Chapter 9
Cole
I was burning. I could feel it along every nerve ending in my body—heat that was pooling in my chest, spreading to the tips of my fingers and begging me to quench it in the cool feel of the skin pressed against mine.
His skin.
His touch.
Why had I fought it for so long? Why hadn’t I told him from that very first night that I could feel him? That the agony ripping through my chest silently demanded I go across the room and tangle my fingers in his dark hair? I’d pushed him, but I’d wanted to touch him.
Every time he’d shown up in my dreams, a part of me had wanted to break down and crawl beneath his skin so I could run my lips across his soul and give him my confession—I thought about him even when I shouldn’t have.
I wanted him.
No…
Not want.
It wasn’t just want.
I needed him.
I didn’t open my eyes when I raised my hands and twisted my fingers into cool strands of hair. A low grunt sounded above me and I jerked him down at the same time I lifted myself up.
“Cole, wait—”
I didn’t want to wait. I didn’t want to talk or think. I just wanted to feel him pressed against me. I climbed into his lap and the chill of his skin penetrated through me, stealing away some of the heat burning across my bones.
“Touch me.” I finally forced my eyes open, and found myself drowning in a sea of molten agony—guilt and desire and terror swirling in a torrent that threatened to drown me.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” The soft rumble of his plea wasn’t a deterrent.
If anything, it made me want to be closer.
It was like a balm all along my bruised soul—I could feel all the places in my life that had ever been broken, and the sound of his voice settled into those cracks like molten gold poured along pottery.
Kintsugi.
He was making me whole—his voice alone could make me something more beautiful than anything I’d ever been before.
I shifted closer, wrapping my arms around him as tight as I could and burying my face against the curve of his neck.
Something was slightly off about it when I pressed my lips there, and it took me a moment to realize I couldn’t feel a pulse.
I couldn’t feel anything, even though the place where we were pressed together held a thundering heartbeat.
The same one pulsing in my throat, ripe at the back of my tongue.
My own heart, trapped behind his ribs. Safe in his chest.
Safe.
He wanted to keep me safe.
I lifted my head and ran my lips along his jawline, and I felt his entire body tense at the motion.
“I need it,” I whispered, my words soft and husky, an aching plea I couldn’t seem to stop. “I need…”
What did I need?
Something about what was happening was echoing in the back of my head—a scream that something was off.
That this was…
“If you don’t get him off me, I’m not sure what I’m going to do.” The man’s voice was ragged, punched out and pain-filled… and then there were arms wrapping around my shoulders and yanking me back. When I glanced down, the fingers holding me were tipped with black claws.
Black claws…
Sharp.
Rending.
Tearing me open.
Tearing the life from me, and I…
Everything that had happened came to me in a rush so violent it stole my breath away, and if the arms hadn’t been wrapped around me, I would have fallen to the ground. The voice that spoke was a soft whisper in my ear, a tone I didn’t recognize.
“I have no idea if our situations are the same, but I’m going to guess they are. You’ll save yourself a lot of trouble if you don’t fight it.”
Don’t fight it? Don’t fight what? My eyes swung forward, back to the man in front of me.
The man who’d been there, who’d pulled me out of the water, who’d been in the room with Caiden when he died, even though I hadn’t been.
Sephtis.
I hated him.
So why was I still fighting against the arms that were holding me, desperate to close the distance between us?
“What the fuck is going on?” I finally snarled, and the coherency in my voice more than anything seemed to settle everyone around me.
Sephtis pulled himself to his feet, leaving enough space between us that I couldn’t reach out and touch him as the arms around me slowly let go.
“And I swear if you come out with more ‘I’m sorry I can’t tell you’ bullshit, I’m going to kill you. ”
Kill him.
Like that thing had tried to do. Shit, I could have been done with him if I’d just let the beast tear into him instead of…
Instead of me. Instead of putting myself in danger to keep him safe.
I glanced at the front of my shirt and caught on the way it was shredded and bloody… the way I was fairly certain I should have been so torn open that I couldn’t move.
“Cole…”
“What did you do?” And then, because I couldn’t seem to stop myself from asking the same damn thing over and over again, I added. “What are you?”
His expression was still pained, and he glanced at the man standing behind me.
I whirled and was met with crimson eyes—the same crimson as the thing that had attacked me.
It made me take two quick steps back, instinct still driving me toward Sephtis even though my brain was telling me I wanted to strangle him.
“Does he really not know?” It wasn’t the red-eyed man who spoke, but the one beside him. His eyes were… violet.
A completely impossible purple… and he had a fucking bow in his hand.
What fucked-up fairy tale had I somehow fallen into?
“Doesn’t look like he’d be able to handle knowing anything, honestly.” My glare swung around to the man who’d been holding me, and he shrugged almost apologetically. “It’s a lot to handle. Trust me, I know.”
Whatever retort I was working on, I wanted to make sure it was sharp enough to flay the skin off his pretty face. I was cut short by Sephtis stepping up beside me.
“When we were made, the ability to tell humans what we are was stripped from us. I can’t… I haven’t been able to…”
“Do you want me to—”
“No. I’ll figure it out, Wren.” Sephtis cut him off before he had a chance to spill the secret he’d been keeping from me, and I frowned.
“What, you can’t tell me, so no one else gets to either?
” Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that something close to hysteria was bubbling just beneath the surface of my angry facade.
I’d been attacked—I’d had a monster’s claws go deep enough into my chest that I was pretty sure I knew what it felt like to have my lungs pierced…
And now I was standing here, in front of a man whose cuts healed almost instantly… and two people with impossible eyes who’d fallen from the fucking sky.
I was at my limit. I was officially at a place where I was pretty sure I was going insane.
And no one was telling me what was going on.
“I should have let that thing eat you, you asshole.” I shot the accusation at Sephtis, but it was the man who’d been holding me who chuckled.
“Oh, I like him, Wren. We should definitely try to keep him alive.”
“Theo,” Wren cut in sharply. “You aren’t helping.”
Since I didn’t think it would be a good thing to catch the ire of another monster with claws that could tear me apart, I did the wise thing and pressed my lips together before I hurled an insult at him.
I could be reasonable.
Sometimes.
But I was fairly certain I was about to break down if I didn’t get some kind of answer to all of this.
“I want to tell him… I think maybe… I might be able to now. But I should be the one who does. You know what happened before, Wren.” Sephtis’s voice was so soft, so calm, and it infuriated me.
Before.
Obviously Wren knew what was going on, even though I didn’t… and I couldn’t understand the streak of anger at the familiar way he said his name, or the ugly sensation that chased it when Wren nodded slowly.
“I can see the thread between you, though.” He stepped forward, skating his fingers through the air between Sephtis and me in a slow line that made my body tingle for some reason.
As he did it, I almost thought I caught a spark of color—red, like the petals that had danced between us the first time we’d met.
“It’s real. I can feel how real it is. He might resist it… but…”
“I won’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to do. I’m not even sure if I can…” Sephtis shook his head, and I felt that anger in my chest building to a near tipping point.
“Stop talking about me like I’m not here.” I snapped, and Wren turned to me with a small smirk. I wanted to threaten him, and maybe it showed in my gaze, because behind him, Theo took a step forward, his hands slightly raised at his sides, those dark claws tipped upward.
No… I knew what those felt like. I didn’t need a repeat experience. Apparently Wren could tell something was wrong too, because he stepped back and slid an arm around Theo’s waist. The man instantly settled, though the look he gave me made me question if he still liked me now.
I really didn’t give a shit if anyone liked me—I just wanted to know what the hell was going on.
“Is there any way to make this a two-way thing?” Wren pulled a chain from beneath his shirt. “Because it seems like you’re the one who might need help now.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Wren. I can’t ask you to get involved.”
Wren shook his head. “I owe you everything. You don’t understand what you did for me that night.
You saved Theo… I…” He shook his head and stretched his hand out, and Theo laced their fingers together, the last of his anger bleeding away into a softer expression.
“I’ll help you if I can. If you need it. ”
Sephtis glanced down at their joined hands, then back up at the pendant on his neck. “If I concentrate, I can call you. You’ll know where I am.” He hesitated for a breath before he stepped forward and placed a hand on Wren’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
Wren nodded, then bumped against Theo affectionately. “Come on, we should go before Aiden realizes what we’re doing.”
Theo rolled his eyes. “Don’t want to get Daddy pissed at us, do we?” But he released Wren’s fingers and took a step away. My jaw dropped when they both rolled their shoulders and wings spread behind them.
Wings.
Impossibility after impossibility, but it seemed like tonight was the night for it. Maybe I really was dead, because I watched as the two men took off into the sky. Angels. Right.
Once they were gone, I swung my attention back to the man behind me—the asshole who kept interfering with my life.
At least some small part of me was aware that he was just protecting me—an even smaller part remembered that the only reason I’d gotten hurt was because I’d put myself between him and the monster that attacked us.
No, I wasn’t going to think about that. Right now, I stalked toward him.
I didn’t know if I was going to hit him again, or if I wanted to tangle my fingers in his hair and take the kiss I’d tried to get earlier by force.
At least then I could taste the lie on his tongue when he refused to tell me what was going on.
Whatever I was going to do was cut off as a sound spilled through the air. At first, I thought it was just dogs, but the note carried… and carried. It raised up into an unnatural, near feverish pitch. The sound slid across my skin and slipped into my bones, singing out one word over and over again.
Danger.