Chapter 12
Sephtis
I felt it the moment the heartbeat in my chest stopped, and I knew something was wrong.
I’d just finished taking a soul—killing a man who probably had years left to make up for the Vitality I’d funneled into Cole’s body.
I wasn’t sure how long Death was going to let me get away with my little ruse, but hopefully the extra life swirling in my chest would be enough to get me through figuring out what I was supposed to do about the human I was tied to.
The human who hated me.
The human who’d looked at me before he left his apartment this morning like I’d personally torn his entire world apart and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever forgive me for it.
I wondered quietly if Fate was fucking with me because I’d fucked with his cupid—was this my punishment? Was I destined to spend the rest of our existence making Cole angry? I’d lasted less than a few hours before completely ignoring the demand he’d made of me.
I couldn’t feel his heart.
I couldn’t feel him, and the red thread trailing between us looked pale. What he told me to do didn’t matter—the only option I had was to go to him.
It felt like the only choice I’d ever had was to go where Cole was.
The first thing I saw was his body prone on the floor. I didn’t have to be a Reaper to see he was dead. I barely had time to register that his soul wasn’t in the vessel before someone grabbed me by the arm and spun me around.
“What the fuck, Sephtis?”
My eyes darted between the body and the very physical sensation of Cole’s hand on my arm.
This wasn’t normal—his soul shouldn’t have been up and walking around, especially without a Reaper to call him. No one was here but us and the poor man on the floor trying to resuscitate a body that couldn’t breathe again until Cole’s soul got back into it.
“What happened?” I could tell the instant the question left my lips that it wasn’t going to be very useful.
“Why don’t you tell me?” He stepped closer, his fingers still biting into my arm in the most tangible way a soul had ever touched me. “Because until I met you, I never had any kind of out-of-body experience. I figured when I died, that would be it. So what the fuck is going on?”
“I…” I wasn’t sure he’d be happy with the fact that I didn’t have an answer. I’d been alive for longer than I could remember, and I’d never seen a soul do what he was doing now.
“You don’t get to walk into my life and ruin everything and then stand there while I watch myself die.
” Cole drew up short at the anger in his voice, and I wondered if the expressions flying across his features were because being angry about it meant he had to admit to himself that he didn’t want to die.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before.
” Admitting it didn’t feel good, but I didn’t know what else to do.
I reached out, frowning in confusion as my hand landed solidly on his shoulder.
It wasn’t the fact I could touch him that was strange—it was that my body wasn’t thrumming to take him.
It wasn’t demanding I ferry him to the Lake.
He was just here.
“Well, you better figure it out because that—” He gestured angrily toward the man who was quietly sobbing while still performing CPR on a very obviously dead body.
“Isn’t okay. If you want me back in that body, you better get me there before it’s broken.
” Cole’s hand reached out, and his fingers wrapped around the crimson thread trailing from my chest to his—apparently he could see it now that he wasn’t tied to a mortal body.
“Because if I go down, I’m taking you with me. ”
He yanked the red thread and my vision blurred. Almost of its own volition, my body dropped to the ground. It was strange, looking at his pale, lifeless face beside me and then glancing up to see the pure fury nearly glowing from above.
It was just like when he’d found me with Caiden, wasn’t it?
“I don’t… know…” I trailed off, because now that I was closer to his body, I could feel it—the tug in my chest, the burn of the crimson line that I could see a ghost of, still trailing between me and the figure on the ground.
Of course…
“Cole, man, you need to wake up.” The figure looming over him spoke, and I blew out my breath in a soft sigh. He didn’t need to see this, did he? I stretched out my fingers and gently trailed them across his face, and his body collapsed.
“Did you just kill him?” Cole sounded shocked, horrified as I lowered the still figure to the ground, pushing him out of the way.
“No. Come here.”
His words caught in the back of his throat in a furious click, like he wanted to argue with me but realized it would be pointless when I was doing exactly what he wanted. Maybe it was the fact that the man beside me let out a low groan to show that I wasn’t lying and he really was alive.
Whatever it was, Cole came to his knees beside me and I gestured to his body on the ground.
“What?” He was staring at his pretty, pale face with an agonized expression.
I was almost certain he was thinking about the way his brother had looked the night he’d found him.
I couldn’t take that pain away, but I was pretty sure I could fix this.
I could feel it now, the urge surging through me and pressing against the crimson line that trailed between us.
I could feel every forbidden second of it, and I knew we weren’t going to have the same kind of luck this time getting away from the hounds, because there was no Enmity here to blame it on.
It didn’t matter.
Some part of me knew now that as long as I could, I would always save him.
I would risk my existence every time to keep him breathing, to keep him alive.
I was selfish enough that I would have taken what I needed from the man beside us if I’d had to, but luckily I’d just reaped a soul and I was bursting with Vitality.
“Lie down, Cole. Go back to your body.”
“That isn’t going to work, you can’t just—” He cut off with a low sound as I grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him to the ground. When he tried to rise, I straddled his hips, and for the first time I saw the realization cross his face.
I wasn’t weak.
I wasn’t mortal.
I had the strength to tear a human apart if I so desired, and I certainly had the strength to shove him to the ground so his soul and the pale figure of his human vessel flickered and nearly merged together, hazy lines that almost made up a whole.
“You need to trust me.” It sounded hollow when I had to slide my body forward so my hips pinned him down.
I wrapped my fingers around his wrists and forced his arms above his head when he tried to push up to fight me.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Cole. I don’t think I could if I tried.
I can’t kill you.” I leaned in close to him, watching the red thread fall perfectly back into place between our bodies.
“I can’t leave you alone. All I can do is whatever it takes to keep you by my side. ”
It felt vulnerable giving that confession, but it finally shocked him into lying still so I could lean down. His tongue darted out, licking his lips nervously as I hovered closer, and for a moment I thought about closing that distance.
I could use what I was about to do as an excuse to steal a kiss, because I was beginning to wonder if he’d ever let me otherwise.
I hovered there, aware that the pantomime of breathing I saw was nothing more than a habit—souls didn’t need to breathe.
Souls shouldn’t have been trembling, but he was shaking beneath me, and his eyes kept darting between mine and my lips. Through the thread between us, I thought for a moment I could feel the way he wanted me to close that distance too.
Instead, I brought my hand up and cupped his face, dropping my forehead to press against his.
It was subtle at first, the sensation of the connection between us drawing the Vitality from my chest. It was a burn that trailed outward and made me groan at the wrongness of it. I wasn’t made to do this—I shouldn’t have been able to.
Apparently, Fate had different ideas. Heat trickled from my chest into Cole.
The sound of ribs snapping back into place where they’d been cracked in a botched attempt at CPR flooded my senses.
Beneath me, there was a moment where Cole’s eyes glowed a soft golden, as if a part of my immortality was wrapping around him and demanding he stay.
Stay with me.
With another shuddering gasp, the blurred vision of soul and body in front of me merged, and the burst of exhalation that washed over my face was real.
Tangible.
As impossible as it was, it had worked.
Cole’s lids fluttered open and there was a span of time where I was caught in the heat of his gaze—his expression was pure shock. I wasn’t sure if it was from coming back to himself, or from the words I’d spoken.
“Sephtis…” The sound of my name coming from his lips, so soft and without any edge of anger, was nearly enough to undo me. I leaned closer—close enough that my mouth brushed against his in the briefest touch…
And then the man beside us groaned and sat up, and I rolled off Cole as he pushed himself into a sitting position and helped his coworker stand.
“Are you okay, Preston?” His voice was calmer than it should have been for what had just happened, but it was obvious he was putting on a mask for the benefit of the man in front of him.
“Am I… You weren’t breathing.” Preston lifted his hand, settling it over the center of Cole’s chest. The motion made the red thread trail through the stranger’s skin, and an odd sensation twisted in my stomach—something else a Reaper shouldn’t have been able to feel.
Jealousy.
The knowledge that it would be so easy for me to step forward and take the man by that same hand, regain the Vitality I’d had to pour into Cole to bring him back to life.
Someone was going to have to die to replace it… it could be…
“I’m fine.” Cole’s voice was insistent, and it only took me a second to realize the words weren’t for the man standing in front of him.
They were for me, and his wide-eyed expression made me wonder if he could feel some of the animosity burning through me, spitting feelings and emotions I didn’t quite understand into his chest. I’d experienced them enough by now in the year that I’d had to feel every mortal I’d reaped…
but feeling the low embers of rage burning through someone else and feeling it myself was…
It was different.
“Are you sure? You were so pale. You…”
“You fainted too. Maybe there’s something in the air?
I feel fine, Preston, I promise.” He gave him a pat on the shoulder and stepped back, carefully crossing his arms over his chest. I wasn’t sure if he was doing it to distance himself from the lie, or if he wanted to make sure I didn’t do something to his friend because of my unchecked emotions.
Either way, I appreciated the space. I wasn’t sure what I would have done without it.