Noah’s eyes settled on Reign’s face, seeking out that unusual red gaze because he needed to have it on him, to bask in its familiar intensity. But Reign wasn’t looking at him, his attention directed lower, where his hand rested on Noah’s thigh.
Noah’s stomach twisted again. Dread filled his heart, a culmination of the foreboding feeling from earlier. Because he knew. Because he felt it. Because there was no mistaking what that searing agony was.
Gingerly, Noah propped himself on his elbows and followed Reign’s gaze. Part of him fought it, didn’t want to look. Hoped that if he refused to acknowledge it, it wouldn’t be real. Noah ignored that side. He pushed it away and confronted reality, gasping when he saw the almost completely black sigil. He knew something had changed, he’d convinced himself he was ready for it no matter what it was, and yet he wasn’t. The world narrowed down to it, and he lost all sensation gone aside from that pulsing he could feel right under his skin. He didn’t need to close his eyes and focus to discern it anymore; it was stronger and more insistent, a harbinger of the end that awaited him so soon.
Noah’s stomach sank, his breathing threatening to cease. It took all his willpower not to let it, not to give into the despair slowly settling over him. Just like this, suddenly and without a warning, his time was almost up. He’d known it was coming, but he hadn’t expected it so soon. Five, six years at the least, maybe ten. Even twenty. If his theory about withholding his wish had been correct and he kept it from Reign so he could have the demon trapped.
Two and a half months.That was how little time he had gotten in the end.
“Reign,” Noah croaked, his voice raw and hoarse from all the screaming. He grabbed Reign by the arm, digging his fingers in a desperate attempt to hold onto life for as long as he could. “I… don’t have much time.”
Reign’s eyes locked with his, and in those gorgeous depths Noah caught a hint of sadness. Perhaps Reign would miss him in some capacity, their ten-year-long companionship coming to an end before they’d had the chance to fully enjoy it.
“You don’t,” he confirmed, his voice leveled and distant as if forced to be so on purpose.
Shouldn’t Reign be happy to collect the soul he’d been promised? Shouldn’t he be celebrating?
Noah let go of Reign’s arm and placed his palm flat against the demon’s chest. Was it because Noah hadn’t asked for something in return? Did that mess up the process somehow? He should have asked, probably, but it was too late now, the consequences of no importance to him anymore. The fears too, he supposed, finding no point in hiding the truth now that he stood at the end of his road.
“Reign,” he whispered, rubbing his hand up and down Reign’s chest. “I lied. There is one thing that I wish for.” He stilled his fingers right where Reign’s heart was. Shivers erupted all over him and he closed his eyes, focusing on that heartbeat he wasn’t sure was even there. “Your heart.”
There. It was out, his confession, his secret of ten years. Telling Reign now was selfish, pointless, yet Noah felt it right with his entire being and didn’t regret it even as it broke his own heart. It was desperate, sad, comical, but it was the one truth he didn’t want to hide now that he was about to lose his soul.
“Noah.” Reign cupped Noah’s hand and took it to his mouth, pressing a kiss against it. “That is the one thing I cannot give you.”
Noah rubbed his thumb along those thin lips he’d yearned to kiss but never would, fixating on a point on the wall so he wouldn’t break down. “I know, and yet… This is the only thing I want from you, Reign.” He smiled, thinking back on the time they’d spent together, reliving the dinners, the conversations, their first meeting.
The pain from the sigil flared and ripped him out of the memories, not an agonizing surge like earlier, but a reminder that his time was running out. “Reign…” Noah focused back on the demon’s beautiful face, etching it into his mind even if that too would cease to be along with him. “Hold me, one last time. As if you loved me.”
The request was meaningless, but one that Noah had to make. He had no future past the night—he could feel he wouldn’t make it to sunrise—and thus he also had no further chances to be loved by someone. To kiss them, to give them his affection and bask in theirs. So even if it would be all pretend, Reign could humor his impossible wish and give him a taste of such a reality as a parting gift.
“If that is what you wish.”
Reign helped Noah lie back down, his hands gentle and deliberate as they traversed Noah’s naked body. His lips followed, trailing kisses up from Noah’s navel and along his sternum, then his neck, jaw, cheeks. Their eyes met, the garnet devastating, and they stared at each other in charged silence as if frozen, neither willing to look away.
A strange feeling bloomed in Noah’s chest, filling him with anticipation and anxiety. Reign’s presence enveloped him, potent and absolute as it slid across his skin and settled inside him. It brought with it even more yearning,confusion too because Noah didn’t know what to make of it. This tense stalemate between them was different, somehow world-changing, but before Noah could speak and ask what Reign was thinking, Reign kissed him.
Without a warning, without a word, he pressed his mouth against Noah’s.
Electricity raced down Noah’s spine, his entire body lighting up. Reign’s lips were soft and slightly damp, sealing just right against Noah’s. He moaned and wrapped his arms around Reign’s neck, pulling him in. At the first lick of his tongue, Noah opened for him, let him in, entangled them together. It was wild, it was hungry, it was insatiable. It wasperfect. But it was also tender, desperate and sad, robbing Noah of everything he had left. He sobbed through it, it destroyed him, their first and last kiss.
Every place Reign touched after, every area he kissed or licked, it hurt. It broke something further in Noah, it pushed him closer to the end. He was turned on more than normally despite the slow and attentive way in which Reign worshiped every part of him, a newfound sweetness now accompanying their intimate dance as if something had clicked into place. A piece that had been missing before but was here right at the end, that Noah craved to have forever the moment he tasted it.
The feeling in his chest was suffocating and yet the best thing ever, and it didn’t disappear when Reign slid inside him, their wants and needs aligned somehow even if it made no sense. This new pleasure, it lacked the rawness of the rough, unhinged sex Noah knew, but it hurt ten times more, because it made him feel treasured. Cared for. Loved.Adored.
Noah shouldn’t have asked Reign to hold him like that. They should’ve fucked the way they always did andnot like this, because this didn’t only break his heart—it crushed his soul along with it and made him beg for the nothingness of nonexistence to take him away while there still remained a part of him worth taking.
Reign knew. He could feel it, there from the very start. Inside of him and’ Noah’s for the taking, no matter how hard Reign had fought to deny it, to keep it buried as if doing so would make it untrue. But still, he couldn’t give it all the same, not to Noah and not to anyone.
“Reign…” Noah muttered in his sleep, ripping Reign out of his thoughts. A tear rolled down Noah’s cheek, leaving a wet trail behind that Reign couldn’t resist tracing with his thumb.
“Forgive me,” he whispered, brushing his lips against Noah’s in a farewell kiss only he would remember.
He watched the human for a while longer after that, though it lasted less than he’d intended, his parting cut short abruptly as electricity surged through his insides. It was the call to home, a precursor that assured he knew what was coming, and he didn’t fight it, bracing for it as the portal rune on the floor sparked to life.
29
Gabriel had to give it to the man—the Cardinal had been quite creative this time around. His plan to catch the American and Asian Federations in collusion against the Empire would certainly give the Church the upper hand. It would allow for blackmail and pressure if the Asian Federation wanted the world to remain ignorant of what conspiracies it had been up to.
