I wassafe.
I closed my eyes and leaned my face into the crook of his neck, balling up his shirt in my bloody hands. With a shaky exhale, I let go and decided to rest here.
Chapter 32
Dante
PERSEUS HAD BEEN A WRECK during Harper’s darkest moments when she refused to leave her room, eat, or converse. I’d watched this strong, charismatic, untouchable demon fall apart piece by piece right alongside her. At the time, I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand why watching her made him equally miserable.
I got it now, and I wished I didn’t. I wished I was still oblivious to this kind of agony.
Serenity had gone comatose. She wouldn’t speak, she wouldn’t get out of bed, and even when she looked at me, she might as well have been looking right through me.
When I’d shadow-walked to her apartment two nights ago, I thanked all that was unholy that I came when I did. The glass glinted in the moonlight as she’d brought it to her wrist, and a bolt of icy terror had shot through me.
Death wasn’t final for me, but it would be for her. It nearly had been. In that instant, a demon like me feared death. The idea that I could truly lose her with no way of ever getting her back …
The mere thought made me sick to my stomach.
I’d been a shaken-up mess since she passed out in my arms. I’d immediately taken her back to my house where I could watch over her, which I’d been doing for the past two days. And in that time, all she’d done was sleep. It was like her body had shutdown, exhausted from all the emotional and mental turmoil that had been burdening her, and now, it begged for true rest, which it had previously been denied. The few moments when she woke up, I tried getting her to eat, but it was like she couldn’t hear me. No matter what I said or did, she just stared right through me before eventually closing her eyes again.
My heart ripped through my chest every time her eyes shut. Alarm had me questioning if that moment would be the last I got to see those gray eyes I loved so much.
I felt useless.
What could I do for her when she was hurting so deeply?
I didn’t fucking know.
Thankfully, Perseus would know.
The phone rang far longer than I would’ve liked before the fellow Incubus picked up. “Hello?”
“Perseus,” I sighed, rubbing at my forehead. “I need your advice.”
“Well, this should be good.” The smile was plain as day in his voice. “Is this you finally admitting that I’m better than you in bed? Need tips from the pro that I am?”
I wasn’t in the mood to fight with him over whose skills were superior. “What did you do for Harper when she was struggling?” I swallowed hard and stared at a slumbering Serenity. “What will make her better?”
Perseus was quiet for a long time. I wasn’t sure if it was because the question took him back to those painful months where he’d suffered alongside his ballerina or if it was because he was trying to figure out how to answer. Eventually, he said, “I don’t think I’m the person you should ask.”
I frowned. “Why? You—”
“Followed the advice I was given by someone else,” he finished for me. His tone carried a pointed weight, and I knewwho he was talking about, even without him saying. After all, I’d been there when she’d given him the advice.
“I heard what she said,” I grumbled.
“Yeah, but clearly, you need to hear it again. Call her.”
“But—”
The phone call ended, and I growled as I ran my clawed hand over my short hair along my horns. This was a conversation I didn’t want to have but knew was necessary for a multitude of reasons, the biggest one being getting her perspective on what I needed to do for Serenity.
With a painful sigh, I videocalled Zagan. He answered even slower than Perseus.
His handsome face filled the screen. “What’s up?”
I pursed my lips and averted my gaze from the screen. “Can—Can I talk to your girl, please?”
