Sephtis
My vision wasall for the man on the ground in front of me—he wasn’t a good person, and all I could think about was the way Vitality had leaked from Cole’s chest. If I hadn’t been there to catch it before it spilled to the ground, I couldn’t imagine what might have happened… but I knew I wouldn’t have cared.
Pulling the thread, the pain he felt, the emotions… he was burning straight through everything I’d given him over the past few days, and even though I was feeding it back to him as fast as I could, it wasn’t enough. I’d been so careful, making sure he was so full that he didn’tneedto pull anything from mebutthe Vitality.
And now, all I could see was that darkness inside me, slowly spilling into him. Ihadto do this.
Like he’d heard my thoughts, he flung himself between me and the prone man on the ground, swaying on the spot where he stood. His face was pale, his hands trembling… but he still put himself between me and a man who deserved death, even if it wasn’t exactly his time.
How could Cole ever believe he wasn’t wortheverything?
“If I don’t do this, you’ll leave your body again. If I don’t do this, the hounds will come. They’ll find you.” I stepped closer,but he didn’t move. “I haven’t been going back to Death, Cole. I haven’t been doing my job. Heknowssomething is wrong. He knows I’ve broken every rule he’s set in place. The hounds…”
“You can’t keep doing this because of me.”
“For you,” I instantly corrected him. “I’m doing thisforyou.”
“No.” Cole’s fingers were trembling when he raised them, pressing his hand to the center of my chest. That gentle touch had the power to stop me more than chains or shackles, more than any strength. “You’re not.”
And like they could smell the Vitality still clinging to my fingertips, in the distance, I heard the hounds howl.
“I can’t stop them from coming after you unless he dies.” I could have just moved him, put my hands on his shoulders and pushed him aside… but for some reason, when he was looking at me with his chin up and his green eyes burning, I felt tethered to the spot. “They won’t leave without a prize.”
“You can’tkillsomeone because of me. You can’t keep doing this shit—you said it yourself. You aren’t supposed to. They’re coming for you because of me.” He paused. “Every time you left, it was for this?”
“Yes.”
Cole’s eyes were wet, unshed tears gathering to make them look glassy. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the pain, or the guilty knowledge that people had died for him. It was everything I’d wanted to protect him from, and now he was here, seeing it all while he could barely stand. The Vitality I’d fed back to him hadn’t been enough—his emotions were too high, and the frayed red edges of the thread had burned through it all.
“You can’t kill him. Youhaveto stop doing this.”
In the distance, the howls were growing closer… and I knew there was only one other thing I could do.
“Then they can have me.”
Cole’s eyes widened, and the shock gave the tears he’d been holding back a chance to fall. The track of liquid spilling down his cheeks just strengthened my resolve.
“What?”
“Just let me give myself to them.” Gods, I meant it. If it would stop those tears from ever falling again, I meant it. “If that’s what you really want, let me give myself to them.” I swallowed hard, my mind flashing over his words… how he couldn’t do this, how he wanted to hate me. How none of that mattered, because I still wanted him so much I was willing to do anything to prove it. To keep him safe. “I don’t know if it will save you, but maybe if I let them rip me apart and they take my broken pieces back to Death, I can plead my case. I can beg him to spare your life—to take you whole so you can at least be reborn again.”
“What will happen to you?” The question spilled from his lips in a tone that was a little lost, confused. Torn.
“I don’t know. Reapers can’t die, and I’ve never heard of one of my kind being devoured by the hounds.”
It would probably hurt.
Gods, it would probably hurt. There was every chance that I’d feel every soul they’d ever devoured while they were doing it, if anything that had been happening before had any weight to it. Maybe I deserved it. Maybe I deserved a thousand deaths for doing this to Cole, for tricking him.
For lying to him.
For keeping him alive at the cost of others, without ever letting him have a moment to decide if it was what he’d wanted.
And maybe that was fine. It was something I could live or die with. It was something that would save him.
My eyes flicked to the man on the ground behind him one more time, and I drew a breath. “I’ll go.”
“Sephtis, wait. Why are you doing this?”
