Chapter 31
Cole
I wasn’t sure if it was the way I was slamming my fist against his door, or the desperate look on his face when he wrenched it open, but Gethin’s expression went from annoyed to concerned to suspicious so fast it made my head spin.
“What did you do?”
Not what do you want? Not what happened? What did you do?
It was a fair question.
“Sephtis is gone.” That was what I’d done. I hadn’t been paying attention.
I’d stepped over the barrier.
I’d been so caught up in my grief over Caiden that I’d slipped… and he’d sacrificed himself to save me.
I wasn’t going to let it happen.
“What do you mean, gone? Like he ran away because he was tired of your shit, or…” He trailed off at my expression, and there was a flash of something that almost looked like pity on his face. Just as quick as it came, it was replaced with a frown. “Who took him?”
“I think it was Death.” It sounded so impossible, and it was stranger still when Gethin’s shoulders slumped like he was relieved.
“Did you leave the graveyard?”
That guilt washed over me again. “I didn’t realize we had. There’s an area in the back where the fence is down.”
Gethin’s expression fell. “They were expanding. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you’d be wandering around back there.” I wasn’t sure if it was accusation or guilt in his tone, and it didn’t really matter. I blamed myself enough for the both of us.
“That isn’t important. What’s important is that we get him back.”
I was already pushing past him and walking into his kitchen. He followed behind me with an exasperated sound. “Yeah, you gonna go figure out where Death lives and knock on his door? Oh please, Mr. Murder, give me back my spooky boyfriend.”
I found what I wanted and turned on Gethin. His eyes dropped to the knife in my hand and he arched a brow. “Is that for me or him, because I don’t think—”
“Neither.” I cut him off. “It’s for me.” That finally got him to shut up. He stared at me as I walked forward and pressed the blade into his hand. “I want you to stab me.”
It wasn’t really the best plan… but it was the only thing I could think of. There’d never been a time when I was hurt that Sephtis didn’t come, and if Gethin put the knife to my chest, over my heart… where that red thread connected the two of us…
Well…
Vitality could change the world, right? It would cause chaos.
Upset the balance.
I’d tugged on the thread, and it had trickled out. I wasn’t willing to break our connection, but I was willing to die trying to bring him back to me.
Either way, I’d find my way to him, wouldn’t I?
“Uh…” Gethin pulled the knife up between us, and my lizard brain shot out a warning.
He held it like he knew what he was doing.
It looked entirely too natural, the way he flipped it around in his hand.
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.
If Sephtis comes, he might try to kill me for… you know… killing you.”
I frowned. “Look, that’s why you need to do it.”
“So you do want me dead?”
“No, asshole.” I stepped closer—close enough that the tip of the blade he held pressed against my shirt. “But I have to imagine that someone who’s killed as many people as you have knows how to almost kill a person. I don’t want to die, but I need to be close enough to reach out and touch Heaven.”
Gethin rolled his eyes, putting the knife back on the counter.
“Ridiculous. There’s no such thing as Heaven.
” He turned his back on me, and in the tank top he wore, I saw what I’d read about in his journal.
Scars spilling across his shoulders where wings had once been…
deep, ragged things that told me everything I needed to know about why he was the way he was.
“If you don’t want to help—”
“Shut up, Cole.” He cut me off. “I’m not stabbing you with a kitchen knife. If you want precision, we need something sharper than that.”
Gethin was reluctant to cross over the barrier. When I asked why, he flipped the absolutely wicked looking switchblade he’d brought with him in his hand and pointed it at me.
“I have a feeling we’re about to attract entirely too much attention. I’m not in the mood for the wrong kind to rain down on my head.”
I knew he had this place guarded for a reason, but I didn’t think his old boss was going to come swooping out of the sky to scoop him up for taunting Death. Even though that wasn’t the only thing I was after here, the only attention I was trying to get.
He still came back to Caiden’s gravestone with me, even if he was cautious when he stepped over the line of the barrier, and I turned to face him.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, and his gaze dropped to my chest. I knew he was looking at the thread. My fingers came up, and if I closed my eyes and brushed them gently over my heart, I could feel the warmth of it there.
“Yeah. I’m sure. Just don’t cut the thread.
It’s not about that.” It had never been about that, even though I’d thought it was to begin with.
I stuffed my hand into the pocket of my jacket as I opened my eyes, and the warmth of the petal Caiden had left me gave me the resolve to take a deep breath. “I can do this for him.”
“Gods,” Gethin sighed. “Love is such a fucked-up emotion. All it does is hurt us. And Cole…” He pressed the tip of the knife to my chest. “This is really going to hurt.”
Of course it was. I just didn’t know how to explain that I would have let him kill me if it meant I could save Sephtis.
“Just pull me over your barrier if you see those fucking dogs.”
“Right,” he said, and his icy eyes lifted. This close, I could see the fractured spikes of lavender and imagine how pretty his gaze had once been. This close, I could see the slightest bit of pity… of affinity.
I guess our situations were similar. And from the way he narrowed his eyes at me, he knew that I knew.
“Sorry,” I muttered, and he shrugged.
“You’re definitely about to pay for it, so… take a deep breath, and try not to scream.”
Gethin pressed the blade forward, and there was a moment of blinding pain. When I looked down, I saw the first trickles of it—my blood, yes, but mixed in with it was that white, shining essence… those little bursts of black. I could handle the agony. I could handle anything.
I could do this for Sephtis, because somewhere in my soul, deep in that place that had always loved him… I knew that he’d save me.
And then there was a rush of wind, a burst of feathers, and a hand grabbed the blade cutting into my chest, yanking it from Gethin’s grip like it was made of plastic.
“You might want to think things through before you go spilling that much Vitality over a graveyard, Gethin. You might end up causing an apocalypse.”
The voice didn’t belong to Sephtis. I turned my head, my vision blurry from the tears that had sprung into my eyes, but I knew I didn’t recognize the man.
He had light blond hair, and he stood tall and lean, with violet eyes even paler than Gethin’s. He looked young… pretty…
Not what I’d expected at all.
“Oh, fuck, you absolute asshole.” Gethin’s voice sounded panicked, and I didn’t realize what was happening as my body flew through the air until I was landing on the ground, and I glanced back to see that Gethin had scrambled back over the line of his barrier.
He wasn’t looking at me, though, he was staring at the man who had appeared in front of us with wide, anxious eyes. “Uh… hey, Aiden.”
Aiden.
The name sounded familiar, and it took me a moment to realize Sephtis had said it before.
I think he goes by the name Aiden now.
I groaned as I lifted myself to my feet and looked at the man standing at the edge of the barrier glaring daggers in Gethin’s direction.
“Uh, so you’re… Fate.”
He turned to me, and the swirl of his eyes shifted from a pale violet to a beautiful prismatic that I nearly got lost in. I swayed forward, my hand coming up to press against my chest.
Against my heart and the wound still bleeding.
Over that red line that trailed into nothing now. His gaze dropped to it as well, and honey-colored brows snapped together.
“Hm. Surprising things keep happening when my cupids play with Ardor in ways they shouldn’t.” Aiden’s eyes drifted from my chest and back to Gethin.
“Cole, what the fuck is going on? I thought you wanted to find Death. Not… I… Fate?” It was like his mind was just catching up to the word. “What the fuck?”
Aiden stepped forward, and his walk was liquid, graceful like a dance. He moved like the very air around him was some great stage and he was here to perform. He stopped with his fingers pressed to the edge of the barrier… and then, with a tilt of his head, he pushed through it.
“You know, Gethin. I didn’t realize you were quite so… clever.”
Shit. I hadn’t meant to do anything that would get Gethin into trouble. I’d honestly thought he’d be safe behind his barrier, safe after he nearly killed me. I was hoping this whole thing with tempting Fate would happen after the Vitality was spilling from my chest.
I was moving before I had time to think about it, and I caught the man’s arm and spun him to look at me.
There was a moment where his eyes focused on my face, and I felt it tear straight through me, dip into my bones and turn them to ash. That look unmade me and put me back together a million times in a single second.
He was…
Old.
Older than anything.
More frightening than any nightmare I’d ever had, because he’d seen everything, and he was seeing through me now. And then he tilted his head and wiped the expression away with a smile, reaching forward and plucking at the string on my chest.
“And you… you’re causing quite a stir, do you know that? I’m sure Death isn’t happy that his Reaper’s gone rogue. I’m not even sure how you called me here.”
“He was here.” I shot the words out before I lost my nerve, and Aiden froze.
“What?”
“Death. He was here. He came, and he took Sephtis. He’s the reason I have this.” I held up the petal Caiden had handed me. A connection to the dead—something that shouldn’t have existed.
Caiden’s life, contained in a red petal that I never should have been able to hold. Proof that Death had been here to give us that moment. I hadn’t needed a book or instructions to tell me how to do this—I just had to believe in my brother. To believe in Sephtis.
I had to believe in Fate.
Aiden looked at it, and his eyes narrowed.
“Where did you get that?”
“I talked to my brother,” I said carefully, and I heard the sound Gethin made, even though I couldn’t see him.
“Isn’t he dead?”
It wasn’t Gethin I looked at when I answered. “Yeah, he is. So… sounds like someone’s causing more trouble than I am. Really fucking with the balance, right?”
I was being braver than I had any right to be, but there was nothing else I could do.
It was either be brave, or give in to the fact that Death had taken Sephtis and I didn’t know where to start looking for him.
I’d kind of hoped that if the Vitality in my chest started to spill, he’d come to collect… and if Fate was here.
Well… once upon a time, Sephtis had told me the only thing that could possibly control Death was Fate.
It was a big gamble.
A risk, and I had no idea what the result would be, but…
Well… Caiden had pressed the petal into my palm and told me that Fate had brought me my soulmate.
So Fate was the only thing I could think of to get him back.
“I see,” Aiden said, and his eyes flicked between my chest and back to the knife Gethin had been using. “And you were going to… sacrifice yourself to get his attention? Is that a go-to for humans?”
There was weight to the question I didn’t quite understand, but I nodded without thinking. “I’ll do anything to get him back. Sephtis doesn’t deserve to suffer because he got stuck with a soulmate like me.”
“Hm.” Aiden looked me over again, and then flicked his eyes back to Gethin. “You. Stay put. I need to have a few words with you when this is over and done with.”
Over and done with.
“Fuck off, Aiden. I haven’t done anything wrong. Cole asked me to stab him.” Gethin’s eyes turned to me. “Right?”
“He wasn’t going to kill me or anything. Just… make a bit of a mess.” Even to me, it didn’t sound good, but…
“Right. Well… if you wanted to make a mess, Cole… there are better ways.”
“Aiden, wait.” Gethin was moving toward us, but it was too late. Aiden tilted his head as he looked at me, and then he stretched his hand out and pressed it to my chest.
There was a burn, and it kept moving.
Moving.
Moving until it was inside me—moving until I felt his fingers wrap around my heart and squeeze.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think.
All I could do was see.
A life before—two young men falling in love, when there weren’t buildings and cars. When the world was new and the soul in Sephtis’s chest was still human. His eyes were a beautiful golden brown…
He was human.
Human and mine.
We’d always belonged together, and as Aiden twisted his hand and squeezed my heart until I felt Vitality start to spill over his fingers… I knew one simple truth.
Sephtis had always been mine. We’d always been connected… and nothing could tear us apart.