I’d stay because I couldn’t stay away.
I’d stay, even though he told me to go.
I’d stay because the sight of those tears in his eyes and the confusion in his expression were like claws in my skin, caught in my bones.
Just like that first night and every night after… I was incapable of leaving him alone.
Chapter 11
Cole
I couldn’t sleep.Everything Sephtis had said, everything I’d seen… every impossible thing that had happened to me over the past day was swirling in my head like a vortex that refused to let me close my eyes.
Every time I did, I saw the glow of crimson from the beast that had attacked me.
Every time I did, I could see the phantom image of a red thread trailing from my chest and out my door, leading to the man who was still in my living room—no, not a man… a Reaper.
A Grim Reaper.
As ludicrous as it all was, it was impossible to deny when there were scars on my chest where I’d been torn open. Not when I’d seen two men with wings.
Not when Sephtis’s skin shone like moonlight, and I could see black veins spilling beneath the glow.
It was as impossible as the way his eyes were golden like the sun… and I hated him just a little more for leaving me like this.
It was even worse, because the hate was a low burn in my chest that made me restless… that nearly had me standing up more than once through the night and tearing my bedroom door open so I could confront him again.
It felt like there was still so much I didn’t understand, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to process it if he told me anything else.
Cupids. Reapers. Soul hounds. Soulmates.
Caiden had died telling Sephtis to watch over me.
It was too much.
It kept me awake for hours, made my dreams so fitful that when I finally climbed out of bed before the sun had even started to rise, I knew what I was going to do.
And I knew when I threw my bedroom door open after taking a shower and getting dressed that Sephtis was still going to be in my apartment. I could almostfeelhim waiting for me to come out and demand answers.
“Okay. You need to tell meeverythingthat’s going on. Slowly.”
Everything. It was too much, Iknewit was going to be too much… but I also knew I wasn’t going to be able to stand another day without understanding why my life had been turned upside down.
Everything Sephtis said seemed impossible,and if I hadn’t seen it for myself, I wouldn’t have believed him. I was still having trouble wrapping my head around it… still wondering if I had space to blame him for ruining my life.
Again.
Because if what he said was true, the hate I’d felt for him, the anger… there was no place for it at all.
If what he said was true, he was in that room with Caiden because it was his job, and I’d missed my chance to tell my brother goodbye because I’d been too slow to get to him.
I didn’t want to believe what he was saying. Hate was easier than embracing the self-loathing that made itself known every night when I went to sleep.
Every night when he came to me in my dreams and put his hand on my chest, whispered that it was okay.
That he was here.
Fuck, was that real too?
