That guilt tried to crawl up my chest, tried to make its way out of my mouth, but instead the sound of it was swallowed up when Sephtis leaned over me and pressed a kiss to my lips to drink down my protest.
This was easier.
As much as some part of me still wanted to hate him… Sephtis was the only thing in my life, the only thing since the day Caiden had died, that made sense.
I lost myself to the feel of him, to his mouth working against mine and his tongue licking the seam of my lips in a sweet plea for entrance. I drifted on the feel of his fingers feathering along my jawline and dipping down to tickle at my collarbone…
And then I tensed, because Sephtis let out a little sound above me.
It sounded like pain—a low, surprised grunt that shot through my nerve endings and ripped away the little bubble of peace I was letting myself drift into. It couldn’t last for me, could it? It could never last…
When he made the sound again, I jerked upright. The motion made my vision spot like it did sometimes when I stood up too fast after I’d been sitting for a long time.
But this…
The dizzy sensation lingered in the back of my senses, and I looked at him with a frown.
“Sephtis?”
He was focused on my chest, where the line of the red thread connected us together. I hadn’t tried to pull it out again, but he was staring at that spot like I had. I could see it a little better now.
When I looked down, it was more than just a faint flicker of crimson.
There were little spots of black—like the swirl of the soul hounds.
Like the black that ran through Sephtis’s veins.
“Are you okay?” But even as I asked, I knew what the answer was going to be. He shook his head back and forth slowly, leaning forward to press his hand to my chest. There wasn’t a flow of heat, no warmth.
It was just cold.
Cold and empty, and I knew what he was going to say before he said it.
“You need more Vitality.”
What he really meant was that we needed to find someone else to kill.
Chapter 26
Sephtis
I could already seethe defiance in his eyes before I’d even mentioned what we needed to do. When was he going to realize that there was no world where I’d let him suffer, even if it meant keeping other people alive?
When was Cole going to realize that I didn’t have a soul in the same way he did, and I was willing to completely compromise mine as long as it meant he was safe?
“There has to be something else we can do. There are so many books here, Sephtis. There has to be answers in one of them other than… than…” Cole’s face paled, and I wasn’t sure if it was because his body was catching up with the fact that it was suddenly running close to empty, or if it was the thought of what had happened the last time he’d felt this way.
“If it’s here, we haven’t found it yet, Cole.” I walked around the couch, and he was up and moving before I had a chance to get to him, like he was afraid I was going to spring out the door without warning, or disappear to commit murder without giving him a chance to speak.
It probably would have been easier—it would have been better than him watching, begging me not to. It seemed to be the one thing he kept asking for that I couldn’t give.
Instead, I took a breath and extended my hand to him.
“What are you doing?” He sounded cautious when he asked, but he stepped forward and laced his fingers through mine without hesitation. Whether he actually wanted to hold my hand or make sure I stayed here and didn’t run off to kill someone was another matter altogether. The feel of his palm, warm and sweet in mine, was nearly enough to make me forget the problem at hand.
Nearly.
If he hadn’t swayed when he moved, stumbling against me in proof that he was growing weaker by the second…
