Twenty-Three
Jerry
I desperately needed this project to be over, but we still had one more week of work to do. At least we'd managed to stick to the schedule, which was a miracle in itself. I had a suspicion Eshim might've helped things along a little with his magic, but I hadn't mentioned it to him. I preferred to be oblivious.
Even without his magic, Eshim had been wonderful. I was sure I'd have worked myself sick without him. He'd been there to support me at every step of the way, and the only time he'd been away from me in the last week for more than an hour was the day he'd needed to help his neighbor move to the retirement home.
Other than that one afternoon, he'd been with me every day, and night. He'd taken care of Tom, and brought me food at regular intervals. He kept the teams going, boosting up morale with his cheerful personality and friendly nature.
Without Eshim, we wouldn't be as far along into the work as we were. We'd already completed all the designs, and the mockups I'd ordered last Friday were scheduled to arrive at any moment, which meant today would be spent making corrections and ordering more samples, along with sending the clients some of the designs for a final approval. The last thing we needed was for them to request a change on the last day of the deadline.
"Argh! I'm going to destroy this computer!" Henry, one of Tanya's team members, growled as he smacked his monitor, which almost sent the flatscreen sliding off his desk.
I opened my mouth, but before I could say anything—not that I had any idea what I would say—Eshim slid up to him.
"Hey, Henry. I was going to bring up some drinks and snacks for everyone from the café downstairs. Would you mind coming with to carry some of it?" Eshim flashed him a bright smile, his blue eyes warm, and I batted away the senseless jealousy tugging at me.
Henry blinked up at my boyfriend, dumbfounded, then nodded. "Uh, sure."
Eshim grinned again, and I watched the two leave the room, shaking my head in wonder.
"He's good," Tanya said, and I glanced over at her. She had an impressed look on her face, and her dark brown eyes met mine, a smile curving her lips. "And he's good for you too, I think."
"Ah, thank you?" I said, my tone going up to make it sound like a question. I didn't really think she and I knew each other well enough for her to say that. Not that she was wrong. Eshim was good for me.
She laughed. "You look so confused. It's just that you've been a lot more...open since you met him. Even this. A few months ago, I could've never struck up a conversation with you like this. I would've been too unsure of how you'd react to try."
She...was right. I'd always kept up the boss-employee barrier between me and everyone I worked with. I was sure that if Archer and Kat hadn't wriggled their way into my heart when I was young, I'd have never let anyone in.
I didn't even know what I was so afraid of anymore. Getting left behind? Being abandoned? I wasn't the same lonely foster kid I used to be, and yet some habits were hard to let go of.
Somehow, Eshim had helped me do just that. He'd snuck through my walls, and then somehow lowered them from the inside.
"I suppose that's true," I relented, and she grinned.
"I'm happy for you, Mr. Cohen."
She went back to her work then, and I did too, though my mind stayed on Eshim.
Why hadn't I told him I loved him yet? Why was I hesitating? I knew the two of us were it. He wasn't going to break up with me. I was his fated mate, and he was mine. I might not have the same reverence for that as he did, but I understood what it meant. Eshim and I were perfect for each other, and Eshim was all mine. Forever.
So why hadn't I told him that yet? What was I afraid of?
Maybe...maybe it was the fact that Eshim could leave me. Not willingly, but if those dark souls hurt him badly enough, he might be forced to move to Afterworld. He'd explained how the process worked for humans, how they went to Otherworld and then Afterworld when they died. But Eshim was already technically dead, and 'dying' again would mean a one-way ticket to Afterworld with no way to get back.
The idea of spending a lifetime without Eshim was terrifying, but did that justify hiding how I felt? It wasn't like losing him would hurt any less if he didn't know. In fact, knowing that he'd gone without knowing how I felt might hurt more.
Eshim had never hidden how he felt for me, even if he hadn't said the words either. I got the feeling he was holding himself back so I wouldn't feel pressured. I needed to tell him how I felt, to make sure he knew I wouldn't ever leave him.
Maybe once we got home tonight, I'd tell him.
Decision made, I turned my focus back to work just as Eshim and Henry returned with the drinks and snacks.
Everyone decided to take a fifteen-minute break, and Eshim grabbed drinks and food for both of us before sidling up to me.
He handed me my coffee, then perched his ass on the edge of my desk as he sipped his.
"You okay?"
"Yeah," I said with a smile, enjoying the way my chest warmed at his closeness. "I am."
Eshim smiled, and we sipped our drinks in comfortable silence as chatter buzzed around us.
Eshim
The design team was amazing, especially after Kat got rid of that asshole. He seemed to have been the only bad orange, and everyone else was pretty hardworking and friendly.
I knew Jerry was proud of how dedicated his employees were, and I was happy for him. His employees were finally warming up to him now that they actually had a chance to interact with him, and despite the rush and madness—and the distinct lack of alone time with Jerry—I was glad for this project, because it'd given the others a chance to see Jerry the way I saw him.
I was scrolling through his emails and sorting them so Jerry only had to read the important ones when I sensed something at the very edge of my consciousness. I sat upright in my chair, then closed my eyes so I could focus, reaching out with my senses beyond what I could usually feel and hear.
There. What were they doing so far inside the city? This wasn't good.
Pulling out my phone, I sent Fressia and Lux a text, telling them to meet me in the parking lot. I felt bad calling Lux in, since he was probably with Gunner, but after last time, I wasn't willing to risk it being just the two of us. I intended to spend Jerry's human life with him, which meant I needed to be careful.
Once I'd gotten confirmation from them, I walked up to Jerry.
"Hey, can I talk to you for a second?"
Jerry glanced up at me, then frowned at whatever look I was sporting. Murmuring to Tanya he'd be right back, he got to his feet and followed me to the break room.
"What's wrong?"
"Why do you think something's wrong?" I asked, even though I didn't have time to spare.
"You're in serious demon mode," he said, as if it was obvious, and I blinked. Then I shook my head.
"I sensed the presence of dark souls. They're close. Too close."
"Shit. Are you going alone?"
I shook my head, then took his face between my palms and gave him a soft kiss. "Fres and Lux are waiting downstairs. I have to go."
"Don't get hurt."
"I won't—I promise."
Jerry watched me for a moment, and I smiled reassuringly before taking a step back.
Before I could walk away, he grabbed my wrist, stopping me in my tracks.
"Jerry?"
Meeting my eyes, he took a deep breath, then said, "I love you."
I stared at him, too stunned to react in any other way.
"What?"
"I love you," he repeated, voice stronger as he moved closer. "So you better come back so you can tell me you love me too."
"I can't say it now?"
"Nope. Now go! Be safe."
I nodded mutely, then kissed him once more before taking off for a supply closet outside the view of security cameras. From there, I used my magic to get to my usual spot in the parking lot, where Lux and Fres were already waiting.
"What took you so long?" Fres grumbled, and I shook my head.
"Come on—let's go."
Now that they were here, they could sense the presence too, so the three of us made our way closer to it, teleporting from place to place in our incorporeal form so humans wouldn't see us. In this form, we weren't just invisible, but we had no physical form. We could walk through walls, or appear in the middle of a street without causing a crash.
"It's close. Should we alert Maximus?" Lux asked, and I nodded. While we were good at sniffing out dark souls, demons were not fighters. We could use our magic to defend ourselves in a pinch, but from my last experience, I knew Mammon could stop me from doing that. I didn't know if he could stop all three of us, and I'd rather not find out.
"We should come at them from different directions. Corner them," Fressia said, but I shook my head.
"If Mammon is with them, it'll be safer to stick together."
Fressia winced, then relented with a nod.
Lux's phone buzzed, and he gave it a glance. "Maximus says they're on standby. They'll find us as soon as we alert them."
"Good. Let's go," Fressia said, and we moved closer to the dark souls.
Displaying their love of concrete and exposed beams once more, the dark souls were hiding out in an abandoned, half-constructed building of some sort.
"You smell that?" Lux asked, wrinkling his nose. The scent of blood was thick in the air, which didn't bode well. Why hadn't I sensed them sooner? We could've saved whoever they'd killed.
A groan rang through the air, and my eyes widened, then flashed to the others. There was someone else here. Someone hurt.
I nodded toward Lux's phone, and he nodded before alerting Maximus with a text.
"Please," a weak voice begged. Male and young. How young? If they'd grabbed a kid...
"Status?" Maximus asked, suddenly there, and I turned to him, grateful for him and his team.
"I can only sense one dark soul. No Mammon. There's someone else, human, I think. He's hurt."
Maximus nodded, then turned to his team, giving them hand signals they immediately followed. Watching them in action was always a fascinating experience, but for once, I was more focused on the hurt human. Why had the dark soul targeted a human? Were they just playing, or were humans a part of whatever plan they were cooking up?
"Stay here," Maximus murmured, his dark eyes flashing between us. "Grab the human as soon as you can, and get out of here. Take him somewhere safe. I'll come find you when it's over and take care of his memories."
I nodded, only too happy to let him deal with the danger. He was trained for this, and I had a mate to get back to.
Maximus signaled his second, a man named Malik, if I remembered right, and the two rushed around the corner into the room we'd heard the voices from.
"Come on. Let's get the human and get out of here," Lux said, and I nodded.
I hoped Maximus would capture the dark soul. Then maybe we'd finally find out what they were up to, what their endgame was.