Cassius
AS IF THE LIGHT was getting sucked into a black hole, the brightness diminished within the room leaving us blanketed in the soft glow of the moon and the slithering darkness of night.
“Stephanie?” I pulled back to look into her eyes. Anger swirled beneath the surface of her heart shaped face, like I was seeing her but not truly seeing her. Black specks of darkness spotted her white eyes as she blinked up at me again and again as if trying to clear away the mess of cobwebs.
She shook her head again.
“Fight it,” I urged. “Learn how to fight it, learn how to focus on the good, the bright, the joy. Feel the cold, let it become a part of you.”
“He’s warm.” Her voice was hollow. “He’s so warm.”
“Do not allow the temptation of something so fleeting as warmth cause you to lose your footing on reality.” I spoke quietly taking her face between my hands. “All Dark Ones are born with this choice… stay between the mortal planes of humanity and immortals alike, or give in to the darkness.”
She gritted her teeth together and slammed her hands against my chest with a scream.
White hot flames teased my skin as I flew through the air toward the window, I held up a block of ice just in time to keep myself from damaging Ethan’s home further, while Stephanie fell backward off the bed.
The room smelled like burnt skin, but already my body was healing, knitting cells back together while I maneuvered around the bedroom to see if Stephanie was okay.
I froze as she stood to her feet, still naked, wobbly. The palms of her hands were black with soot and near her left cheek was a strip of red hair.
The sign of fire.
The sign of Darkness taking hold.
“I’m sorry.” She ran toward me. “Are you hurt? I just, I was trying to push him away, not you.”
“No.” I grabbed her wrists, carefully examining her hands. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
Nodding, she tugged her hands free and wrapped her arms around me. “I think… I need to go for a walk.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No.” She shook her head violently. “I need to go by myself… It’s not you, it’s…” She shrugged as her words trailed off into the empty atmosphere of the room.
They held no physical power, words, but being dismissed felt like being punched without warning.
I wasn’t sure how to respond.
How to react to the fact that my mate, the one I’d just loved, joined with, promised my life to—was shutting me out, this time purposefully, right before my very eyes.
“Stephanie.” I reached for her hand but she jerked back. “You don’t need to hide from me.”
“I know,” she said quickly.
The lie hung in the air between us like a giant visible rift of separation. She might as well be on another planet. “Then take all the time you need.”
She didn’t just walk out of the room.
She fled.
“Sariel…” Weakness consumed me. “Help where I cannot.”
I waited in anticipation for his answer.
But instead of words, it was the sound of feathers blowing in the wind, ruffling up all at once and taking flight.
And finally. “I will try.”
“It is all I ask.”
“No.” Sariel’s voice carried inside my head. “You ask a great deal more, son, more than I am allowed to give.”
I hung my head then slowly, robotically, put my clothes back on and made my way downstairs.
The kitchen was empty.
Mason wasn’t hidden behind some pot cooking and ordering people around, and Alex wasn’t sitting back on the table, smug look in place as he looked down on everything that dared not be enraptured by his presence.
And Ethan.
His scent was near, but that was all.
“Cassius?”
Genesis’s voice was so unexpected that I startled, nearly running into the door frame in an effort to turn around. Her scent was different now that she was mated with the Vampire, I had forgotten its lingering sweetness, the way the mixture of human and Vampire blood hummed through the air like an electrical current, pulling and tugging.
Her bright green eyes glistened. “Did I? A mere human? Frighten you, oh, great one?”
I held back my laugh—just barely—as a smile spread across my face. “I believe you did.”
“And to think, Dark Ones…” She made a face. “So terrifying.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Did you just roll your eyes?”
I paused and then released the pent-up laugh. “First time for everything. I blame Alex.”
“It’s just easier that way,” she agreed holding out her hand.
I hesitated at first, old habits died hard. There had once been a time when I would have done anything to touch her, to mate with her, to break the curse that Ethan and I had started when his mate betrayed him.
Touching humans wasn’t a normal occurrence. With a sigh, I pressed my palm against hers and then linked my fingers, enjoying the softness of her hand, the warmth that was so foreign to my own skin as it simmered.
“You’re eyes are white again,” she whispered.
“I like your warmth,” I said honestly. Not in a way that meant I wanted her. “You comfort me. Imagine that?”
She squeezed my hand lightly and led me into the adjoining living room. Next to the fireplace she had a mug of something sweet, hot chocolate perhaps? And a blanket. I scooted a chair next to her and sat, our hands still touching, still grasping, feeling one another.
It was the most calm I’d felt all evening.
Sitting with a human, by the fire.
Sitting with a Vampire’s mate.
Sitting.
Watching.
Maybe I inherited that from my father? The keen ability to be able to stay awake and watch, in hopes that by keeping my eyes open I’d, what? Save the world from itself? Save the woman I loved?
“You look sad,” Genesis said.
“I find that I’d rather allow the human side of me to mourn what has transpired between me and Stephanie than push it away. Sometimes it’s better to feel, no?”
Genesis ducked her head as she took a sip of hot chocolate. Her dark wavy hair fell across her soft skin as her green eyes glowed over the rim of the cup. “Feeling is almost always painful, but with pain, is always beauty… pleasure.” She glanced at the fireplace. “You aren’t truly living if you are choosing to ignore the most vibrant parts of yourself, including, emotions.”
“Pesky little things, emotions,” I joked.
Her laugh was soft. “They do tend to get in the way.”
“I want to save her,” I admitted.
Genesis’s eyes saddened. “You can’t.”
“I keep telling myself if I wouldn’t have—”
Genesis’ eyebrows arched. “Go on, wouldn’t have what?”
“Bargained,” I blurted out. “I made a bargain with Sariel. Allow me thirty days to pursue her, to love her, he made me human while restoring her immortality as a gift. At the end of thirty days, if I had not succeeded, I would die. But, of course, Sariel failed to mention that if we mated, I’d be restored.”
Genesis frowned. “It doesn’t seem like Sariel to leave something like that out. Are you sure you are restored?”
I frowned. “I have all of my powers, look at me.” I spread my arms wide, releasing her hand in the process.
“But do you have your immortality?” She wondered aloud.
I paused as the room itself tensed, and then like a warning, the lights flickered. Because if I could die, if it was possible to die without the draining of my immortality, that meant… the future had not truly changed.
Because in the end.
Stephanie could still kill me.
Stab me in the heart.
And I would perish.