Chapter Twenty-Nine
6 months later…
RUTH
Nerves and adrenaline ricocheted off my chest cavity, my body thrumming to the sound of the crowd. The fans were screaming, and I wasn’t even on stage yet. I stood backstage like I always did and let her—music—pull me in. I let her cadence flow through my veins. I let music in. I let music become me. Always and forever, music was a living and breathing entity in my very lungs the moment a song came on.
In life, my one true solace had always been music. Lyrics were there when I was down and even when my ma wasn’t. I listened to lyrics and heard someone sing the same things I felt, the same things I witnessed and been through. I fell in love with her, the way she brought us all together and showed we all felt the same sometimes.
She gave strength when weak. Hope when it felt like there was none. She hyped you up, or she put you on your knees. She explained us all.
I thought I had to give her up. Now, I never did. But I was about to let go of this part of her if everything worked out.
SoulGoddess! SoulGoddess! SoulGoddess!
I could hear them chanting my name.
Once upon a time, there was a girl that attracted a demon—or more accurately, her soul did. He went on to scare her and promised to eat her soul. But instead, he stood by and watched her achieve her dream. He wouldn’t let her enter relationships, but he never told her who he was either. He watched her like a perv. A real awful demon he was. But then she met him and just like he was drawn to her, she instantly felt a connection in which she had never experienced before. Both fools, you see, because they only took enough from each other in hopes of it being okay. Him only watching her from afar, and her only going after his body, but that failed miserably. And the truth came out, and it wasn’t pretty.
If you think I regretted letting the demon disappear on me that day, you were right.
I’d had six months to think about it, and the only thing I knew was I missed him terribly. The first day I spent in denial, I thought he would come back. That first week was spent waiting for him to come find me. The day he was supposed to come for my soul, I expected him to show. I wished he had, but he didn’t.
He meant his words. I couldn’t have gotten to this acceptance of my feelings for him if he hadn’t said what he had that day. He gave me a sense of respect. He treated me wholly as an individual, and it sealed the ache I had deep inside my chest for him. His words freed me into loving him out loud. I did this by admitting it to other people, including Liam and the boys, Ma, and Jayne who thought he was most likely dead and hurt on my behalf.
“You still doing this?” Liam stepped beside me.
I turned my attention away from the stage to smile at him. “Do you really think he comes to hear me sing?” I often thought he told me that lie to make me feel better about Amit being gone.
He smirked. “He’d be a fool not to.” He squeezed my shoulder. “Are you sure though? I can’t ever approve of you doing this.”
“I’m not ever going to stop my music. I’ll just have to find a new crowd, even if there’s only one in it.”
Liam closed his eyes and chuckled. When he reopened them, he asked, “You’ve been thinking about this for a while?”
“Since the second my soul belonged to me again,” I told him truthfully.
“Sixty seconds!” one of the backstage workers poked his head out and yelled.
“Say Liam, have you been to the Underworld?” I asked quickly. I was almost out of time.
“One time, but I’m a turned vampire. This world is what I know. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more. It’s a completely different world that much I know.” He flicked his nose ring.
I nodded slowly. “I’m afraid he’s not here. I mean, if he was watching me like he always did before, he’d know what I wanted yet…”
Liam smirked. “My response is this: Steve, Pete, and I will see you years from now. This isn’t goodbye. This life is temporary for us. You know we can’t stay in the limelight when we don’t age. One day we’ll leave, and when we do, how about we look for you?”
I didn’t get to answer.
“It’s showtime,” someone yelled.
They rushed us on the stage where we poured our heart out with our opening song, “Soul Food.” I stepped backstage while they sang a few alone, and then when I came out, they stayed for a few of mine. We discovered while on tour that the fans adored when the boys sung some of my songs with me.
But the night finally came to an end, and this was where my nerves got the best of me.
What if he’s not here?
The crowd was loud, but they’re slightly muffled by the earplugs in my ear. Clarity rang through me by the end of my last song. This life… I lived and loved it, but it no longer made me happy. There was nothing more depressing than waiting on a demon to come and steal you away, take back the words he said about being good and just come for me, but it never actually happening. He was doing right by me, but I realized it wasn’t what I wanted.
He cared enough to let me go, and I loved him enough to seek him out. It was crazy to want the one thing that I feared for so long back in my life. I was tired of analyzing it though. Tired of judging myself for what I wanted. Sometimes you just did what you wanted without a clear clue as to why you couldn’t let it go.
The night was over, but I stayed on stage panting and looking out into the lights, barely able to see the crowd that came to see me. I brought the mic up to my lips. “If you’re here watching me, I want you to come to me. I need to see you.” I lowered the mic and wiped my forehead before bringing it up to my mouth. “More like, I miss you, and you don’t get to decide everything.”
The crowd was going berserk as I walked off the stage. Who knew what would happen tonight? I knew what I wanted and was disappointed when nothing happened right away. I walked around backstage, staring at dark corners.
“Who are you looking for?” Jayne spotted me, circling around.
“For someone that isn’t going to show.”
She frowned. “Is this about Amit?” When I didn’t speak, her forehead wrinkled. “It’s been six months, I don’t think…” She left her words unsaid. She thought he was dead just like the rest of the world. She grabbed my hand and placed something in it. “Here’s your phone. I just got to grab our things in the dressing room and we can go.”
I nodded, and she left. The second she left, I felt a tug on my hand. My instinct made me jerk away because nothing was there. I thought I imagined it until it happened again. I could feel the weight of something touching my hand, then it was gone, and there was something pressing at my hip trying to lead me.
Nerves in my throat, I gave in and let who I thought it might be lead me. He took me through the back door where there was a stairway leading to the roof. The weight on my hand was gone. I took a deep breath and opened the door on my own.
It was dark up here. All of the lights were around the building, having no need for them on the roof. The night air bit into my skin. We weren’t in L.A. anymore. That much was obvious. It never got this cold there. I grabbed my arms and walked on out.
“It’s okay, you can come out.” I said calmly as I turned back to the opened door. “I know that was you leading me, Lars.”
His ugly green face popped out of the corner of the door, but he made no move to get any closer. “Sire said for me not to scare you.”
“Where is the soul reaper?” I asked him.
“I’m right here.” His voice swept warmth over my skin on that cold night.
“Amit,” I whispered his name like a prayer as I turned around. There he was in his soul reaper form. A shadowy mass of dark that would scare even the bravest person. His bright-red eyes were clear. “How dare you?” I stepped closer.
His shadow swayed. “How dare I?” I could hear his confusion.
I nodded. “That you think it’s okay for you to decide on staying or going. That it’s okay to really pick up and leave after the night we shared and not come back.”
“I had to take something of you—”
“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you?” I interrupted, pointing at him.
“The hardest thing I’ve ever done is let you go.”
I realized I wasn’t even bothered by his soul reaper form as he gazed across the roof at me.
“Until I found out how hard it was to stay away after letting you go.”
“Change forms, Amit.” Closer, closer, I drew near him.
“Still afraid of me this way?” he asked.
“How can I touch you this way?” Once I was right in front of him, I brought my hand up and watched as my fingers slipped through him. Surprisingly, the haze that he was had a feel. He was warm. So warm. And tingly to my skin. Especially on this kind of night, he felt exquisite. “So much heat,” I whispered.
His entire shadowy form shuddered under my touch. I could hear his inhale. “You’re touching my soul,” he said in awe. “I am merely a dark soul that feeds on others.”
“Lars and you both told me you only went after the bad souls—until me.”
“I’ve never devoured anything but a dark soul, Ruth, but from smell alone, evil, corrupt, any and everything bad tastes better. It also keeps me from being hunted down by Reapers. But more than that, I’ve never had an interest in eating any soul deserving of life. Except for you, but that was never really what I wanted from your soul.” His change of form was instant, replacing a shadow with a wide chest filling up my view covered in a black T-shirt.
I looked up because now I had to in order to see those eyes of his.
“Do you believe me?”
“I do.” I let my palm seek out his chest, reveling in the heat I got in return seeping into me.
“Why did you call on me?” I felt his fingers trace my hipbone, almost as if he couldn’t help himself.
“I think it’s for me to decide if I never see you again. It’s for me to decide what becomes of me.”
“Oh?” He hummed, but it was thick and gravelly.
“I want you to stay or for you to take me with you.” I paused, fear creeping in despite how much I’d thought of this. The fear never outweighed my love though. “As long as I’m with you, I’ll be all right.”
“With the life you’ve chosen, we can’t stay. I don’t age, and soon you’ll see that you won’t either.”
My eyebrows furrowed in the middle. I always wondered about his life expectancy being a demon and all, but what did he just say about me? “What do you mean?”
“I hadn’t realized yet when I left you what my soul had been doing with yours.” There was a soft, sweet smile on his lips. He looked vulnerable, albeit excited in the process, like he wanted to fill me in as well. “Mine has been giving yours pieces of itself over the last decade. It’s a soul reaper’s duty to give half of themselves to the ones we love, to keep them always.”
“You said love,” I mumbled in a hazy blissed-out state. Forget the other stuff he’d said. I only heard L-O-V-E.
“Isn’t that what makes us fools?” He pondered with a grin. My heart leaped toward his—heart to heart, soul to soul. He cupped my face, leaning over me. “I love you, my Ruth, my human.”
“Hold on a second,” I whispered, pulling away as I unlocked my phone. I found Ma’s number and called, knowing I had to do this, or I’d never forgive myself. She answered by the third ring. “Ma.” There was a rushed, yet sad tone in my voice.
“What is it?” she asked. “I thought you were in a concert.”
“I love you. You know that, right? You know how proud I am of you?”
“What are you saying?” I could practically feel the alarm pouring through the phone from her.
“I’m not coming home.”
There was a pause before she muttered, “What?”
“Don’t believe what you hear. I’m all right.”
I didn’t want to scare her like I knew I was, but I couldn’t do this without saying something.
“Ruth Thomas, will you please explain what you’re talking about?” she yelled in my ear.
“I love something more than music. And I want both. For once in my life, I’ll let you worry. Just know that I’m doing great.” I hung up and called Jayne next.
“Where are you? I’m looking for you.” I could tell by her voice that she was looking around as she answered.
“I’m going to need you to look after Moose again.”
“What?”
“And also Ma. I hope that you’ll still go visit her and keep her company. You think she doesn’t like you, but she does.” I didn’t have to say anything more, but I did anyway. “Jayne, I’m so glad you put that application in. I found a friend that day. You renewed the faith that Liz stole from me.”
“You’re scaring me! Where are you?” I could hear her heels clanking as she ran around searching for me.
I’m sorry for being selfish.
“I’m leaving.”
She was quiet for the longest time. “Ruth, is he alive? Is that what this is?”
“I’m choosing me and him over everything else. Don’t resent me for it.”
“I’m always going to support you, but tell me what you’re planning so I can be prepared.”
“You’ll see.”
I hung up. Amit watched me with hooded eyes. “When were you planning on telling me I was no longer going to age? After the entire world noticed?” I tilted my head up at him.
“After I found out what I did, I had planned on coming back for you, eventually.” His smirk as he loomed over me had me smirking too. “I was going to keep up the good demon act another decade, maybe longer,” he admitted.
“Well,” I deepened my voice, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Show me what you had planned to do a decade from now when the act was over.”
He swept me up so fast, I gasped, dropping my purse and cell phone. It clattered to the ground just as we disappeared.
Forever.