Chapter 17 Cole
Cole
I had no idea what I was doing. I’d been absolutely certain that being around Sephtis for more than a few hours was going to be torture, but there was something about the warm rumble of his voice that made things inside me settle down…
hurt, angry things that had felt raw and flayed open since the night I’d found him there in the hospital.
I didn’t want to think that those parts of me had broken as much as they had because he’d disappeared before I’d had a chance to talk to him like this.
But the longer I was around him, the more I remembered every time he’d appeared in my dreams—those dark moments when I’d been half sure I was awake and still felt him sitting on the bed beside me, his cool hand pressed to my chest and holding all my broken pieces together.
It wasn’t just occasionally… It was every night.
He’d been with me every night, and I’d been too angry and too raw to admit it, to ever ask him in the dark when my eyes were closed to stay when the lights came up.
I’d been too afraid and guilty, so sure he was a manifestation of everything I’d ever done wrong.
I was still too raw and angry to do it now that I knew the truth, still bitter enough that a part of me wanted to hate him even more for making me feel comfortable now that he was here.
“Am I going to be able to go back to work?” It was a question that had been lingering in the back of my mind since we’d finished eating.
He’d shown me where his shower was, offered to let me sleep in his room…
which made it pretty obvious that he had every intention of making sure I stayed here with him.
Since the vision of those hounds was still fresh in my mind, I wasn’t going to argue. But… I wasn’t going to let him completely destroy my life because he’d pulled me out of that river when he should have just let me go.
“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea.” He answered after a moment. “I need to stay close to you.”
“Can’t you come with me?” It was an obvious solution, though I wasn’t sure if I wanted to invite him into that part of my life so freely, but it was too late to take the words back.
Sephtis looked around the room we were in, his lips twisting into a frown.
“I know it’s not what you want to hear, but I think we should stay here for a few days.
” He was right… It wasn’t what I wanted to hear.
I think he knew it too, because he kept talking before I could argue.
“Just until I figure out a better way to keep the hounds off your scent.”
Right. The apartment had some weird nullifying witchy magic or some shit. Nothing that made sense to me.
“How long is just until?”
Sephtis’s eyes dropped then, more than answer enough.
He didn’t know what he was doing.
My first instinct was to storm out, to tell him he could take his weird abduction fantasy and shove it up his ass… but I wasn’t a child. His apprehension made sense after everything I’d seen, after everything that had happened to me.
“I’ll give it a week,” I finally conceded. “You need to figure out how to give me my life back by then, or we’re going to have problems.”
If he’d been a normal person insisting I stay in his house after killing someone to keep me safe, I might have accused him of trying to fuck with my head until I fell for him.
If I hadn’t seen the hounds myself, I still might have drawn the same conclusion.
As it was, I took a few steps back and lowered myself onto the couch.
“Fine. I guess I should order more than pizza if I’m going to be stuck here for a week.
” I pulled my phone out and threw him another glance.
“Why don’t you call up the witch who nullified your apartment before and tell her to do a better job? ”
“I can’t,” Sephtis answered. “She died three months ago.”
It was like a slap in the face. He sounded so casual about someone dying. It was a reminder that I needed to hold close to my chest. As much as he felt like a person, as much as some part of me wanted to believe in that red thread I’d seen before…
I couldn’t.
Sephtis wasn’t a man; he was a monster.
Of course I wasn’t going to be able to escape my nightmares even though my life had been turned into one. Honestly, I should have realized they’d be worse, given everything I’d been put through over the past few days and the fact that I’d been compartmentalizing it so I could still function.
What I hadn’t expected was to actually experience them.
It had been so long since I’d spent an entire night tossing and turning, longer since I’d woken up drenched in sweat because of fear and agony, because of pain and memories.
Now there were the screams of a soul being devoured added into the mix.
There was the knowledge of what it actually felt like to die.
There was the sight of my dead body lying on the ground, pale like Caiden… and…
And I experienced it all.
By the time I showered the sweat off my body and stole a shirt out of Sephtis’s closet so I’d at least have something clean to wear the next morning, I’d worked myself into a silent rage.
Now that I actually knew Sephtis was here, he was suddenly going to let me suffer? Was this some kind of punishment for what he’d had to do for me? Was he angry after all?
I twisted the handle on the door and tried to yank it open… and then paused.
It was locked.
I’d locked it last night.
I’d been loud about it too, to make sure Sephtis knew I was doing it. To make sure he knew that I wanted privacy… and I…
Oh.
Oh, shit.
When I finally got the door open, he was on the other side of the room, staring at me with an expression of ragged misery painted across his face that nearly made him unrecognizable.
Sephtis looked like he’d been swallowed up by the same agony I had last night, only he didn’t know how to put on a mask to hide it.
He’d respected the boundary I set and stayed away, even though it seemed like we’d both suffered for it.
He was almost desperate when he made his way across the room, pausing a few inches from me, his hands twitching like he wanted to reach out, but he knew better. “Are you okay?”
There were so many answers to that question on the tip of my tongue. Of course I wasn’t okay. I’d been kidnapped into a supernatural situation by some monster. I was stuck in his apartment and…
And I was angry because last night showed me exactly how much he’d been taking care of me since Caiden had died. Dreaming about my brother felt like losing him all over again—it nearly broke me just as much.
“I’m fine,” I finally answered, swallowing hard and jerking my gaze to the ground.
It didn’t stop him from leaning forward.
It was barely a touch… a whisper of fingertips teasing along my skin.
That coolness seeped beneath the surface and instantly started to unknot the tension in my chest in a familiar wave of calm that told me I was right.
Sephtis really had been there all along. Not just when I had nightmares—every night.
I pulled away, aware that the motion was more reluctant than it should have been, and went to the kitchen.
“Are you going to pretend to eat again today, or am I cooking for myself?”
When I looked back at him, there was something in his expression that told me he could see through me—he could feel the same swirl of emotion I was trying to swallow down into my chest.
“We can pretend, if that’s what you want.”
Fuck, I didn’t like feeling this seen. But still.
“Yeah, Sephtis. That’s what I want.”
For the first time I had to admit… I was drowning, lost in emotions I couldn’t process.
I was fucked.
It kept on that way for the rest of the day, quiet interactions that seemed weighed down by the knowledge of what had happened last night. We weren’t saying anything about it, though I had the feeling Sephtis wanted to.
I honestly wasn’t sure anymore if it was pride or fear that made me hold my tongue. I just knew everything was trapped at the back of my throat, my emotions and confusion choking me.
Relief finally came a few hours later as the sun was setting and Sephtis stood.
“What are you doing?” I was surprised at the alarm in my voice when he started toward the door, at the fact that I’d stood without thinking.
“I need to go… do my job.” He hesitated on the words, his brows coming together like it was almost painful. “It won’t take long.”
“Sephtis…”
“I’ll be back before you feel me gone. You should try to rest.”
He was already out the door by the time I realized what he meant. He’d be back before my soul tried to leave my body in his absence. I’d had all day the last time, though I didn’t know if that’s how it would always work.
I just knew I felt some of the pressure in the air finally lift once the door closed behind him and I could let the careful facade I’d built up fall away. The mask I wore, the one I had on when I was out in public, slipped.
It cracked.
It shattered on the ground, and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to pick it up again.
Heat prickled beneath my lids, and I knew if Sephtis came back now, I wouldn’t be able to pull myself together before he saw it.
My blurry vision flicked from the doorway to the bedroom, and I stumbled forward.
I felt like I was grieving all over again, as if everything that had happened from the day Caiden died until now had been slowly sliding into my lungs and silently drowning me.
And now…
Now that Sephtis wasn’t here, now that I wasn’t forcing myself to hold together so he wouldn’t see how weak I really was, I suddenly felt like I didn’t have the strength to be a whole person.
I half stumbled into his bedroom, but when I turned to close and lock the door…
I couldn’t.
Fuck, I didn’t think I could handle another night feeling so broken, another night facing all of that alone.
What kind of fucked-up bitch was Fate if this was how things were? The one person I wanted to leave me alone was apparently the only reason I could sleep at night.
Even though I stood there and tried to talk myself into at least closing the damn door, I couldn’t.
I pushed it until it was almost shut and turned off all the lights.
I heard the front door opening as I pulled off my jeans and slid beneath the sheets, while the silent tears I hadn’t been able to hold back slid along my jawline and into the pillow.
I didn’t know if I wanted him to come in. I didn’t know if I wanted him to stay away.
I just knew I didn’t have the strength to close him out tonight, even though I knew I should have. I knew if I let him in now…
If I let him in, there was no world where I’d ever be able to get him to leave me alone again.