Chapter 5 #2
I shift in my chair. Cassian still has that intensity about him, like he’s waiting for us to circle back to Death and all its unfairness. I don’t want to. Not now.
So I cop out. Push my palms into the armrests and stand.
“I’m going after him,” I say.
“Don’t,” Cassian warns. “We’re not finished here.”
I look down at him. The angle still makes it feel like he’s kneeling before me, his neck craned, throat bared. The line of his jaw catches the light, sharp and clean.
He looks so handsome I almost don’t want to go.
But the things he wants to talk about are too heavy for one sitting.
“I know,” I tell him. “But right now it’s all too fresh. We need time to think.”
“And Talon doesn’t?”
That stops me.
“He does. I just—” I exhale. “I don’t like it when people walk away angry. Especially when I don’t even know what I did wrong.”
Nathaniel exhales through his nose. “If you’re going after him, tread lightly. He’s… not mad in the way you think.”
“Right, you keep saying that, and yet here I am with zero actual explanation.”
“Skye—” Cassian starts.
“I’ll be back,” I cut in, already moving toward the hall. “We’ll figure something out once I’m back, okay? All of us.”
No one tries to stop me anymore.
I suppose the two of them aren’t all talk about freedom and justice. They live by it too.
The hallway smells faintly of smoke before I even round the corner—a good or bad sign, depending on how much of Talon’s temper he’s burned off out there.
The front door is propped open, cold air leaking in. He’s outside on the cracked front steps, hunched forward with his elbows on his knees, a cigarette dangling between two fingers.
He doesn’t look up when I step outside, but his shoulders tighten.
“Didn’t know you smoked,” I say.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Little Grim.”
I take a few steps down, the chill biting through my blouse. The days are getting colder by the day. Now I get to feel it.
Kind of makes me wish I didn’t.
Now’s one of those times.
“Well, I know you hit Nathaniel in the face. And that you’re angry at me for a reason you haven’t shared.”
He takes a long drag, the crackle of tobacco joining the sound of wind and the trees swaying behind the hospital. The sky looks ready to rain, and in all that gray, Talon’s hair seems almost alive.
He doesn’t fit here. Or maybe it’s that everything I know about him doesn’t fit? What I do know is dull and brutal.
But he looks like the kind of guy you’d try weed with for the first time. The kind you’d tell your secrets to in some half-empty bar off a forgotten highway, just because you both happened to end up there.
That version clashes with the brooding man in front of me.
“You’re not subtle, you know,” I say, stopping a few steps above him. “Storming off like that. Laughing like you’re about to lose your mind. Hitting Nathaniel—”
“He deserved it,” Talon mutters.
“Yeah? For what?”
His lips twitch like he might smirk, but it doesn’t stick. “For saying out loud what I didn’t need to hear.”
“And that was…?”
Whatever my words do to him, it’s sudden and sharp. The cigarette stills halfway to his mouth, suspended there as he turns around like a whirlwind and looks me in the eye. His eyes are blazing. There’s no trace of that usual, cocky gleam I’m used to.
It’s raw. Unfiltered. Like I’ve pried open something he’s spent years nailing shut.
“That you’re not here for us,” he says.
I blink. “What?”
“You heard me.” His voice is low, but not quiet. Not restrained. “Nathaniel said you’re not the problem, and I wanted to believe him. But then you stand there, tell us there are more wraiths, and I realize—” He cuts himself off, teeth grinding.
“Realize what?”
He exhales, rough. “That you’re only still here because the job isn’t done. That when it is, you’ll either walk away or… you won’t walk away at all.” His jaw flexes. He looks past me, as if saying it to the air might hurt less. “Either way, you’re gone.”
Something catches in my chest.
“That’s not—” I start, but one look from him shuts me up.
“Don’t.” He shakes his head, sharp. “You don’t have to lie to me, Skye. I know I fucked up when I got all bitchy about you sleeping with Cassian, but… fuck. You make me lose my goddamn mind.”
The cigarette burns to the filter, forgotten.
I don’t know what to say.
Is this really the Talon I know?
I swallow and step closer. His fingers loosen; the cigarette drops to the concrete. Goosebumps ripple across his bare forearms. The little hairs stand on end.
Am I doing this to him? Am I affecting him enough for his body to betray it?
“I didn’t think you cared whether I stayed or not,” I admit.
It all replays in my head. The way he always wanted to touch me back when I couldn’t be touched. How light it felt with him compared to the dark weight of my past. I knew why it was so easy. Because it didn’t mean much. There was nothing at stake. Just raw attraction.
And then, somewhere along the way, Talon stopped being easy. He became this tangle of contradictions I can’t pin down—still charming, still a smartass, but now… edgy. Jealous. Keeping score. And now, this.
“I didn’t,” he says at last, quieter. “Not at first. You were just… you know. A wild card. Something to poke at.” His mouth quirks.
“Then you started doing all these things no one asked you to do. Saving Cassian’s life, sticking around after we fucked up, and you even chose me to be the one to take your new virginity, and—”
“Okay, you know what?” I cut him off. “That was situational, and you know it. It’s not like I got this body with a new hymen or anything.”
That earns a huff of laughter.
“Yeah,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Still felt like you choosing me. That stuck.”
I blink. “You’re saying that like you think I planned any of this.”
His mouth twitches, but his eyes stay serious. “No. I’m saying it because somewhere along the way, I started liking the idea of you being here. Not just in the same building. Not just for Death’s errands. Here. With us.”
“Being a murderer hunter and all?”
“Yeah.” He shrugs, a small, helpless gesture. “Sort of. I mean… that part would be your choice. You know it.”
“Do I?”
His gaze sharpens, like he’s daring me to convince him otherwise.
“You tell us there’s more wraiths, and all I can think is—great.
We get to keep her until she either kills herself doing the job or disappears because the job’s done.
And yeah, I hate the wraith shit, but the thought of you not being here?
That’s worse. But I’m sure she could’ve told Death she doesn’t want to do this anymore.
She could’ve opted out. I mean, what could Death really threaten you with?
Dying? Extinguishing-our-souls bullshit?
Yeah, as if that’s any different from the idea of no afterlife after death.
But no. You agreed. Decided to do it. Why, Skye? Tell me why.”
The thing is… there are at least four answers to that, and none of them are ones I want to hand him right now.
The real one is ugly. It involves Death’s voice crawling down my spine, threading through my ribs, and that cold certainty that if I say no, something awful will happen—not to me, but to them.
So I default to the easiest lie that sounds enough like the truth.
“Because someone has to do it,” I say.
His jaw tightens. “That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
I take another step down, close enough now that the faint bite of smoke lingers between us.
“Do I? I don’t. And you have no way to prove it.”
He huffs out a humorless laugh.
“Oh, I do have a way,” he says, voice dipping low enough to slide under my skin.
Before I can ask, his hand snaps out, fingers curling around the back of my neck. He pulls me the last step closer until my toes bump his boots, and one heartbeat later, his lips are on mine.
And really, it’s not the taunting kind of kiss he’s good at. It’s heat and demand pressed into my mouth. Nothing like anything I’ve ever tasted before. It’s not Mark’s dutifulness, or Cassian’s raging need. It’s not Talon’s usual undiluted heat.
It’s emotion. A fight dressed as pleasure. A confession.
His mouth moves over mine like he’s trying to make a point I can’t argue out of, teeth grazing my lower lip before his tongue slides against it. Coaxing, claiming, testing. I don’t even remember my hands moving, but they’re in his hair now, gripping as I pull myself closer.
The hand on my neck tightens just enough to make my breath hitch, tilting my head the way he wants it. His other hand slides under the hem of my blouse, fingers cold against the bare skin of my waist, dragging up slowly.
“I don’t want—” he breaks away just enough to speak, breath harsh, “—that fucking cactus to die, Little Grim.”
I could push him away. Tell him this is too much, too fast, too tangled. But instead, I surge forward, kissing him harder.
“The three of us are really shit at keeping plants alive,” he mutters.
I breathe against his mouth, half-laugh, half-gasp. “Then maybe you should’ve led with that instead of the dramatic storm-off.”
“Wouldn’t have landed the same,” he murmurs, his lips ghosting mine before his teeth catch the corner of my mouth.
His fingers slide higher beneath my blouse until he finds my breast.
I didn’t wear any of the bras I found in my ICU room, so the access to my nipple is immediate. His fingertips, probably still smelling faintly of smoke, graze it, and a violent shiver rips through me, making the air feel ten degrees colder.
“For real, Little Grim.” A pinch, sharp and precise. “I’m baring my fucking heart out here, so maybe say something.”
My breath catches just as his other hand slides to my leg and lifts it, hooking it over his hip, giving him shameless, kinglike access to grind against my pussy. What did I say earlier? Loose sweatpants are the go-to. They make everything easier.
“What do you want to hear? A promise that I’ll never leave?”
His hips press forward at that—slow, almost tender—and my head tips back.
“That you don’t want to,” he breathes, teeth grazing my throat. “Start with that.”
His fingers roll my nipple, the pinch measured, syncing with my pulse. How can someone be this obscene in the smallest of gestures? It’s like he was made for fucking, and for living too fast.
“I don’t—” my voice catches, “—want to.”
“Yeah? You want to stay by our side, right? Want to be fucked nice and messy by us all as often as you’d like?”
I’m going to regret this. Fucking hell, I’m going to regret this man. But I’m already too far gone. My fingers tighten in his hair, and all I can think about is how good it feels—
To be wanted like this.
To be craved so hard he can’t handle it.
Throwing a fit because he doesn’t want to lose me.
“You slut-shamed me for it,” I whisper, my last restraint teetering between us.
His mouth stills against my throat. Just for a second.
“I know, baby,” he admits. “I’m a fucking fool. A pretentious, unfair little bitch. I’m so sorry. I really am.”
His hips roll forward again, harder this time, and the angle sends a jolt straight through my core. I bite back a gasp, nails scraping against his scalp.
“Will you forgive me?” he asks. “Take pity on this creep who’s losing his mind over you?”
Gods, I can’t expect healthy problem-solving from an actual murderer, can I? But he needs to know he doesn’t have me completely. Not like this.
“I don’t want to be owned,” I say.
“Not even by three men, all equal?”
My pulse spikes. He isn’t joking. His voice is low, certain, like he’s already imagined it: some kind of unholy balance between the three of them. Me with all of them. Claimed in ways that have nothing to do with Death, or Mark, or our pasts. Or just sex. He means more.
“Not owned,” I breathe, dragging my nails harder through his hair. “Shared… maybe. But not owned.”
“Shared,” he echoes. “That I can live with. Now please, baby… Tell me what I want to hear.”
My lips part, the truth trembling on the tip of my tongue. I want to keep my walls, keep my cards close. But then his fingers slip lower, tracing the waistband of my sweatpants, and all I can think about is how dangerous it feels to want him this much.
“Show me how it would be…” My voice drops to a whisper. “...if I stayed.”
The look that crosses his face is pure sin wrapped in triumph.
“You got it.”