Chapter 9
Soul
What… what did I just do? I’d completely lost control of myself, of my thoughts and purpose. I’d…
I’d… I’d done the only thing I could do when I was that close to him. Instinct and the lure of his desire had taken over me.
And I did it again when I dipped my head down, brushing my mouth against Caiden’s before carefully shifting him from my shoulders and onto the mattress.
I drank down the soft sigh of contentment that he fed me like he knew I was apparently a creature starved for this.
I’d gone my entire existence without really thinking much on things like this, the physicality of contact.
Need.
Desire.
But I could taste all of that on his tongue. I could still smell it in the air… and…
And the symphony of his little cries of pleasure were still echoing in my head, demanding I do everything in my power to make sure that I could hear those sounds again, that I was the only one who ever pulled them from his sweet, soft lips.
“Caiden, I…” My words cut off as he lolled his head almost bonelessly to look at me. The expression of satisfaction on his face was absolutely sinful. This…
Was this the kind of thing that humans tried to sell their souls for? I’d had to wrestle a few from the fingers of creatures who thought souls were something to barter with…
I’d never understood it before.
I kind of did now.
“Hm?” He looked so soft, so content. I wasn’t even sure what I’d wanted to say.
That it was a mistake? That we couldn’t do it again?
That when I figured things out, I still had to take him back to the Lake because it was where he belonged?
There was only one small truth to any of that…
he did belong in the Lake, but at this point I knew that wasn’t where we were going.
The only place I was going to be was wherever Caiden wanted to lead me.
“Nothing… nothing.” I leaned down, running my tongue in a slow trail along the line of his neck until he shivered. I nuzzled there, just behind his ear, and closed my eyes as I spoke. “I just have no idea what I’m doing. I hope you know that.”
“I mean…” His grin was sweet and lazy. “I don’t really know much either, but I think we did a good job figuring it out. Don’t you?”
It took me a few seconds to realize he wasn’t talking about our situation, but instead the satisfaction that was still tingling along my body. The heat that rushed to my cheeks was another very human emotion I wasn’t used to.
Embarrassment.
“I didn’t mean… I—”
He leaned up, pressing his mouth to mine to stop me from stuttering.
When he pulled back, his expression was softer.
“I know. It’s all right. I don’t think we have to know what we’re doing, as long as we’re doing it together.
I don’t know why I know that’s true, but…
it is.” Caiden sounded so sure, but I could see the softest hint of insecurity in his eyes.
It wasn’t as if humans really understood the way the universe worked.
Sure, some believed in things like love at first sight, and maybe Caiden had seen more than others since he’d met a Reaper…
but they still had no idea that every soul in the world had a destiny they couldn’t control.
He had no way to know Fate had a penchant for pulling the strings of every creature he could get his fingers on, mortal and immortal alike.
“There are things in your world that are just true, Caiden, whether it makes sense or not. I think…” I had no proof of what I was saying, because as far as I knew, soul hounds were one of the things Fate hadn’t managed to get his greedy fingers on yet.
But… well, here we were. And as much as I wanted to pretend Death was the only master I had, it certainly felt like something else was at play here.
“I think you’re right. We’re supposed to be here. Together.”
My gaze drifted to the way he sucked his lower lip between his teeth, chewing it almost nervously for a second before he nodded.
“I’m fine with that, I think. I don’t really know the way the universe works, or why I’m still here, even though I was ready to be done…
but I do know for the first time in a long time…
I feel good.” His gaze fell. “It almost feels like I’m doing something wrong, saying that. ”
The guilt in his voice made me pull back when logic, my mission, and everything that I should have been doing hadn’t been able to. “Why?”
Was I allowed to protect him from his own emotions? Because I wasn’t very fond of the pain in his voice.
“It’s just… I don’t know. I tried so hard when I was still alive.
I tried to be hopeful, and when the doctors took that away from me, I tried to be strong so I could stay as long as I could.
I tried to be happy, and okay with what was happening.
I tried to be a lot of things, but none of it was ever… this…”
He’d barely told me anything about his life, but I could gather little pieces of it from what I’d seen. A Reaper with a man who looked just like him—a twin who was still living, and Caiden who’d died…
Caiden, who was willing to help the very creature who said he’d come to tear him apart and drag his soul back to Death.
It wasn’t really a stretch to see that he’d probably put everyone and everything above himself…
that when you were dying, it was hard to have anything good when you were so busy pretending that the end wasn’t chasing at your heels.
“You deserve to feel good, Caiden. I don’t know much, and I hardly understand how this world works…
but I know that.” I leaned in then, running my nose along his jawline and pushing him back against the mattress.
He went willingly, his body melting against me as soon as I pressed into him.
I covered him like the weight of my frame could somehow protect him from everything he’d ever gone through, everything the world had never let him have while he was living. “I want to make you feel good.”
When I pulled back to look at him, his eyes were soft. That gentle glow of blue that seemed completely capable of entrancing me with the flutter of his lashes. “You did.”
“Not just like that…” Though what we’d done had been amazing. I’d never felt anything like it, and I knew there was more to it than just what we’d done… but… “I want to make you feel…” What was the word I was looking for? “Happy.”
Happy.
I’d never made a soul feel happy before. I’d pleased Death when I’d done my job well, and I’d given souls peace when I threw them into the Lake… but happy?
I hadn’t known that was something I was capable of giving. I wasn’t even sure now if it was a thing I could do.
But for Caiden…
For Caiden, I wanted to try.
Just the thought was enough to make me drop my head back to his shoulder before he could see the confusion tearing through me.
All of this was new—all these emotions, the thoughts.
The heat and warmth and desire and need ripping through me.
None of it had existed before I’d been stuck in this form.
It was probably as strong as it was because I’d never allowed myself to linger with human thoughts, with human feelings. Now that I was, they were drowning me.
Now that I was, the only thing that was keeping me from completely falling apart was the feel of the man beneath me, whose arms lifted so he could gently trace against the lines of my back like he could tell I needed comfort just as much as he did.
“We’re kind of a mess, aren’t we?” He didn’t sound upset about the truth in his words.
I nodded, not bothering to lift my head when I did.
It didn’t matter. I didn’t need to when his arms around me just tightened, and his hands came up so his fingers could gently run through my hair.
“That’s okay. Most of my life was sterile hospitals and neat schedules for treatments, for pills…
hell, for living and dying. I’m kind of okay with things being a little messy. ”
If he wanted messy, I’d give it to him. If he wanted the opposite of the entire world he’d had before, I’d figure out a way for him to have just that.
Caiden might not have understood the way things actually worked, the fact that sometimes things were out of our control and we just had to follow the twisted whims of Fate… but I did.
And for the first time, I was starting to wonder if maybe Death was wrong about him. If he’d brought me Caiden… if he’d brought me to this moment and the realization that I was willing to throw away everything I’d ever known for the chance to show a wayward soul how to be messy…
Well… if he’d done that, I didn’t see how he could actually be that bad.