Page 32 of Love's Ace

The memory of his hand sliding around the corner, cool fingers waiting for mine, carried me as I tore the thing beneath me apart. It carried me to rip its throat out, to tear its wings off.

And it made me sway on my feet when I heard a crunching sound behind me. When I turned, there was just a bright red line trailing to a glow.

Then another light, bright like the moon, coming toward me.

“Theo?” A voice in my ear, hands reaching out… and then darkness spilled across my vision.

Chapter 13

Wren

The sound of someonedying woke me, though I’d barely been sleeping to begin with. There was tension running through my body that I didn’t understand, that I couldn’t quite describe.

It had been there since I’d caught Theo in the alleyway after we’d fought. He’d probably saved me by tackling that Enmity—I hadn’t had my bow. A fight with two of them was dangerous even when properly armed, but he’d thrown himself at the creature like he had nothing to lose. He’d torn it apart while I’d cut the other one down before breaking its neck.

And then he’d fainted in my arms, and all my intentions to take him for food and clothing faded away at the weight of him there, at the sight of the wounds on his back slowly knitting together while black swirled in the red of his blood.

I didn’t have to look at the place on his chest to know he’d nearly changed again—and I didn’t think about it when I picked him up and carried him back to the hotel and gently tucked him into bed.

I went back to my room and closed the door between us… because for just a moment I was tempted…

I wanted to wake him up andthankhim. To run my fingers along the wounds on his back until they’d healed.

I wanted to stay with him.

And I couldn’t do that. But leaving him there, exhausted and pale… it was…

Difficult. It left me feeling empty.

It was a hollow sensation in my chest that made me feel restless, made something in my stomach ache. It was like I couldfeelTheo in the room beside me, and I had to write it off as my instincts warning me that there was a creature just a few feet away from me, capable of transforming into something that could kill me at any moment. I’d seen it when I turned—his eyes were ringed in red, his claws covered in blood. He was myenemy.He was the very thing I’d justkilled.

Which was why it made no sense when I heard him scream and I jumped from the bed without hesitation. I grabbed my blade, and I didn’t realize I’d splintered the adjoining door between us until a spray of wood hit against my bare chest.

Fuck, I was in nothing but boxers. I’d stripped down after the fight, too tired to shower but wanting the blood off me. I should have slept in my clothes, because it was clear something was attacking by the way he screamed, by the way he sounded like he was in agony. By the way…

He was lying on the bed and thrashing, his hand grabbing his chest and clawing like he was trying to peel back his own skin.

“Theo?” I said it carefully, but I was still stepping toward him. It was stupid—I didn’t know what was happening. For all I knew, Sephtis was full of shit and he was turning in front of me. It didn’t stop me from getting closer. I kneeled on the mattress and leaned in. There was nothing there but the red string trailing from his chest to mine. The sigil was still in place.

“Theo, wake up.” I reached my hand out to shake his shoulder.

His skin was on fire.

As soon as I touched him, his eyes flew wide. They were black, sparking with a red that held endless depths of rage and fury—the same color I’d seen when we first met, the fury that tried to kill me. It was the color they’d turned when he attacked the Enmity. I’d thought it would fade when he rested… I’d thought…

“It hurts,” he moaned between clenched teeth, and his nails dug into my forearm so hard they left half moons of blood as he grabbed for me. The moment his palms touched my skin, he shuddered.

“I…”

“Fuck,Wren. Please. Please, it hurts. I can’tbreathe.Just—” He gasped as he pulled my hand over his chest… and for a moment I could feel it. The pain shooting through him, so violent and sharp it made me double over and collapse on top of him.

The moment my bare chest brushed his, it felt like the air was sucked from the room.

The pain stopped.

Everything stopped.

Everything froze as I watched his eyes slowly swirl from black and red to that soft, wet, dark brown.

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