Page 43 of Love's Ace

Chapter 17

Wren

Saying I had aplace Iknewwe could go was exaggerating a little… but I was fairly certain that if anyone was going to keep us safe while breaking the laws of all things that had been established for our kind, it would be Gethin.

After all, he was the prime example of why youdidn’tbreak the rules, and the fact that hewasmade him hate most of our kind.

I think the only reason Gethin didn’t hate me is because I occasionally snuck him vials of Ardor. It was apparently one of the only things that could take the edge off the pain he felt from having his wings ripped from his back.

Gethin was both a shining example of exactly why I had to do my job precisely and a glaringly obvious flaw in our code.

No one deserved to live in pain like he did, and if I was being honest, tearing his wings from his back had only made him worse.

He still had a step up from humans in strength, an eternity to exist… and one singular goal in mind.

They’d made an immortal serial killer when they’d punished him, and they didn’t seem bothered to keep him in check. Hecouldn’t be turned into an Enmity, as far as it had been proven, which meant he wasn’t their problem.

“Why are we in a graveyard?” Theo’s voice wasn’t hushed like a normal person’s would have been when they were stepping through a cemetery, but his eyes were wide and curious as he glanced around. It had taken exactly two days to get a hold of Gethin to arrange this visit—thankfully, he’d invited me to stay without much question.

I hadn’t exactly mentioned that I was bringing someone with me, but I figured it was better to ask forgiveness than permission.

And honestly, I didn’t know if I had it in me to let Theo down. He’d been so shaken up after what happened. He was still so angry, quick to pick a fight, ready to show me his claws and threaten to tear my throat out.

That didn’t change the fact that every night I heard the low sound of him groaning from his room.

It didn’t change the fact that both nights I’d ended up leaving my bed and curling against his back until he settled down.

It didn’t change the fact that something in my body was getting used to the way he felt like he was made to fit against the curve of my chest.

It was dangerous.

“Wren?” Theo’s questioning tone pulled me out of my thoughts, and I blew out a breath like it could clear my chest of the emotions.

“My friend isn’t exactly… normal. You’ll…” I didn’t know how to explain it. “You’ll see once you meet him.”

Gethin wasmaybea little morbid, though I knew it had more to do with the fact that he’d placed sigils and paid witch and Reaper alike to guard this place so no one could enter without his express permission. It was his own little sanctuary, on the offchance that Aiden finally caught up to what he was doing and decided he didn’t like it.

I knew Aiden didn’t give a shit, because he’d stopped asking me to drop in and check on how Gethin was doing a year ago.

When I stopped by now, I did it because I wanted to.

Or… because I needed to. I’d neveractuallyneeded to quite so much, though. I’d occasionally asked him for a favor… but this was different.

This was big.

It was big enough that a small part of me was worried he was going to turn us away as soon as he realized what Theo was becoming—what laws we’d broken.

There was only one way to find out, though.

I knocked on the door of the little cottage he had on the edge of the cemetery. He tended to the graveyard as a cover for living here, burying bodies and keeping the place clean and presentable. I sometimes wondered if he did it because it brought him satisfaction, being able to put things into the ground.

He’d already told me the real reason he did it was because it made it easier for him to get rid of bodies when he was finished with them. Some of the times I’d asked Gethin for a favor, it was because I’d killed a human who was still this side oftoohuman to be considered an Enmity.

While not technicallyunallowed, it wasn’t exactly something we were supposed to do. And Gethin… well, Gethin just killed anyone who he felt like killing.

I was stepping out of one type of danger and right into another.

Either way, the door creaked open after a moment, and Gethin’s eyes—a blue so light it was almost white, with little fractures of violet broken through the iris—peered out at us.

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