I held up my hand. “Please don’t say it. You have no idea what it will cost you.”
“Then tell me. Make me understand.” He stepped forward and I moved around him, toward the window.
He reached out and grabbed my wrist, whirling me around to face him. “How dare you,” he growled. “How dare you walk into my life, make me feel things I never felt before—things I know you feel too—and then just walk away.”
“Cole, I—”
His grip on my wrist tightened and he jerked me a little closer, cutting off my excuses. “But you can’t completely walk away, can you? So instead, you keep coming back, torturing us both.”
I snatched my wrist away. “I’m not trying to torture you,” I snapped.
“Tell me.” He demanded.
“Tell you what?” I challenged.
“Tell me what the price is to love you. I’ll pay it.”
I sucked in a breath and just stood there staring at the blue fire raging in his eyes. In that moment I was utterly frozen. His defiance was so brilliant I had no response. How was it that I, a fallen angel, destined to walk the earth alone, came into such a gift?
“I can’t ask you to pay that price, Cole. It’s too high,” I said when I finally was able to speak.
“There is no price too high to pay for you.” He reached out and caught a strand of hair that had fallen over my shoulder. He wound the curl around his finger and tugged, effectively pulling me into his space. He released the curl and let his hand trail down my arm and over the back of my hand, seeking my fingers that were already twitching with the need to be enclosed in his.
“Please don’t touch me,” I said, my voice husky.
“Why? Because when I touch you, you can’t think? Because you forget the reasons you claim we can’t be together?”
My eyes lifted to his. “I can’t forget, Cole.”
He sighed and released me, stepping back slightly and dropping his hand. “Fine. At least tell me why you’re rejecting me.”
“I’m not rejecting you.” I argued.
“The reason, Gemma.” He insisted.
I took a breath, ready to spill it all, hoping it would shock him into finally letting me go. I would confess to him everything, how loving me would only taint him, how it would jeopardize his status as a Supernal Being. That when he died he could be stripped of his body and possibly cast out of heaven… How his very eternal life could be ruined.
Somewhere in the house, a door slammed. My head snapped up to listen.
“Oh, no,” Cole said. “You’re not getting out of it that easy. I’ve been waiting for too long.”
I nodded. “We can’t be together because…” Footsteps on the stairs had me looking toward his closed bedroom door.
“It’s probably just my mom. She’s not going to bother us.”
“When you die…” I began and Cole shifted closer to me, his eyes intent on my face.
There was a loud knock on his door and I jumped away from him like I was caught trying to steal something that didn’t belong to me.
Cole let out a low swear, then yelled, “What?”
“I know you’re not talking to me like that!” said a disbelieving voice from the other side.
“Kimber,” Cole hissed and shook his head. “I’ll be down in a minute,” he yelled impatiently.
“Aww, are you changing? You know it isn’t anything I haven’t seen before.”
Something hot burned through my chest and I jerked, turning away toward the window. Suddenly, the cold seemed preferable to being in here. I didn’t intend to stick around to hear every last detail of Cole’s relationship with his ex. I pushed the window up, but he caught my arm before I could toss myself out.
“I said I’ll be down in a minute,” he practically growled toward the door. Then he turned back, releasing his hold on me. Before either one of us could say anything, the handle began to turn and the door slowly began to open.
I was out the window so fast he didn’t have time to try and stop me. I heard him hiss my name, but by then I was already in the grass and making my way across the yard to disappear into the darkness.
I turned back only once to see his dark head staring out the window while a girl with beautiful red hair came up behind him to grab his arm and slowly lead him away.
* * *
The bar was a dingy, dirty hole in the wall that only locals could possibly know about. It wasn’t the type of shiny contemporary place on the main street in Portland that served apple martinis alongside crystal bowls filled with roasted mixed nuts. No, this bar was three blocks from that place and the entrance was located in a narrow alleyway between two brick buildings. There was a dumpster that probably hadn’t been emptied since nineteen eighty at the end of the alley along with a vent built into the street where some kind of exhaust filtered through, giving the already filthy place the authentic quality of one of those murder TV shows.
It was the perfect place for a criminal to hide.
Or in this case, a breeder to hide.
Before entering the bar I decided to do a little watching of the comings and goings of the place, so I melted back into the exhaust (which strangely smelled like cabbage) letting the thick fog conceal me from drunk, prying eyes. If I were being completely honest with myself, I wasn’t really back here for reconnaissance—I didn’t need to hold a stakeout. I already knew what the breeder was guilty of, just as I knew that he would likely be here tonight.
And the mood I was in made it the perfect time to kick his ass.
No, what I was really doing was trying to scorch from my brain the image of Cole and Kimber in the window. I should probably be happy she’s there, right now, with him. Hadn’t I just finished telling him we couldn’t be together? It would be good if maybe they could rekindle their relationship… Who was I kidding? From everything I’ve seen and heard from Kimber, she wasn’t just one crayon short of a full box; she was just the empty box. And considering she was now mixed up with Hecate, Cole would be better off alone.
I don’t know what I’d been thinking going over there tonight. I should’ve just avoided him until I couldn’t, which probably would’ve been in a room full of people at Heven’s. At least then, we wouldn’t be alone and he wouldn’t be able to get the truth out of me. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell him. I was just afraid if I did he would throw everything away and I wouldn’t have enough resolve to stop him.