12. Burn
CHAPTER TWELVE
BURN
AURORA
“ B -but they’re the harbingers of the apocalypse,” I stammered out.
It wasn’t just that I was stunned by the possibility of the end of days. Even hearing it preached week after week, I’d always assumed it was also an analogy. Or a worst-case scenario that was predicted to show what would happen to unrepentant sinners. Maybe something that would happen eons in the future.
It being real was surprising but not as shocking as finding out Deke was part of it. The cause of it.
Thoughtful, gruff, quiet Deke .
“That’s the way it’s been twisted.” He lifted his shoulder in a nonchalant shrug, but I could see the pain in his tensely clenched jaw and dark eyes. “It’s easier to let your urges run rampant when you have a boogeyman to blame. Or four of us. My brothers, Death and Pestilence. Our sister, War. And me.”
Famine .
I opened my mouth.
And then I closed it again because I had no argument to that.
Pastor Gideon had portrayed himself as a pristine vessel of God, doling judgment from his position on the elevated pulpit before going home to terrorize his wife and daughter.
At least Ryan had been slightly more honest about his shortcomings. He’d endeared himself to everyone—including me—with his relatability as a flawed man. He just hadn’t shown how flawed he truly was.
In the six years since my accident, I’d seen countless visions of countless sins. Not egregious ones from every person I encountered. Most people were good. Imperfect, sure. Misguided, definitely. But good . In every congregation I’d attended over the years, starting in Arkansas and ending in Georgia, a few were always different.
Alcohol.
Drugs.
Sex.
Violence.
Every vice ticked off over the years by people who sat in the pews, not as sinners connecting with God, but as haughty hypocrites.
Always angling. Always out for themselves. Always seeking more, more, more .
And that was just the limited glimpses my curse had shown me.
But Deke wasn’t like that. My mind reeled as I thought about how different he was from everything I knew about Famine.
I would’ve smacked myself in the forehead if it weren’t for the fact I was too stunned to move.
Famine on his black horse .
The name had been right there in front of me. I’d seen it dozens of times each day for a week, but I’d just assumed it was because of the farm area around.
But it wasn’t. It was a play on his depiction even though he used that restaurant and the room at the side to feed people. He kept expansive gardens of produce that he shared freely, including driving far out of his way to drop supplies off in areas that were food deserts.
He was fair and just with his employees. I’d heard them talk about how overpaid they were for the limited hours they worked. How he approved time off, even if it meant he was the one filling in. How balanced their lives were compared to when they’d worked in other restaurants.
None of that made sense with who he claimed to be.
Unconsciously echoing my thoughts, Deke leaned closer and said, “Know it’s only been a week, but think of everything you’ve seen from me. Everything you know about me.” He reached out and lightly tapped his fingertip to my upper chest. “In here.”
The familiar phantom burn flared to life under his touch. It didn’t just warm. It ignited across my skin until it engulfed all of me.
One moment, I was on his couch. And in the next, I was continents away.
Centuries away
I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but I did. I thought maybe he’d brought me somewhere, but I was alone and overlooking a Deke who didn’t know I was there.
That’s not my—er, not the modern Deke.
It was just a vision. The warmth remained as I watched from my hazy space above, there but not—as that Deke fed small children, all of them frail and shivering in their thin scraps of fabric. The distorted backdrop of a sprawling castle shimmered with transparency, allowing me to see inside. To where it was packed with people in their pomp and finery who willfully ignored the suffering around them.
The heat and haze intensified before dwindling, leaving me further back in time. Deke stood with a small group of men and women. I couldn’t hear his words, but I could feel his anger. His regret. His longing for people to do what was right so he wasn’t forced to take action. More than any of that, I felt his protectiveness.
And his loneliness.
Warmth and mist pushed in again to wipe away the scene just as he moved to defend whoever was out of view. When it cleared, a series of images flitted in front of me like a flipbook. I only saw each for a millisecond, yet I was able to take in every detail. Every scent. Every emotion.
Different places. Different times. Different appearances, but all of them still somehow Deke . The same man he’d shown himself to be over the previous week. A man who was patient and kind, doing so much good in the world without ever expecting anything in return.
Another surge of heat and smoke—green that time—but it didn’t dissipate. It grew and grew, swirling around me like a tender caress. Nerve endings lit along its path until I could feel everything.
Pleasure, lust, need .
Companionship, fulfillment, belonging .
I gasped sharply, and the smoke flowed in, invading my body. My taste buds sang at the fire of the hottest pepper and the sweetness of the stickiest candy coating my tongue as the green smoke traveled down to fill my chest. I would suffocate without oxygen, but I still gulped in more. More of that contentment. That joy.
That fullness I’d never experienced before Deke.
Despite my greedy desperation to stay in whatever that place was, the smoke cleared. The burn on my chest faded back to a memory. And the visions disappeared. Even with my eyes closed, I could tell I was back on Deke’s couch.
Because I’d never left.
That didn’t stop a hint of fiery heat and sweet smoke from lingering in my mouth.
Needing to savor the scant traces of it before it disappeared, I ran my tongue across my lips.
I might not have moved during my vision, but Deke had.
Still speaking from his spot on the edge of the coffee table, he’d reached out to cup my cheek with his thumb resting near my bottom lip. When my tongue swept out, it ran across his skin.
My lids shot open at the taste of him. It wasn’t fiery or sweet like the green smoke. It was something far better.
It was Deke.
It was mine .
His previous possessive declarations suddenly echoed in my head with my own. They grew so loud, I nearly missed his groan. His gaze locked onto my mouth as he dragged his thumb across my bottom lip, his touch rough and branding.
More tentative than before, my tongue darted out for another taste.
I barely grazed his skin when Deke moved.
Not to hustle from the room.
Not to storm out the door to chop wood to add to the already towering piles.
But to close the nominal distance between us. His hand slid from my cheek to palm the back of my head while his other went to the back of the couch next to my head.
I had the briefest thought of how safe I felt—how right it was—with the gigantic lumberjack of a man looming over me. And then I lost the ability to think at all when his mouth covered mine.
My already heightened emotions grew loftier still until I was hyperaware of every sensation. Every scent. Every jolt of desire building in me from just a kiss. I tried to force my brain to jump-start because I wanted to focus on it all. Memorize it all.
But Deke wouldn’t let me.
Like he knew I was overthinking, he speared his fingers into my hair and tugged gently until my lips separated from his just enough for him to order, “Tell me you don’t feel it. This connection between us. Tell me you don’t want it.”
I didn’t say it.
Couldn’t .
Because it was true. I felt it all.
And Deke knew it. “Then open your mouth, baby. Gimme what I’ve searched centuries for.”
I wanted to ask about that again. I should’ve asked about that again. But my body obeyed his demand instantly, and my lips parted.
His tongue plunged in to take and taste with a desperation I never knew existed. Not in books. Not in my wildest fantasies. Certainly not in real life. I whimpered into the kiss, and quickly realized that Deke had been holding back. Because at that soft, involuntary noise, his grip on my hair tightened and his already bruising kiss became painful.
A beautiful, aching pain that I wanted more of.
No.
I needed more.
My hands went to his soft, overgrown hair just as his dropped from the couch to grip my ass. He easily lifted me with one arm, and my legs instinctively wrapped around his torso.
I thought he was making good on his promise to finally take me to his bed. The table. Or maybe the door.
Like him, I was also surprisingly game for any of it.
But he just turned and sat with me straddling his lap.
Oh.
My.
Wow.
I’d felt his hardness against my stomach in the entryway, but I’d been so wrapped up in my jealousy and our confusing argument that I’d convinced myself that what I’d felt was mostly jeans or his belt buckle. That there was no way it was actually his arousal. No way that I’d caused it. But with it pushed against my needy sex, there was no denying it.
Deke’s staggering height and fit muscles weren’t the only massive things about him.
I was intimidated and far out of my element.
But that didn’t stop me from wanting to touch him more.
Touch him everywhere .
Staying over my sweater, he moved his hand from my ass to span my side, traveling up before pausing with his thumb stretched just under the curve of my breast. It moved back down as he grabbed my hip and tugged me closer. Holding me against his hardness.
That time when it drifted up, he pushed under my shirt so it was skin against skin.
He stopped at the same spot and stroked back down, repeating the infuriating pattern until I nearly wept with frustration.
Frustration that spiked when he removed his hand from beneath my top to clasp my jaw while his other stayed firmly on the back of my head. Holding me in place.
Forcing my mouth open as he took what he wanted.
A muffled groan rumbled up his chest, and his fingers trembled when he violently tore his mouth away. His breaths came in heavy pants as he rested his forehead against mine. “You have no idea how much it kills me to do this, but we have more to talk about.”
“Can it wait?” I whispered without thought, my fingers running through his hair before dropping to clutch his flannel.
“Wish it could, Aurora. Fucking wish it could.” He released my head, but only so he could span my hips. “But I don’t know how this will change shit. You need to know the truth first.”
The ominousness of his words sank in through the fog of desire that clouded my brain and common sense. After everything he’d already shared—and what my curse had shown—I wasn’t sure what else there could be. Or how bad it must be to cause that somberness in his tone. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
But I knew I had to hear it. I had to tell him my own truths, too.
It still took me a few seconds and a lot of effort to release my hold on his shirt and shift back. My attempt to climb off his lap was halted when his firm hold didn’t loosen.
I raised my questioning gaze to meet his, but his fingers just clenched in response.
Rather than putting me out of my misery by telling me whatever I had to know, he stretched out the torture by asking, “Why didn’t you talk till today?”
His question practically rolled out the red carpet for me to share about my curse. I should’ve taken advantage of it.
But I was a coward, so I didn’t. I gave a partial truth instead. “Because I don’t ever talk. I haven’t for years.”
Except to Ryan, and he doesn’t count or matter.
Not anymore.
“But you spoke to me,” he said before tilting his head back and forth. “Spoke, insulted. Same thing.”
“I was pretty mad.”
And insanely jealous.
A small smile curved one side of his mouth. “I’ll take it.” His smirk fell, and his tone lost the teasing humor as it turned sincere. “But there’s nothing to be mad about. That woman outside was my brother’s mate.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, confused again by his phrasing since it wasn’t the whole sex-cult thing. “Like… his wife? His girlfriend? His partner?”
“More. So much more. Remember how I said that everything was built on balance?” At my nod, he continued. “When my siblings and I were created, the powers-that-be knew we would face eons of battles against an always-growing evil. They wanted to ensure we had a reason to keep going. To care about fighting for a humankind that was set on imploding itself. In their divine wisdom,” he sneered, making it clear the phrase was loaded with sarcasm, “they split our souls into two, placing half in a human somewhere in the timeline.” Not for the first time, he moved his hand to rub his chest, and it didn’t seem like he was even aware he did it. “We were promised that when the time was right, we’d get our reward for our efforts. Our balance. Our other halves. I know it sounds batshit crazy. And it’s a fuckuva lot to take in.”
Like my blood had been replaced by a toxic sludge, dread coursed through my veins. I quickly and fervently prayed with an intensity I hadn’t mustered since the early days after my accident. But rather than pleading for my memories or my own family, I prayed that I was wrong. That I misunderstood what he was saying.
But my worst fears were confirmed when he said, “But you’re my one, Aurora. My soulmate.”
I couldn’t help it. I tried to mask it. To shut down the pain lancing through me, but my ability to easily ignore my emotions was gone.
At his declaration…
I burst into ugly tears.