Fuck.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but it doesn’t help quench the brewing anxiety. Needing a distraction, I look to my right, where Thalia is curled up in a little ball—as if she’s trying to keep the world away even in slumber. Malik spelled her ears to appear rounded until Rhett can take her to get a magically infused tattoo that resembles a birthmark so she can hide her true identity. He will also try to find her a good fae family after they arrive in New Orleans.
Sam is occupying the other side of the bed, a forearm thrown over her forehead while her breath wheezes through her parted lips. The bruise surrounding her eye is now a yellow-green. She vehemently refused to let Malik touch her, let alone use the magic he absorbed from her family’s grimoire to heal her after he finished with everyone else.
We didn’t want to leave Thalia alone tonight, so we chose to sleep together even though the beach house Kaiden rented is spacious enough. Because of Malik’s tracking spell, we found a mountain road in only two hours. Luckily, someone driving a truck picked us up. We rode in the bed until we reached the nearest village. From there, it was easy to find a phone and for Kaiden to make lodging arrangements while his private jet flies toward us. The week we spent in Faerie accounted for a month here. It’s the middle of August now, which means I have a little over four months to stop the prophecy.
Tomorrow we’re heading back to Ashville, but I can’t stay there. I can’t put everyone I love or innocent lives in danger. Not because I’m hunted by demons, but because my newfound power terrifies me. I am the threat—the monster lurking beneath the shadows. Every second that passes tightens the noose around my throat.
What if I had taken their souls?The thought invades my mind.What if I had killed everyone?
Letting out a frustrated huff, I push up and almost break my neck as I narrowly avoid stepping on a gecko scurrying on the floor. I would laugh if the walls weren’t closing in on me. When I reach the sliding glass door, I open it with trembling fingers and step outside. However, the salty breeze does nothing to calm my heaving chest.
I break into a run, and the sand turns to shards of glass beneath my soles, the palm trees nothing more than a green blur. I halt when my eyes land on Kaiden, who resembles a Greek god bathed in moonlight while emerging from the water in only a pair of swim trunks. He senses my presence and looks my way. Worry pinches his brows, but electricity sizzles in the air between us all the same. An inferno of longing replaces the anguish I’m crumbling under. This is what I need—a distraction. It doesn’t have to mean anything. We can just use each other. At least, that’s the lie I tell myself as I launch toward him.
He catches me, sliding his big hands beneath my ass cheeks while I hook my ankles around his back. Water laps at our joined hips. “Angel? Talk to me.”
“I need you,” I say, voice steeped in desperation.
“What happened?”
“No talking,” I mumble, wrestling out of my T-shirt before balling it and throwing it back on the wet sand to press my naked chest to his. I get impossibly wet at the contact while his intoxicating smell, mixed with that of salt water, puts me in a dizzying spell.
“Fuck, you feel so good against me,” he rumbles. “Tell me what my girl needs.”
“I need you to fuck me,” I breathe, my right hand coasting down to palm his growing erection while the left is already pulling at his wet strands.
His groan vibrates through me as he bends to suck my nipple into his greedy mouth. “Mmm. Slow? Hard?”
“Hard, please. I want to forget everything.”
He straightens, searching my eyes with intensity. Fuck. He’s looking at me again as if I’m the answer to all his prayers, and I don’t want that. When he dips to press his lips to mine, I pull back.
“No kissing. This is nothing more than sex,” I tell him.
The hurt rippling through his features wraps barbed wire around my lungs. Nostrils flaring, he clips out, “No.” Then he drops me into the water unceremoniously and stalks out.
“Are you for fucking real right now? What do you mean, no?” I sputter in disbelief as I balance myself.
He turns to face me, his hands balled into tight fists at his side. “You really don’t get it, do you? I don’t just want your body, Iris. I want your heart. I want all of you like you have all ofme.”
“What happened to I will take everything you’re willing to give me, huh?” I retort acidly.
“Well, I changed my mind,” he bellows. “I won’t let you reduce us to something so meaningless. You’re everything to me. My North Star and my sun. My goddamn religion where I worship on my knees. Saying I love you is a blasphemy because it will never encompass what I truly feel for you. Those words are not enough and will never be.”
I’m ripped in two. What I thought were carefully placed stitches over my heart fly at the seams, bleeding me dry. I’m not able to do anything but stare back at him as my lips part. It’s too much. I can’t fucking breathe. Steeling my spine, I stomp to where my now wet T-shirt is and pull it over my head.
But when I push past him, he stops me by circling my wrist. “I flayed myself open, and you’re not going to say anything?” His voice comes out in a gravelly whisper.
I look over my shoulder at him. “You want my heart?” A brittlelaugh slips free. My next words are sharper than a million razor blades, slashing my throat and tongue as I voice them. “Kaiden, you already held it in the palms of your hands, and you crushed it to smithereens. We’ve heard the prophecy, now I have nothing left to give you. You’ll learn to come to terms with it. I’m sure you’ll forget about me in no time.”
He winces, but determination steels his jaw. “That’s impossible. You’re my forever.”
My retort is bitter. “Haven’t you heard? There’s no such thing as forever anymore. The world is ending.”
“Do you really think death can keep us apart? I will find you in every world, every universe, even if I have to crawl back to you. Now tell me the real reason you came running out of your room.”
“Let me go,” I mutter, but he only tightens his grip.
