CHAPTER FIFTY
Nova
THE CHANGING OF THE SEASONS MEANT THE SUN WAS leaving us early. And today, that felt fitting. The growing darkness crept around Kol and me as we sat on the back deck.
It had become our spot, the place we’d go when we simply needed to be. Or we needed to process.
We both probably needed more than a little of both tonight. But as twilight gathered, I held on to the moon rising with it. It might not have been a full one, but even the tiny sliver in the sky gave off a glow. And the building darkness only made the moon shine brighter.
A beacon of hope.
Hope we desperately needed. Hope I wanted for Piper. Hope I wanted for us all.
I’d gone with Dex and Brae to pick up the kids for a sleepover at their cabin while Kol had spent the rest of the day at the overlook where Piper’s car had been found.
It was obvious someone had met her there, hurt her there, taken her from that spot.
Roger and his team were looking into Piper’s new boyfriend, but none of us had a name for him.
But all of us were terrified for Piper—Aidan, Fiona, Wylder, Brae.
Maybe Cora most of all. She’d looked sick when I left and the Boot reopened for patrons.
I’d asked if she’d come over after her shift, but I wasn’t sure she’d actually show.
Then again, we all had to deal in our ways, and I wouldn’t push her.
Kol was certain that whoever had taken Piper was the same person who had taken Heidi. He just had no answers about who that was.
And that destroyed him.
I looked over at the man beside me and really took him in. The rising moon battling against the twilight cast him in shadow and light, just like the gold and green in his eyes. Both were like the man himself. He was darkness and light, and the combination was beautiful.
I moved then, unable to hold myself back. Climbing into Kol’s lap as he sat on the top step, I wrapped myself around him, my legs encircling his waist as my arms went around his neck. Suddenly, we were face-to-face.
Brushing the hair out of his eyes, I studied his beautiful features. “I love you,” I whispered.
“I know.”
That knowledge was a gift. That he was so sure of my love for him. “Tell me what I can do.”
Kol exhaled, the air whistling between his teeth. “I should be the one comforting you.”
“What makes you think you aren’t?”
“I’m not good at it. Out of practice.”
I couldn’t help it; I laughed. It was the last sound I expected to come out of me after everything we’d been through today, but it also felt damn good.
Kol glared up at me.
“I’m sorry.” I let my hands sift through his hair again. “But that’s one of the most asinine things I’ve ever heard.”
The glare deepened. “It’s not nice to call people asinine.”
“What you said was asinine,” I corrected. “Kol, you are the most caring, comforting person I’ve ever known. And it comes from your soul. You may not give it to many, but you give it to the people who are important.”
His glare ebbed, transforming into curiosity. “Do I really give you what you need?”
My heart broke. For the boy who, at just seventeen, had watched his family shatter. For the one who’d had the rug pulled out from under him when he realized who his father truly was. For the man who’d had every lie reinforced when a woman couldn’t see who he and his daughter really were.
He’d had every confirmation that he wasn’t enough. That everything about him was wrong, bad, and freakish. And it killed me that those doubts still lived inside him.
I stared into those dark-hazel eyes and let all my walls down.
I let him see it all. “Kol, you helped me live. And I don’t mean you kept me breathing when I couldn’t carry on.
You taught me how to find life again, how not to run away from it but live it.
You gave me beauty and fun and a family.
You let me show you who I really was when I felt like everything inside of me was ugly. ”
A fierceness spread over Kol’s expression. “All of you is beautiful,” he rasped. “Your hope and your fear. Your joy and your pain. Because all of it is you.”
“There is nothing more comforting than knowing, down to your bones, that you are loved for exactly who you are. That is the most precious gift I’ll ever be given.”
Kol searched my face. “I love you.”
“I know,” I said, my mouth curving.
“Stop stealing my lines.”
“They’re good.” I brushed my lips across his and then straightened.
A buzz lit in my muscles, not one of anxiety but those butterfly wings I’d felt before I told Brae I loved her.
Anticipation and some nerves, but all of it meant I was alive.
And because of that, I wanted to truly live.
Not in fear but in freedom. “I want to try something.”
Kol’s dark brows pulled together in question. “Okay. You going to tell me what?”
“I want you to tie me up.”