I jolt at the words and flinch away from him. The memories are branded freshly into my mind. I thought they’d be gone when I came back, but I feel that same desperate hopelessness I did in those visions as I do now.
This is real, I tell myself. I have control of my Prod. She isn’t going to kill Syko.
I’mnot going to kill Syko.
Then again, I’d told myself that in the sixth circle too, right before I blasted his body to bits.
“Izara?” His fingers cup my chin and tilt my face up. I don’t realize there are tears sliding down my cheeks until I taste the salt on my lips. I furiously blink them away. They taste like the haunting memories of his death and I can’t bear it. “Are you okay?” he repeats firmly.
Every single part of me is so exhausted with pain and tiredness but I can’t bring myself to say anything to him. Not when I know he’s hanging on my answer.
“I’m okay,” I say on a hollow breath.
He looks like he doesn’t believe me. He shouldn’t, because those words are a lie. Going through every circle brought its own kind of hell, even shameful happy bits. I think the worst part of it was seeing what I could do to them. I shouldn’t have anything to fear. It had been an illusion. Unreal. I have my Prod in check now.
So why am I trembling?
His hands never stop drifting down my arms, my shoulders, my back, and I know he’s checking for himself that every single part of me is fine like I said I am.
But it feels good too. It’s strange to find sudden lust in something as simple as a caress, a brush of a hand, the hardness of a body, the memory of a kiss.
My head tilts up and just as he’s about to ask something else, I press my lips to his and silence any more questions I don’t know how to answer.
A stunned second slips by before his mouth responds and his tongue slides slowly against mine.
Yes, I sigh into him. He’s real. This is real. And I’ll never hurt him or anyone else again.
“I missed you so fucking much, Izara,” he whispers before kissing me even deeper. His body melds against mine and he presses me back until my wings hit the wall near the door.
Every part of him aligns with every part of me and when his thigh shifts, and he parts my legs I waste no time rocking my center against him. Sharp teeth drag across my lips as he grinds his himself just right against my clit, big hands gripping my ass to eliminate any space that might linger between us.
When I whimper against his lips, the hardness of his cock brushes against my lower stomach.
“Please don’t consummate with her in broad daylight. That’s incredibly awkward, Syko,” a small, monotone voice says.
I pull back from him on a shaking breath just in time for his lashes to close with something that looks very much like embarrassment.
“Wasn’t going to fuck her,” he says flatly.
His palm lowers, and he adjusts the hard outline that’s all too visible beneath his khakis.
“Kayos is back,” he says to me with something similar to happiness lining his lips.
“Kayos?” I push him aside and she stands there on the steps, basking in the morning sunlight like a ghost haunting this school.
She doesn’t smile. She just studies me. She’s all running thoughts and quiet looks.
And that’s okay. Part of me understands that more than ever.
“Are you okay?” I ask her carefully.
Her head tilts at me. “I’m as okay as you are.”
I blink at that and it worries me more than I want Syko to know.
“She’s living here on campus but she’s doing good staying out of sight. Like you should be right now,” Syko warns her.
“I was on my way to hide when I spotted a nephilim grinding his junk against a demon.”
