Chapter 18 Sephtis
Sephtis
It wasn’t exactly a lie, telling Cole I was doing my job.
As far as I was concerned, my job now was to take care of him…
and part of that meant making sure I kept the hounds distracted and stole enough Vitality to sustain him.
I hadn’t considered that stress and struggle would burn through it so quickly, but it made sense. What did mortals use Vitality for?
Functioning, apparently. Fueling high emotions. I could practically see it burning through him in waves… and by the time I finally decided to risk leaving him alone for a few minutes so I could solve the problem, he looked nearly dead on his feet.
I moved as quickly as I could, aware it wouldn’t be that hard to find a person who Cole would consider bad.
Because of the Ardor, I could sense human intentions, and because of what I was, I could tell when a mortal liked the feeling of death.
Just outside the city, I found a woman letting off evil in waves, who craved murder like water.
That malice was excuse enough for me to take her by the throat and rip her soul from her body in one quick motion that tore the air from her lungs before she had a chance to scream.
My fingers shredded her soul as I leaned forward, siphoning out the Vitality from the silent oh of her lips before her body had a chance to hit the ground.
I didn’t have time to wait. I could feel Cole’s agony, his pain and desperation tearing along the thread connecting us.
It was the same emotion I’d felt last night—the pain that nearly made me ignore the obvious boundary he'd put up between us, that left me pressing my forehead against the door to my bedroom and silently suffering with him.
It was the first night since I’d met him that I hadn’t gone to make sure he slept well… the first night I hadn’t been there to calm his dreams.
And I hadn’t actually realized until then how much me being there helped.
I thought the action was as selfish as it was kind, that I was there for my benefit just as much as his.
I didn’t realize the nightmares had been lurking on the edge of his mind, greedy and waiting to break him down at the first opportunity.
Cole wasn’t in the living room when I got back to the apartment, but I could tell he hadn’t gone far.
Agony lanced through my chest, vicious enough I nearly fell to my knees.
I meant to stay away, meant to try to give him what he asked for…
but I knew it was useless. I didn’t think I could handle another night of listening to the sound of his pain, the feel of it washing over both of us in waves that threatened to rend and tear.
I lasted for all of ten minutes before my resolve completely broke and I half stumbled toward my bedroom.
I came up short when I realized… Cole had left the door open.
Something in my stomach clenched, an emotion too powerful for me to put into words. I pushed silently into the room and wondered if he’d be waiting for me.
He was curled up in my bed with his eyes closed.
I couldn’t tell if he was asleep or simply drifting in and out from exhaustion, but I could see the way the red thread between us was starting to dull.
It wasn’t just the thread, though—in the dark of the room, I could see something else drifting along that crimson line.
He was already starting to pull the Vitality from me, though I knew proximity would make it faster… but it wasn’t just Vitality he was taking. It was flecked with little bits of black—the essence that flowed through my veins.
He wasn’t just taking the life I stole, he was taking bits and pieces of me—fractured shards of Death’s essence.
It was pouring through him and spilling back out to me in an endless cycle, making my stomach clench with worry.
I didn’t know what something like that would do to a human.
I wasn’t even sure how human Cole was now.
When a low moan tore from his chest and his brows came together, I followed the sound forward. I didn’t care if he was human… I just cared that he was in pain.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, though I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for. Was it because I’d failed to realize how much he needed my strength, or that I was here without his permission? Now that he knew I was real, it meant something different from all the nights I’d come to him before.
Now that he knew I was here, he could look me in the eye in the morning and ask me what I thought I was doing.
The answer was simple, though. I was doing the only thing I could do.
It was going to him, like I always would. I was Icarus, and he was the sun… but I’d happily let my wings melt and meet the cold waters of the ocean if it meant I could brush my fingers against his warmth.
I just wasn’t sure how to touch him in a way that meant he’d forgive me when he realized what had happened.
I sat behind him on the bed and carefully ran my fingers along the length of his spine.
Cole shivered, but he didn’t pull away when I slid my hand around him and pressed my palm to his chest, searching out the beat of his heart.
It was soft, steadier now that the Vitality I’d killed to get was flowing into him. But it wasn’t enough…
I needed more.
The only way I knew how to let him feel me was in dreams—it was the only place we’d ever existed where he didn’t push me away. In dreams and on the edge of death.
I dropped my head to his shoulder and carefully breathed him in.
When I opened my eyes, shock gently rippled through me. We were in the field of red flowers again, though the stars in the sky were a soft blue this time.
The color of Caiden’s eyes.
“You aren’t supposed to be here.”
The voice came from behind me, and the soft tickle of his hands trailing down my arms until he could link our fingers together made me shudder. He pressed his shoulders back to mine, and I felt him relax as he leaned against me.
“Where are we?”
There was a soft sigh, followed by the feel of his head falling back to land on my shoulder. “I don’t know. It’s a place I’ve dreamed about since I was small.”
It was his dream.
The flowers weren’t here before you came.
Gods, of course it was his dream.
I took it all in—a field of red that went on as far as I could see. “I’ve never seen you here before.”
He laughed, and the sound ran over me like rain, soft and sweet sluices of water that washed away all the tension in my body. It didn’t sound bitter. It didn’t sound angry. He almost sounded… relieved.
“I haven’t dreamed about this place since Caiden died. I think maybe… I don’t know… maybe I was waiting to show it to you.” I felt it then, the softest tremble in his fingers, the way his voice was edged with tears. “You’ve been with me since that night, though, haven’t you?”
How could he see right through me when we weren’t looking at each other? Still, I couldn’t lie to him.
“Yes.”
“Before the thread. Even when I wasn’t having nightmares.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
The silence behind me was only broken by the sound of warm wind spilling through the flowers, catching red petals and sending them cascading around us in a slow dance.
“Okay.” Cole rubbed his head back and forth between my shoulder blades, like he was trying to calm himself with the feel of me while I couldn’t see him doing it. His next words came out in a whisper. “You don’t have to stop, you know?”
I closed my eyes. Maybe this wasn’t his dream after all.
Maybe it was mine.
“What do you mean?”
I was met with silence, with the feel of his fingers squeezing mine… his shoulders shaking.
“I’m fine during the day, Sephtis. I’m great at hating you then…” Cole’s voice broke on the last word, and his next breath came on a hitched little sound of pain. “But I can’t do it at night. I can’t hate you when my eyes are closed.”
I understood what he wanted—I even understood why. It saved me the trouble of telling him I’d be here even if he didn’t ask. But I still wasn’t sure what it would mean when daylight broke the dreams and we had to go back to reality.
“And what happens when the sun comes up, Cole?”
“I go back to hating you.” Even as he said it, his fingers squeezed mine, and he shifted closer, until our bodies were in a perfect line against one another. “When the sun comes up, we can pretend.”
It was an echo of what I’d said to him earlier, and I gave him the only answer I could.
“If that’s what you want.”
He tugged me down, settling us in the flowers.
My vision clouded with red, and I was drowning in the way it felt for Cole to lean against me like he actually wanted to be there.
His fingers trembling in mine, his body shifting until there was no space between us and he could lay his head against my shoulder again…
it meant more than the words he left unspoken.
The truth I knew now that I’d seen this place—it was a truth Caiden had tried to show me from the beginning.
“Yeah, Sephtis… that’s what I want.”
And that was it, a simple fact I knew down to my core. I couldn’t lie to him, and I couldn’t deny him. I would be whatever he needed…
“Okay then. We’ll pretend.”
“Good…” Cole let out a soft breath, and I felt his body settle, felt him completely relax against me. I felt my soul finally align, drifting to exactly where it was supposed to be. Here. With him. “That’s good.”