me want something that shouldn’t have been mine. Justice. Gripping my scythe, I walked outside slowly. My scalp prickled while my anger became palpable. It was a scary, dangerous, very powerful feeling. For a minute, I felt like I could walk through fire and survive. Thankfully, I realized that the rage I felt didn’t belong to me. Wrath was a strong emotion.
But, I wanted the ghost to get what he deserved—an eternity in Hell.
As fate would have it, Jason stumbled out of the house I just exited. His gaze bounced around as if he was looking for me. Suddenly, he spotted me several feet away and bolted again. Not again. I took off running. When I was close enough, I lurched for Jason. My scythe fell to the asphalt. I thanked Heaven when my body crashed into the ghost.
I flipped him onto his back and gripped his throat. Hatred burned in my stomach. He took their bodies with a smile on his face. His eyes bulged. Jason’s hands slipped through me as he tried and tried to push me off.
“Let me go!” he wailed.
Suddenly, I released my grip. What was I doing?
There were hundreds of things I wanted and could have said to him, but between anger and justice, there was nothing worth saying to someone that would never understand his wrongdoings. A black, blazing hole opened where my scythe had fallen. I jumped to my feet and backed away as the darkness bombarded me, filling me with despair. Every negative emotion—fear, sadness, hate—consumed me as I stared at the passage.
I couldn’t move as I contemplated where that black passage led. A taste, like ashes, filled my mouth. Was that the flavor of evil?
“It’s okay,” said a masculine voice. Clutching my chest, I glanced up and saw Barron standing beside me. “Seeing the flames of Hell is something no one gets used to.”
A zig-zagged crack formed in the ground. Those flames shot up like hands and enveloped Jason. His fingers left indents in the asphalt as he desperately tried to latch on. As he disappeared from view, one final scream pierced the night. The void closed up and silence surrounded us. I finally remembered to breathe.
My fear left with it.
“Well, well, you actually caught your first runner,” said Barron. “On your first time out. You did good, but we have to talk about your anger.”
“My anger?”
Then it hit me. For a moment, I thought about killing Jason. Then, I remembered that he was already dead. Justice was served by sending him to Hell.
The fury had passed, leaving me exhausted. How did Barron deal with it all? He didn’t get relief, did he? It was likely that even when he killed those that deserved it, his wrath kept heightening and growing to lethal amounts. After all, that was Barron’s sin. He carried it like it was a punishment for some wrongdoing not of his making. Maureen said they were cursed as kids.
As kids.
That meant Barron has been mad about everything under the moon his entire life. And there was no stopping.
The thought seized my heart. I’d never understand his curse completely. I doubted anyone could. But in that second of burning hatred, I got a taste of what it might be like for him. My entire body had shaken with my anger. Spending that time with Jason made me want to inflict suffering. I wanted him to experience the agony he’d caused those women. I confined my outrage to one moment while Barron experienced wrath toward everything.
How did he survive it?
I couldn’t leave him alone. I didn’t want to. For however long we had together, I wanted to be Barron’s reprieve even if I wasn’t sure how to be yet.
And if I couldn’t, then I’d stay beside him. Regardless.
Tentatively, I reached out and touched his cheek with my palm. His glossy, dark eyes widened as I stroked his cheek. His five o’clock shadow tickled my skin.
No wonder his face was so harsh, lines so pronounced on his forehead, eyes so furious all the time. He worked, breathed, and lived in a world that fed his curse the ammunition to stay hostile. Closed off and brooding. I was wrong. Barron didn’t want isolation. He didn’t think he had any other choice.
He didn’t know it yet, but my heart and soul melted for him right there. Just like it had the night he had kissed me and each moment since then.
“I’m sorry.”
His jaw clenched, eyes narrowing on me. “What for?”
“Being mad is draining. Never getting a reprieve from it… You’re incredibly strong to withstand such a curse all the time,” I told him honestly. He tried turning around, but I grabbed his cloak.
“Where is this coming from?” he snapped, but he didn’t push my hand away.
“I just felt furious there for a moment. It made me wonder if you ever had a second when you’re not enraged.”
He watched me a minute, eyes staring into mine relentlessly until he exhaled softly. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve lived with this curse longer than you’ve even been alive.”
“Can you talk to me about it?” I asked gently.
He glanced toward the sky before refocusing on me. “I have a few minutes to spare before I need to take you back to the castle.”
I pursed my lips. “I thought I was going to your place.”
“You are. Just not when I’m not there to keep you safe. Shit’s happening right
now. There are a lot of lives in need of saving, dimples. I’ve already spent too much time not doing my job.”
“Let me go with you.”
“Fuck no.”
“Why?”
“What the fuck kind of question is that?” He glared at me like I was an insect in need of squishing.
I was about to protest when his voice filtered through my thoughts.
“I want you safe, not in danger. You don’t realize your entire existence fuels my curse sometimes.”
Barron just spoke to me the way Wrath did. Inside my mind. I stared at his wrinkled forehead and clenched jaw. Outwardly, he was still glaring yet his words had been so heartbreaking in my head. Wrath was telling the truth about Barron’s thoughts not being safe from me! I could hear him. Could he hear me?
“Barron?” I tested him. “Can you hear my thoughts?”
“I’ll fade us to Grim’s woods. The walk to the castle will be your chance to ask me what you want,” he said aloud.
He couldn’t hear me.
“I’ve spent so much time with her already. So much to do… But a few more stolen minutes won’t hurt,” his gentle, abrupt thought pierced my skull.
This was intimate. I was hearing something I wasn’t supposed to. Stolen minutes? My entire body prickled with heat. He wanted to spend time with me.
“Why are your cheeks red?” He placed the back of his hand to my forehead. “We don’t normally get sick, but I’m not sure how that works for you.”
I was blushing, you secretive teddy bear.
He acted so indifferent toward me sometimes, but a giant softy may be hidden inside.
I gasped as he grabbed me around the waist and faded us to the woods.
“Shit. Maybe I’m being too rough on her today. She slept in a damned cave because of Wrath! I need to get her inside,” his thoughts rambled.
“Come on. You can ask your questions later,” he said unaware I could hear his reasoning.
“Barron, relax. I’m not sick anymore so stop worrying. You’re making yourself angry,” I told him, patting his chest. That seemed to have the opposite effect though. A tinge of red shimmered in his dark eyes as his essence increased around us.
Conjuring Wrath (Seven Deadly Book 3) Page 16
