Page 143

“What should we name her?” Kieran’s voice echoed over the loud morning. The day is misty, rain threatening to burst through the clouds and drench us any moment. An ugly summer’s day.

An old dog with a missing eye had latched onto us as we’d come out for a walk. She followed with her tail alert until we arrived at a small clearing. We could have only hoped she belonged to someone living in the forest. But she had no name, nor had we seen anyone out there for miles.

The humidity caused her obsidian fur to sparkle, little orbs of water appearing like stars in a midnight sky. She was beautiful. “Misty.” I crouch to her level. She barked in response and swiped a wet kiss across my face. I leaned into her embrace, feeling the connection spark between us, an invisible thread they only speak of with soulmates.

“Nice to meet you Misty, I’m Kieran. You’re going home with us.” Kieran crouches down as well and we embrace the angel we found in the forest. My gaze met Kieran’s as toothy smiles stretched across our faces.

I kneel in front of Misty’s grave. “You found me in the afterlife? When you should have been resting….sneaky girl.”

The sky slowly awakens with a tint of orange, framed in indigo. “Always the dutiful one.” Tears come quickly like an angry high tide. Sorrow washes me under, and I’m taken back to the moment I arrived in the below—in the Limina.

The struggle of keeping myself alive in the sea’s torrents. The mockery that was my safety. Residing undead while Kieran himself relished in the success of trapping me. He trapped me in both worlds. On the first night, the feeling of falling mimicked the push and pull of Kieran removing and placing my body into the chamber over and over again.

I can feel my teeth sharpening like knives, blood heating in my body ready to spur me into action. But I deflate before I can even contemplate my next steps. Christian isn’t waking, my parents are dead, and my dog may be wandering this other world. Grief isn’t how I’d describe the hollowness that is being carved from within me. It’s worse than losing your memories. At least without your memories, the unknown keeps you blissfully ignorant. It protects you from the real darkness—what you do know.

Who knew I would have my last goodbye with Misty in another world? Could I go back now and retrieve her? Is there a heaven for such angels? I hope there is. I run a hand down her intricately hewn headstone.

It’s only fitting that the slate is embedded with glistening onyx shards.

“Ouch.” A bright red droplet forms at the tip of my finger. It slowly trails down and along my wrist until it plops onto the grass. Quickly, I wipe it against my jacket, looking down to see a long gash still weeping crimson.

“Marisa.” I whirl around feeling the strangeness of my name on his tongue, void of playfulness.

“Christian.”

He’s standing at the edge of the fence, hands gripping the rotting wood. Wind curls through his dark locks, revealing dark spidery veins that spread across his brow, bridging down into his eyes. They’re black as a starless night. Dark as the ichor that runs through my veins.

Slowly, I rise, meeting him at the fence. The forest silences around us. “You’re awake.”

Drip. My blood splatters onto dry leaves beneath my feet. “I’m awake.” His voice is deeper, darker. My vision narrows. It’s only him, his beautiful golden skin, dark eyes, and berry-stained lips. Anger burrows itself beneath my rib cage as I gently lift a hand to his bare chest and hover lightly over his wounds. The equipment used on Christian were embedded so deeply I can see the tear of flesh and the sinew that threads itself through his muscle.

Drip. A pool of blood has formed on a small dry leaf the size of my palm. Christian glances down at it, eyes narrowing. I hear the hitch in his breath and he lifts his head, meeting my gaze. Carnality lies within those pools of night. He bares his teeth, and I raise my other hand to cup his face. He grips the wood so roughly, it shatters beneath us.

“Let’s—” he rasps, restraint evident in the strain of his muscles.

“Speak to me, my shadow.”

“We need to get back into the house.” His hands reach to cup underneath mine and he places a soft kiss onto my palm. “Please.”

“Okay, come on.” Taking his hand into mine, I lead him away from the sanctuary. How he walked all this way and approached me without sound is perplexing. Glancing over my shoulder, I study him. His body now seems too large for him, like a towering oak with rough, brawny branches. Even his chest is wider, every groove of muscle visible beneath the fading dawn.

What had Kieran done to him?

After what feels like forever, I lead him to my room. It looks exactly the same. Heading straight for the showers, I turn the knob onto the hottest setting, allowing warm steam to spread.

The man before me is more like a shell, hollow from within—his soul far gone.

My shadow stares at me with a hunger I cannot decipher—feral, primitive.

“Christian,” I say again, reaching for the button of his pants and releasing it. Silently, he helps me undress him, then turns to me. Strong, scarred hands wind their way around my neck.

“Christian.” His name is plea as he tugs me to his lips, abrasive and violent. Teeth clash, our tongues dance for dominance. I’m reacting in equal force, hands scrambling for purchase around his neck as he tears my jacket off, followed by the loud tear of my shirt. I help him by slipping my pants off and soon my back is violently shoved against the cool tiles of the shower stall. He takes my legs and wraps them around his broad waist rooting him in place between me as the hardness of him notches at my entrance.

Burning, hot water washes away our sorrows, swirling down the drain with its black ichor. All that remains is our new wounds, bared to one another.

There is no romance to his movement, only hunger. Deep ravenous hunger and capricious like the angry tide below us. He leans back to hold me in his new, inky black depths. I lower a hand to cup his right cheek, caressing the soft scars that bloom there.

“There is only you. There’s you and there’s hunger. That is all that is left of me.” Christian grinds forward, gently breaching my entrance with the thick tip of his arousal.