Page 77 of Demon's Bluff

My shaking hand fell from him, tightening into a fist. He was running. How did he end up on his boat?

“Rachel?” Kisten tilted his head, trying to catch my eyes. I couldn’t speak, confused. This was not what I remembered. This is not what happened.What have I done?

“Rachel.”

It was firmer this time, and I looked up to see him studying me. Slowly he rocked back, one bruised hand falling from my shoulder, the other still clinging to my waist.

“You are not my Rachel,” he said, and I tensed, feeling as if I’d been socked in the gut.

“I am,” I said, voice shaking as I glanced at Elyse’s muttered curse and Newt’s satisfied smirk. “We need to go. Now. My friend will help us get out of Cincinnati.”

“I will not,” Elyse said sharply, but Kisten had reached out and I couldn’t move as his swollen and cut fingers gently went through my hair, arranging it.

“You love someone else,” he said as if mystified. “How can that be? How could you fall in love with someone in half an hour?”

Panic iced through me. “I love you,” I asserted, and he cocked his head, confused.

“No,” he said slowly, then, “Yes. You do. But you areinlove, and notwith me.” He turned to the bar as if in thought, then back again. “You are my Rachel, but not. Have I slept?” Horror crossed him, and he let go of me. “Am I undead?”

I reached for him. “No, you’re living,” I said, blinking fast to keep the tears at bay as I fiddled with the collar to his sweat suit, touching his neck, his chin, his face. “And we’re going to keep it that way,” I finished, voice warbling.

“Rachel, you can’t change this,” Elyse said, and my throat closed.

“She isn’t changing anything,” Newt said, an ugly, knowing expression tightening her face. “This is her answer. This is her truth. And truth pays all bills.”

Truth, perhaps, but I couldn’t tell him anything. “You’re alive,” I said, hands gently cupping his face, and he blinked at me, still trying to figure it out.

“I’m alive,” he agreed. “I have not slept. But you are not you.” He glanced at Elyse and Newt. “I’m going to die. You are…you are from the future?” he guessed, and my eyes shut, unable to look at him anymore. “Is Ivy okay? Does she live?”

Speak truth only to the dead.That’s what Al had said. Maybe…maybe he was right.

My eyes opened and I sniffed back the tears as I wiped my face. “She is okay,” I said, and Elyse groaned as if pained. “Piscary can’t hurt her anymore. She’s found love. She’s happy.”

Relief eased the band about my chest, and I met his smile with my damp eyes. Kisten would still die, but he would die knowing Ivy was okay. Maybe it was enough.

“And you have found love, too,” he said, head down as he studied our twined fingers, his strong and scared, mine pale and shaking. “Deep, abiding.” He drew the air deep into his lungs. “True,” he added, his blue eyes dark with unshed tears as he beamed at me. “Look at you. Look at how strong you are, sitting with the coven and a demon both. You are my Rachel of the future. Look what you have become without me.”

“I never said…”

He put a gentle hand on my face, stopping my words. “I am gone. I see it in your every breath. And if I had been there, if I had survived, you’d be smaller. I know it.”

I’d wanted to give him comfort, not this, and my agonized smile faded. “No. That’s not why I’m here.”

“You would be smaller,” he said softly, and then my heartache redoubled as he pulled me into a hug, his body relaxing as he sighed against me. “You would be smaller, my love…”

“You don’t know that,” I sniffed into his collar, and we parted.

Eyebrows high, Kisten ran a finger down my neck. Only a faint hint of passion rebounded under his touch—and he knew it.

“I do,” he whispered. “And I’m proud of you,” he added, pulling me into a crushing embrace again. “I want you to go back. Become the mortar between the coven and the demons.” He shifted against me as he considered my scent. “And the elves?” he added, surprised.

I pushed away, blinking fast and biting my lower lip between my teeth.

“Kalamack?” he guessed, and I couldn’t speak.

Kisten sighed as he drew away. He had ferreted it out of me, and now I was someone else’s love…not his.

“Kisten,” I started, and he shook his head, letting go of me and picking up his bag. “Kisten, we can run,” I said. “I don’t need to go back.”

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