Cassius
TEN HOURS. IT HAD taken me ten hours since my damning meeting with Sariel to get used to my body.
A human.
My Archangel father had made me a human.
I briefly wondered if I’d get struck by lightning if I called him a bastard and had my answer when the sound of feathers ruffling together in protest floated through the air.
Ten hours after he’d condemned me, I’d gained several bruises, a cut across my hand, and sore joints—reminding me yet again that I was old and I was breakable.
I hated it.
Every damn second.
Until it rained.
And then I felt—everything.
I lifted my eyes to the sky and gasped as the rain drops splattered across my face rolling down my lips. It tasted pure. It tasted real, like life was getting poured on my body over and over again.
When you spend your existence focusing on the immortal parts of yourself—you lose that shred of humanity. It’s a slow drain until you forget all the different components that made you human and simply embrace the supernatural.
And when you embrace the supernatural, or rather embrace your immortality, you forget the simple things.
Like rain.
And the way it feels.
I never had time to stop and let rain pour over my head. If the rain irritated me I simply waved it away. If the sun was too hot, I closed my white eyes and allowed the ice to spread through my veins—compliments of being part Angel, part human.
For the last thousand years I’d simply ignored one part of myself—one part that made me whole—and existed without it.
I roamed the streets for a day. Watching people, not because I was lost or bored, but because everything was so new to me, so exciting. So raw.
I felt everything all at once.
It was overwhelming, and for the first time in my existence—life was exciting again.
And then I saw her.
At Starbucks.
By herself.
And my world simply stopped, my breathing never returned to normal, and I was reminded yet again that I had thirty days.
And I was on day twenty-nine.
I’d lost one day.
Irritated that I’d let myself get so distracted, I followed her to the house, and followed her again when she left.
Each time a stupid human hit on her I laughed—until a little voice inside my head reminded me that I was just as bad, just as low on the totem pole.
I wasn’t sure who the hell had sent Steph out to speak to the Demons, but they were going to have to answer to me. She was as defenseless as a weak little lamb out in a thunderstorm.
She had no idea what she was capable of and was oblivious to the scent she gave off to every male and female she walked by.
I still smelled it.
Maybe that was Sariel’s cruelty coming to the forefront. He would turn me to a human, allow me to win the woman I loved, only to remind me yet again that I wasn’t on an even playing field.
I was not her equal.
Maybe I’d never been.
“Cassius?” Stephanie reached up and cupped my face. It felt nice. It felt… warm. “What happened to you?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” At least that was the truth.
Her eyes narrowed. “Were you punished? For what happened?”
“No.”
“Then…” She shook her head. “Care to explain why your eyes aren’t white but blue, why you smell like… rain—weird, you smell like rain? And, and—”
I gripped her hands in mine. “Later… for now we should return to the house before the Demons bring back friends to take you down.”
“Well, I have you…” She shrugged. “They couldn’t touch me.”
As if realizing what she’d just said her face fell.
“I’m human.” I said it again; it felt funny on my lips. As if my eyes had ideas of their own, I focused in on her mouth. Damn, it was pretty. I wondered if I’d ever really taken the time to appreciate her beauty.
Or maybe I knew that the minute I did—I’d be lost.
“Cassius?” She gripped my arm. I stared at that hand far longer than was necessary. “You’re right… we should go.”
I followed her out of the bar, pulling my hands into tight fists to keep from reaching for her body.
It was hard to focus on anything except for the outline of her hips. Damn, being human was sending me into madness fast. I was hypnotized by her every movement, following her like she was my reason for existing.
We weaved in and out of the crowd and finally made it outside. The silence wasn’t awkward, but her stares were.
I’d never been insecure about anything.
But I came to realize that being human meant I was feeling emotions I wasn’t used to feeling. Like insecurity.
Why the hell was she staring at me so hard?
And why did my body respond in such a heated way that I was consciously looking for a place to push her against so I could trap that soft body and capture those lips? Was it this hard for all humans? My thoughts went into dangerous territory as she nervously licked her lips over and over again. Body dizzy with want, it was getting hard to walk in a straight line.
“My car’s over here.” Stephanie pointed to Ethan’s newest Lexus.
“Don’t you mean Ethan’s car?” I smirked, quite cheered at the fact that she’d most likely scratch the piece of machinery before the week’s end. Ethan and I had always been at odds, now even more so.
He was arrogant.
And ever since our falling out over his first mate’s death—it had been easy to let him hate me, to blame me for her death and everything since, when none of it was really my fault. Rules were not meant to be broken.
Yet as I thought those very words, I had to wonder, what part of me being fully human fit into the strict set of rules and guidelines given to the immortals since the beginning of time.
“We’re sharing.” She shrugged.
“I bet.” I chuckled.
It sounded funny.
Stephanie let out a little gasp.
I shrugged because, really, what else could I do? Laugh more?
Once we were on the freeway heading back toward Ethan’s, Stephanie finally started talking. Maybe she needed those minutes to process. Hell, I’d taken a whole day, and I still wasn’t sure what my plan was.
Touching her would do nothing—I was without any of my angelic power. She wouldn’t be seduced by it, and even if I was still a Dark One, so was she, which meant… what? Would our powers equalize? Or destroy us both? Was I playing at heartache even now?
“You even sound different,” Stephanie muttered under her breath. “Your voice is gruffer.”
“Yes.” The word caught at the back of my throat making me sound like an idiot.
“Do you bruise?” She pulled to a stop at the next light and stared at me.
I licked my lips and ran my fingers through my dark hair. “I guess so—”
The punch was so hard I was pretty confident one of my ribs simply broke in half.
“What the HELL?” I roared rubbing my left side while trying to suck in enough air so I didn’t pass out. It hurt to breathe.
“How dare you leave me!” She hit the accelerator causing me to slam back against the seat.
“Stephanie.” I held out my shaking hands. “Damn it, calm down.”
The car picked up speed. Shit.
Fear wasn’t something I was accustomed to but there it was slamming against my chest as she weaved in and out of traffic gaining speed.
I gripped my seatbelt. “Steph, just calm down for a minute. If you listen I think you’ll understand and—”
“Understand?” She laughed. “You left me! Alone! I don’t even know what I am! And you left me!”
“I had no choice!” I roared as the car damn near collided with a semi.
The atmosphere in the car turned to ice. I knew the look in her eyes well. It was the same as I’d seen reflected on my face a few thousand times.
Her eyes turned a stormy white.
Icicles formed around the steering wheel.
If she didn’t calm down the entire car was going to freeze and explode into pieces of icy dust.
“Stephanie, listen to me.” I touched her icy arm. “Can you at least do that? I’m here now, does that tell you nothing?”
Her breath froze in front of her face.
My teeth clattered together. This wasn’t going to end well for me if she didn’t relax. She’d be just fine.
I’d be worse off than the car.
“Pull over,” I barked.
She shook her head.
“Pull the car over. NOW!” I jerked the steering wheel.
She didn’t fight me.
Instead the car rocked to the side and screeched to a halt right at our exit.
Out of control. She was out of control. She needed to get warm before the cold took over, before the darkness consumed her. She had no idea what powers she was playing with, how losing control of your emotions could destroy you, put you in a catatonic state for weeks.
She still wasn’t responding to my voice.
So I did what any human would do.
I kissed her.