Chapter Thirty-Two
Kara
Present
Isucked in a deep breath, lungs burning. It was like someone had held a pillow over my face while I slept. My head pounded intensely for several seconds as I blinked. I saw his broad back first. The crack in the center of his back, revealing the orangish glow, pulsating. He sat on the edge of the bed. With his head forward, Luke’s horns pointed toward the ceiling.
The pain receded as my power continued to save me. Hades. Had I been on the brink of death? My body ached everywhere.
I remembered what I saw.
Quietly, I sat up, studying the Devil. Shadow slipped inside him. Walked right into the monster as if he belonged to him or was a part of him. My heart roared in my ears. The soundseemed so loud that I swore I didn’t see how he didn’t hear it. The Devil continued to sigh deeply and hang his head low, oblivious to the riot consuming my chest cavity.
Everything about Shadow clicked into place. The shadowy presence suddenly made sense. His reasoning, his existence in my life. For the Devil, being a shadow was nothing. He belonged to the night. He was the darkness in everyone’s corner.
My head reeled with assumptions and truths. Dad had mentioned the Devil visiting me as a child with plans to harm me. When he couldn’t harm me, he became a shadow in my life.
I reached out, my eyes stinging as I didn’t dare blink. He was right there. If I leaned in just a little more, I could trace the madness beneath his skin. Would he be honest if I asked?
My chest tightened. Somehow, I already knew that answer.
I lowered my hand and shut my eyes. Behind my closed lids, I returned to my high school, recalled the crappy goodbye, and how swiftly Shadow left me with confusion and hurt.
A sudden pressure on my side startled me. I opened my eyes and found myself crushed against Luke’s chest. He scooped me up, pulling me into his lap the rest of the way with the other. He lifted my chin up, and when his eyes flashed crimson, I wanted to scream. Why didn’t I realize sooner?
The color was the same as Gregory’s eyes back then.
“Why didn’t you return the second your powers disappeared?” Luke asked.
My eyes widened. “My family—they…” I breathed deeply and slouched the second I sensed their essences safe and alive.
“Their safety depends on you,” Luke muttered, squeezing me tightly. “What do you think I’d do to them if you went and died before I said so?”
I pushed against his chest, but that seemed to make him hold me tighter. “You’re not the only danger. I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what?”
“This game. This back and forth.” I gestured between us.
“Nothing about you is a game to me.” He always revealed honesty before he found a way to crush it. The same as when he was Shadow. I couldn’t refer to him as a thing anymore. Not when I knew his flesh and how male he was, even if monstrous.
“Yet you lie to me again and again.” I stared at the pulsating crack straight down his chest before placing my palm there. He ran even hotter in those spots. “You lie to yourself too.”
I didn’t miss the slight tension in his body before he loosened his shoulders. “Humor me, Kitten. What am I lying about?”
“You should know better than I.” I tried to twist around in his lap, but he kept me cradled against him. “Look at the way you hold me.”
“I hold all my prisoners like this.”
I shook my head. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
“You always do this.” Anxious knots took root in my stomach. “Whether you’re Luke or… Shadow.”
He went eerily still, masking his features so quickly. “… Shadow?”
“Don’t,” I started, but he had already plucked me off his lap and stood. “I know you’re Shadow. I should have realized sooner.”
