Loss.
Out of everything I’d ever done, the one thing in the world I would regret the most was being another thing that Cole had to lose… but I was just selfish enough that I would do it if it meant he could stay alive.
“I love you.” Those three words we hadn’t said—the three words I needed him to carry with him once this was over. The three words that I hoped would be strong enough to keep him safe, would give me space to barter with Death for his life, eventually. After the torture was over.
“Sephtis—” His words cut off as I shoved him away from me, pressing my hand to the space over his heart. It forced his lids shut—forced him into unconsciousness. It wouldn’t last for long, and I had to use the last of my strength to throw him back across the barrier. I was already falling to my knees as I did, and the pain wrenching through my body was enough to tear another scream from my throat.
Death stepped up behind me, and his cold hand on my shoulder did nothing to calm the inferno raging through my body.
“It’s a shame, really. Such a noble sacrifice that’s so pointless, Sephtis. Don’t you know?” His slender fingers tangled into my hair, lifting me like I weighed nothing. “Death always wins.”
The world around me went black, and I tried to make sure that the last thing I saw was Cole—prone on the ground, but still breathing.
Still alive.
Still the only thing in this world I was willing to give up everything for.
Chapter 29
Cole
Everything was pain and darkness—itwas Sephtis saying those three words to me that I would have set him on fire for saying before.
It was Sephtis saying those three words to me and it sounding like he was telling me goodbye.
It was me wondering if I could hate him even more, because he wasn’tallowedto say shit like that to me when I was never going to get a chance to say it back.
It was black, and pain, and loss…
And then it was red.
Red…
A field of red.
And standing in the center of it was a face I thought I’d never see again.
“No.” The word tore from my throat in disbelief. Had he killed me, then?
Had Sephtis told me he loved me and then killed me… because that was the only thing I could think of that would make this possible. The only reason I could think of that my brother would be walking toward me with a smile on his face and red petals caught in his hair.
“C-Caiden?” He was a blur… not because he wasn’t real, but because my eyes were filling with tears. “What’s… what is this? Is this…” I got so caught up in watching him walk toward me that I couldn’t finish my sentence until he was there. Just a few inches away.
I could reach out and touch him if I wanted, but I was suddenly so afraid he’d disappear if I did that I clenched my fingers at my side instead.
“You aren’t dreaming. And you aren’t dead. At least, not yet.”
“Fuck. I…” I didn’t know what to say—how was I seeing him if I wasn’t dead, if it wasn’t a dream? “What did Sephtis do?”
Caiden shrugged. “I don’t even think it was him. Weird things happen sometimes when Death goes where he shouldn’t.”
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered Sephtis saying something like that. Death causing chaos wherever he went.
But everything he’d said… everything we’d been working for… it didn’t matter.
Caiden was here.
“It matters, Cole. You can’t stay here. You have to go save your soulmate, right?”
