Chapter 32
Mason
Dakota was haunting me. Her face, her voice, the way she looked genuinely terrified of me, like she was seeing me in a new light for the first time.
In a way, she was seeing a different side of me, because I’d never been that close to losing control around her.
And then there was what she’d said. Killshaw.
She knew him. She’d seen him, likely a lot of times.
They’d interacted, maybe even one-on-one. He probably knew her name.
My reflection shattered, shards of my anger crashing to the floor around my bloodstained fist.
I stalked out of the bathroom, leaving the broken mirror a mess all over the tile, gold-threaded blood dripping down between my fingers as I walked into the kitchen. My muscles were wound so tightly they ached. I needed more.
Maybe if I could find those other Thrausians who lived nearby I could convince them to let me fight again, but the odds of that were slim.
Even if I could prove I’d purged the akrasia from my blood, they’d still learned I fractured easier than most, that my control wasn’t nearly as strong as it should’ve been.
Even among my own kind, I was an outsider.
Deciding just to go hunt, I slipped my xiphos in my pocket and left my apartment.
There weren’t an infinite amount of demons on Earth, and it wasn’t uncommon for me to completely hunt out an entire area, but there was usually something I could do—even if I had to go farther away. Tonight, the travel would be worth it. I needed something to help keep me from losing my grip.
The air was cold and crisp outside my apartment, the stars poking tiny pinholes through the dark sky. I climbed into my car and started the engine, gripping the steering wheel hard, my fingers wrapping around the smooth leather. Micah knows Dakota.
The thought made me feel like I couldn’t breathe, like ten tons of concrete were sitting on my chest.
I pulled out onto the road too fast, gravel spinning under my tires as I took off.
It wasn’t typical of me to take my car when I went out to do this, but I had a feeling I’d need to travel further than usual, and I didn’t exactly feel like flying.
Getting high enough above the clouds so as not to be seen was difficult, and the clouds were sparse tonight.
There wasn’t any particular direction I was going in, either. My hands itched to turn the wheel, drive myself down the path that would get me to Dakota’s trailer, but I resisted.
I’d hurt her.
She’d been so confused and sad and scared, and I didn’t know how to explain any of what I’d been feeling in that moment to her.
She didn’t have any frame of reference for just how unstable and impulsive and reckless I could be.
It wasn’t the same as it was for humans.
And I didn’t want to tell her how I knew her professor—or that I knew him at all, for that matter.
I rolled all the windows down in the car, cool air violently rushing in. It felt good on my hot skin, and I needed to keep myself breathing, keep myself in control.
She would come back to me. Everything would be fine.
This isn’t sustainable. We aren’t sustainable.
I wanted to crash my car, wrap it around a tree in a fiery blaze of crushed metal. The desire sparked fast in my chest, my hands gripping the wheel tighter, my spine pressing into the seat. It wouldn’t kill me, of course. But it would still hurt.
Suppressing the urge, I pulled off the road and got out of the car, sucking in fresh air.
I hated living like this.
Everything was always a fraction of an inch from pushing me over the edge.
The only reason I’d survived this long was because of Micah, and he didn’t give a shit about me anymore.
Being Sigeian, he was able to lessen emotions of other people.
He didn’t have an infinite well of control to pull from, but it was pretty damn deep. Deep enough to give me a tether.
And I’d pulled on that tether like my life depended on it. Because it did.
The feeling of him dampening my instability was one that I’d been missing every second after him.
He was so certain, such a strong force in opposition of me.
Nothing would ever be able to swallow me completely, but I had a feeling that wasn’t even what he wanted.
On some level, he liked the way I’d been born, despite me and everyone else hating it.
It was a constant, addictive push-and-pull between us.
Not anymore.
Never again.
The wind shifted, carrying an acrid scent to my nose.
Necrichor. Looking around, I tried to take in my surroundings, but I didn’t really know where I was—not that it mattered.
I left my car parked on the side of the highway and started down the shoulder, trudging through the grassy ditch separating me from a housing development still in construction.
Every house looked the same, and all of them were empty, plastic wrap still on the windows and the interiors still wooden skeletons.
The scent of necrichor was stronger as I walked, strong enough that there had to be at least three or four demons.
It didn’t make me nervous, though. All I had to do was hold my breath for a while, and I’d become stronger than all of them combined. And multiplied by ten.
Unfortunate I couldn’t consistently control all that power.
Every once in a while, I tried to defy the odds, and learn how to actually harness my Thrausian nature, but it wasn’t physically possible. With Micah, I’d been able to use him in combination with my own mental fortitude to get a better grip on it, but I didn’t have that anymore.
Some elements were usable without fracturing, but those splits were what generated the most power.
Physical strength, lightning-channeling, small electric bursts of energy.
Those were things I could do without risking a loss of control.
But the bigger things came from fractures, and those required external influence to harness.
Through the window of one of the houses, I saw two glowing yellow eyes.
I recognized him instantly, my blood going cold.
That specific shade of amber, the gold in it, only meant one thing.
Aamon was back.
I didn’t hesitate for another second, rushing back to my car, praying he hadn’t seen me. But even if he hadn’t seen me just now…he was here, in Washington. Micah deserved to know that he was about to die.
Sigeians weren’t hunted at the frequency that Aiglens were hunted, but there were more of them on Earth because of that, and thus, they became the target when the golden-blooded angels ran out. Micah would’ve been safe had Aamon not taken interest in him all those years ago.
But that was no longer reality.
I jumped in my car, and set off driving towards Micah’s house, internally despising the fact that I knew where he lived. I wished I didn’t know anything about him.
Pulling up his driveway, I cut the engine and hopped out, my legs feeling stiff and my chest tight with dread.
I didn’t want to do this, not really. But since it was my fault in the first place, I figured I owed him a warning.
I raised my fist to knock on the door, hoping that seeing him a second time would hurt less than the first time had.
The door opened a minute later.
The sight of him knocked the breath from my lungs.
“Why are you here?” he asked flatly.
“Let me in,” I forced myself to say, aware that I couldn’t talk about a subject like this out on his front step. Though I wasn’t sure I’d be able to tolerate being in a contained room with him without wanting to kill him.
“How did you figure out where I live?”
“Internet.” It was a half-truth, but he didn’t push me.
After a minute, Micah stepped to the side and I walked past him into the house.
It was spacious, decorated tastefully in dark tones.
Worn wood, masculine textures. Steel accents and polished surfaces.
His bookshelves were full of heavy engineering textbooks and other worn novels, showcasing all the years of study that had taken him away from me.
A clear bottle of aither sitting on one of the shelves was brushed with a light layer of dust, like he sipped it slow. Like he didn’t drown himself in it.
It was the opposite of my apartment. It actually looked like someone lived here. It almost looked like a human lived here—if the bottle of aither had been whiskey.
“Explain,” he demanded.
“Do you do anything related to being an angel anymore?” I asked, ignoring his demand as my eyes darted around the space. There was a plant sitting on the windowsill, drooping but still alive. Of course he keeps it alive.
“No. I have a different life now.” Which he probably blamed me for—maybe even despised me for.
Or maybe he was happy now. I had no way of knowing.
A framed picture of him receiving his doctorate was shoved on a bookshelf, another reminder of all the life he’d lived without me. His stupid, human life.
“You’re being hunted,” I explained, my gaze shifting back over to meet his. The moment I said it, there was a flicker of unease in his irises.
He sighed, and I could see the tension instantly spanning his chest, his shoulders. We both knew what that meant, without any further explanation. Aamon didn’t require elaboration. He was the only angel-demon hybrid in existence, and he’d caused us a lot of problems many years ago.
Most demons’ eyes glowed red in the dark, but not his. Aamon’s eyes glowed gold.
It was the ichor in his blood. He was the only demon able to have that elusive golden liquid in his veins without it turning black, because he was half-Aiglen. He was an unnatural monstrosity—even more unnatural than me.
“Did he see you?”
“I don’t know. I saw him while hunting and left—about a forty-five minute drive from here.”
“I’m sure he saw you. You’re not exactly subtle.”
“I don’t need to be subtle.”