I blinked at the sight of Seth panting heavily, out of control breaths just two feet from me. He stared at me with a look so wildly savage that my common sense and intelligence seemed to just melt right along with my anger and fear of him.
“What are you doing here?” I gasped.
The children still whimpered and cried out behind him, but who had time to think about children at a time like this!?
“I heard you were in trouble,” he answered. Ari’s blood had splashed back to cover his chest and arms. He looked like a modern day gladiator in a blood-stained white t-shirt and dress slacks. It was like he was in a state of half-undress. His t-shirt clung to his muscled chest and arms, clearly meant to be worn underneath something. His tailored gray pants hung perfectly on his hips and creased just over his shiny black shoes.
This was the man that Aliah had created. This was not my seventeen-year-old soul mate that preferred to be shirtless and comfortable.
His golden toned hair looked as though he’d been running his fingers through it. His Darkness emanated as strong as ever from him. But his amber colored eyes heated with something like affection when he took me in.
Butterflies erupted in my stomach like some kind of a winged-tornado. He looked too beautiful to stare directly at. His primal grace burned me, seared me to the spot. I would be nothing but ash and dust when my parents finally found me, the imprint of my body charred into the wall behind me. He was going to be my end in some way. Whether it was his sword that finished me or the explosion of my heart from these feelings I could not control. He would be my end.
He was too much. His presence too overwhelming. I hadn’t seen him in much too long and especially not like this, with his hands at his sides and not around my throat.
The butterflies stuttered with that though.
“Not anymore,” I told him grimly, kicking Ari’s body off my legs.
He took a step forward. He picked up Ari’s body and tossed him into the portal. The swirling vortex of misery swallowed his lifeless body like a hungry monster. He was in my face, just three inches from me. “Nobody kills you but me.”
Disappointment hit me like a ton of bricks. I reeled back from force of his words. “Oh.”
“Oh?” He quirked a brow at me.
“Oh, I didn’t… I just thought…”
“What?” he demanded with a gravelly voice.
“I thought maybe you came for a different reason.”
“I saved you.”
“But only so you could kill me!” I pointed out full of my own fire.
He laughed derisively. “What did you expect from me?”
I let out a short breath. “I don’t know! A declaration of undying love! Maybe a reason other than murder! Anything but why you’re really here.”
“You’re confusing me with the boy I used to be.”
“You’re still that boy,” I growled. “You’re still the boy that loves me.”
His fist came up and he pounded against my heart. The air left my lungs in a big whoosh of expelled breath and I felt my torso be ground into the wall behind me. “I’m not a boy,” he spat. “Especially not the one that loves you.”
“Prove it.” And I meant it. I’d already been threatened enough tonight. I’d already made my peace and given up this world. I was so sick and tired of this game with him. I just wanted it over. One way or the other, I wanted some peace.
He smiled at me. It wasn’t nice or forgiving or even exciting with the pain he promised in his lifeless eyes. It was dark and sadistic and so full of hate and malice, I was surprised that the expression itself didn’t kill me.
“Gladly,” he replied.
His arm snaked around my waist and he hauled me tightly to his body. With a low chuckle that vibrated his chest, he took off.
We crashed through the ceiling of the warehouse without much effort. The roof had been weakened by all the heat I let off and the Light from the children. His head hit first, so I knew he took the brunt of the impact, but he hardly seemed fazed.
Instead, we soared into the air and away from my parents, Nate, Serena and anyone else who could save me, away from the children I’d given up everything to save.
I didn’t have a weapon or a way to escape.
All I had was hope in a boy who was hopeless and love that seemed unreturned.
But it would have to be enough.
It would have to be enough to save me tonight.
Or at the very least, save Seth.
Chapter Nineteen
I didn’t know how long we traveled through the air. It was impossible to tell when I was pressed against Seth’s still-warm body and held in his arms like I was delicate, fragile… like I mattered.
When we finally set our feet down on solid ground, I had no idea where we were. We could have been anywhere that cliffs backed up to the ocean. A cold wind whipped around my hot skin and the twinkling night sky seemed brighter than ever up above. Millions and millions of stars shone overhead in a sparkling array of constellations and alignments.
Or as I knew them… battle formations.
Humanity would never know how important that star-covered sky was, or how safe it kept them. Only those legions of Angels kept the Darkness at bay.
Those legions and me.
We would work together to keep Light on this planet, to keep hope alive.
Unless they gave up altogether and handed themselves over to the Darkness, we would always stand in its way. We would always fight for their survival.
I would always fight for their survival.
Unless of course, Seth brought me here to murder me. The sword that pressed into my kidney hinted that he might have.
“It’s not a fair fight,” I told him quickly. “I’m defenseless. This is boring for you.”
“It’s not boring.”
“It is,” I assured him. “You like the challenge.”
“I like these shorts.” His blade trailed a sharp path down my side and under the hem of my tight volleyball shorts. He flicked his blade and it nicked them with a small tear. I felt the sharp edge of his blade against my thigh and wasn’t sure if he’d managed to draw blood or simply burn me with the heat of it.
“I had a game tonight,” I explained obviously and rather unnecessarily. He really didn’t care about that kind of stuff.
“Did you win?” His tone was so calm that I couldn’t read his intentions for me. I wanted to believe that he really had swooped in tonight to save me and that was as far as he wanted to take things with me. Then there was that small beacon of hope that wanted for him to keep tearing my clothes off and heating me with his closeness.
But also there was the screaming siren in my head that warned he was just waiting for the right time to strike.
I believed that voice the most, even though I desperately tried to get my mind to head in either of the other directions.
I shrugged. I felt irritated that I’d left my game only to almost get killed by someone who was supposed to be on my side, only to be saved by the same person that now wanted to murder me.
Oh, plus, I was far away from any help that could save me and I was defenseless.
This night just kept getting better and better.
“These are cute.” He kicked at my knee pads that were pushed down to my ankles and if he would have been his normal self I would have believed he actually meant that. Instead, I just felt the curdled affection that was poison now.
“Can’t ever have too much protection.”
“That’s actually not true.”
“I know.”
“And those are hardly what I would call protection.”
“I know.”
Apparently, he didn’t take me seriously, because he slashed through my left knee pad with his sword and the stupid thing hung there as divided and irreparable as my heart.
“See? That was pointless.”
And then I lost my mind.
I slammed my hands into his chest. “No! I’ll tell
you what is pointless! You cutting open my favorite pair of knee pads to prove a stupid point!” I hit him again. “Or bursting through a door to save me, when I didn’t need your help!” I slammed my fists into his chest so hard he had to take several steps back to right himself. “Or how about you selling your soul to protect me, only so you could try to kill me!” Bam, bam, bam. I kept hitting him. It felt so good. And maybe this was pointless. Maybe my attack was just as pointless as thinking my knee pads could protect me from Seth’s swords, but it felt freaking good. And I wanted to hit him as hard as I could for as long as I could until he felt something… until he felt me and remembered me and acknowledged what a bad ass freaking superstar I was and that he should never have left me or given up on us.
I wanted him to remember that there was still an us!
We weren’t over and we sure as hell weren’t going to end because he chopped my goddamn head off!
He caught my wrists the next time I went to hit him. He dropped his sword and captured my hands against his chest. He held them so tightly against him that I could feel his heart hammering just beneath his skin.
He might have given up his soul, but he was still flesh and blood. He was still my Counterpart. His heart still beat and his blood still pumped.
He still belonged to me.
“I know,” he assured me with the roughest voice. “I know that now.”
I seemed to break with the catch in his voice. I shattered, right there, in his arms, on a cliff with the ocean crashing below us. The night wrapped around our skin and cocooned us in isolation. And for the first time in a long time, I felt him. I felt him alive and real and raw.
The Stars overhead probably looked down at me with disappointment or shame.
But I couldn’t care.
I felt Seth as strongly as I ever had. His emotions suddenly opened up to me and I felt them all in a great rush of feeling and sorrow. They mingled with my own until I couldn’t help but feel the depth of him, the very bottom of a man that was ripping apart before my eyes.
“I need you to come back,” I cried. I let my forehead fall to that spot where his heartbeat could be felt. I wanted to touch it with as much of me as I could. I wanted to remember every beat and thrum from the inside of this man, so that I still felt like he was a man I knew… a Warrior that could be saved.
Something other than completely evil.
“I can’t” he rasped. “I can’t come back.”
“You can,” I argued. Even I doubted my words. For all the pointless things we could argue about tonight, this felt like the worst. This was truly the most pointless. He couldn’t come back. At least not yet.
And maybe not ever.
Seth lay his hands on my waist and held me against him. He kept a small distance between his torso and mine, but not much, just a breath of space. I could feel the internal war raging inside him. He wanted to crush me to him and take my comfort, my love and let it soothe him in ways he was empty and coming apart. He wanted to push me away and never touch me again, never look at me again. And most of all he wanted to tighten his grip until he crushed me beneath his hands. He wanted to end me. He wanted to end his pain.
I couldn’t blame him anymore.
My heart and mind spun in just as much turmoil and felt equally as confused. I wanted to wrap my arms around him too. I wanted to hold him to me and tell him how much I loved him and would do anything for him. I also wanted to run away and never be near him again. His presence chilled me, terrified me in ways that no other enemy could.
Then there was the growing feeling that I needed to kill him. For my own safety, for the future of this planet and this people… I should end him. I should destroy my biggest threat and give myself and humanity a fighting chance for survival.
But like, Seth, I couldn’t decide and so I didn’t move.
I didn’t know how long we stood there, just barely touching. My forehead rested against his strong, taut chest. I felt his hammering heart as it pounded a fast, frantic rhythm. I felt it beat with my own heart and become an entwined melody that sang the same song.
His fingers were hot at my waist, fierce and unrelenting. He didn’t move them. He didn’t add pressure or release his grip. He simply held me as if my simple nearness would solve his problems.
His breath fanned over my head, floating down my bare neck and lifting the loose hairs that had fallen out of my ponytail. His emotions swirled around me in a tsunami of confusion and I could only give him those same muddled thoughts back. I had no answers. And I had no plan. My whole just-get-through attitude was failing me at the moment because it wasn’t an answer. It was a reaction.
And it was time for me to stop merely reacting to everything that happened to me and start initiating.
But I couldn’t do that with Seth.
Initiating anything with him would probably end with a sword to my jugular. He was too fragile. I had to give him the space to move as slowly as he needed to.
“We aren’t going to make it,” he said after a while.
I didn’t answer. I had started to believe that was true.
“One of us is going to die.” His words came out in a harsh, raw tone that scratched along my nerve endings. I felt worn and threadbare from the sound.
He took a step back and I immediately went to alert. I didn’t have a weapon, but right now neither did he. I glanced down at the sword that lay perfectly between us. What would I do to stay alive?
How far would I go?
My heart clenched tightly but I ignored the pain. I had to. I was willing to do anything for this man, but if it came down to it, if it was between him and me, I would fight until my last breath to survive.
“We should decide now,” Seth continued. “It would make this easier for both of us.” A long pause stood between that sentence and his next word. “Eventually.”
Or it would just get worse as he slowly regained his soul. If that was even possible after you murder your Counterpart. I wasn’t so sure that it was.
Survival was a funny thing. To the center of my being, I was not afraid of death. I had a firm afterlife to look forward to. I knew that. I knew that death was not the end of my story, nor was it some final farewell to the universe. There was life for me after death.
After all, I was born of the Lower Realm, a product of heaven, a child of Angels and Stars and Warriors. I knew what lay beyond the final goodbye.
But I also had a destiny, a fate that called to me stronger than anything else in this life. Love couldn’t even compete with the path I knew I was meant to walk. Protecting this planet was in my blood, sizzling beneath my skin, prickling every moment of my consciousness. I couldn’t give up easily on this obligation because it was what fueled my every breath.
Even while death did not hold power over me, it was essential that I avoid it. And so when presented with a possibly gruesome way to go, those survival instincts that came prepackaged with a great destiny, kicked in and I was nothing but a slave to them.
Even if my target happened to be the man I loved with all of this life I was trying to save.
I dove for the sword before Seth registered my movement. He followed just as quickly but I had a half-second head start and it proved to be enough. I grasped the hilt of his cutlass in my hands and rolled to my back.
He jumped back just in time and that wicked gleam in his topaz-colored eyes returned. He looked at his cutlass with a hunger that eclipsed any longing glance he’d ever given me.
Damn the sword. Now I wanted to throw it in the ocean!
“If only you looked at me like that.” I scrambled back and waved his sword out of his reach.
He lifted a cocky eyebrow. “Jealous?”
“Of an inanimate object? Obviously.”
“It’s not the sword per say,” he taunted. “But the power the sword can wield.”
“You mean chopping my head off?”
“I mean chopping your head off.”
“Oh.”
He advanc
ed on me and I jumped to my feet. His sword was off balance in my hand. Unlike longswords or broadswords that were so skillfully balanced, this one felt uneven. The curve of the blade seemed heavier on one side than it was the other and the hilt was thicker than I was used to. It was built to kill though, and I knew it would be very proficient at its job if I could just wrap my head around the different specs.
“And if I get to yours first?” I took a confident step forward.
“I hope that you do.” While I grappled with the meaning of his words, he lunged for me.
I skipped backwards, but he flipped over my head and landed behind me. I spun around before he could grab me and lashed out at his torso. He jumped back just as the sword sliced through his thin t-shirt.
I took aggressive steps forward; all the while he just barely jumped out of the way. I swung wide and jabbed quickly and closely, but I never got more than a nick of his skin.
The ground was rocky and uneven beneath our feet and both of us occasionally stumbled. I tried to herd him back toward the edge of the cliff, hoping to force him into closer quarters.
At any time he could take off into the sky and I knew I wouldn’t follow him, but he didn’t. He continued to dodge my blows and duck my attacks. He believed he could still win this, that he could incapacitate me, even though he was weaponless, and take the upper hand.
And that just pissed me off.
I kept attacking him, giving him little time to recover. Eventually his feet got tangled beneath him and he stumbled. Without a second of hesitation, I pounced on him.
He fell down hard on the rough ground, his back smacking the sharp rock with a satisfying thud. I immediately flung my body on him and straddled his chest. The sword in my hand went straight to his throat while my knees pinned his biceps down.
I knew he was stronger than me. I knew that my advantage would not last long and that he could easily throw me off him. I wasn’t an idiot.