Page 64 of Love's Ace

I couldn’t imagine that happening to Wren. Especially not because of me. Notforme.

“I won’t get caught.” Wren’s voice was softer than it had been, his eyes filled with pain as Gethin jerked his shirt back on.

“You don’t even know if the answers are there. You don’tknowif there’s a source for the Enmity, or if it’s just some fucked-up story. And Aiden isn’t going to justtellyou. You’ll have to hope you steal the right book, and you’ll have tohopeanother cupid doesn’t see you, andhopeTheo doesn’t change in the middle of it and start attacking everyone.”

Fuck, he was right. I didn’t understand everything, and evenIknew this was too dangerous. I didn’t get a chance to say it though, because Wren stood from the couch, following Gethin around to the other side of the room. I drew up like a puppet on strings, incapable of not following him as he went.

“You don’tget it, Gethin. I can’t just—”

“Sure, Wren. I don’t understand it at all. He’s turning into an Enmity, and as far as I’ve ever seen, there’s no way to stop it. Those books are probably full of shit. And even if there is a source for his power, it would probably just try to eat you both if you found it. Or Theo will just change the second you step over the threshold of Love’s Ace and he’s around all the other cupids. He’ll be a monster, and you’ll lose your wings. You’ll spend the rest of your life loving a creature made to hate you, todestroyyou. But… sure. I don’t understand.”

He sounded so furious, but it was a surface-level emotion that had so much depth beneath… He was worried about Wren. Gethin could see just as well as I could that this was dangerous—too dangerous. And Gethin knew just as much as I did that I wasn’t worth the risk.

Wren stopped a few feet in front of his friend and frowned, reaching out to him before he dropped his arms, fists clenching.I couldn’t stop myself from stepping forward so I stood at his side.

“I’m not asking you to help us break in, Gethin.”

“Good. You wouldn’t catch me dead in that placeeveragain. Iwon’thave your back, Wren.” His expression wavered, and he frowned. “But I’ll sure as fuck miss you when you’re gone.” When his eyes turned to me, they were full of accusation, a little hate… and a little jealousy as his expression flickered down to the way I’d stepped toward Wren, the way his wings sprang out and spread around us like they meant to protect me the second that gaze turned in my direction again. “Fuck, I really hope he’s worth it.”

I opened my mouth to tell him to fuck off, but Wren’s hand came down instead, and he took my fingers in his.

“Heis.”

There was no question, no hesitation. Just his answer, so solid and sure of me.

It made my chest constrict and my heart ache—it made everything inside me threaten to fracture, because as much as he believed in me, I was terrified he was wrong.

Chapter 23

Wren

“You’ve got to bekidding me.” Theo sounded as annoyed as I felt about the idea, but I knew it really was the only answer.

Had I asked myself a week ago if I would ever do anything this risky, I would probably have laughed it off until my sides hurt.

Now…

Well, now I knew there was only one place we could get the answers we needed. Iknewwhere I’d seen books like Gethin’s before, and I knew what books Gethin coveted above all else.

If we were going to find information on how to save someone from transformation—if there was even a possibility of doing so—Aiden would be the one who would know. That book had jarred my memory, and now that I knew, I couldn’t let it go.

“Wouldn’t it be smarter to just stay at the cemetery? You know, where I can’t hurt anyone?” For the first time, Theo said the words without any spite or malice in his tone. If anything, there was the slightest bit of apprehension. He didn’t hesitate when I held my hand out to him this time. Even though he was talking to me, his eyes were focused on the ground in front of us.

“We can do this. I knowyoucan do this.” I didn’t know that, but one of us had to believe in him, and it was obvious he wasn’t going to do it.

“What if you get caught?” Theo’s voice was even softer this time, but I could feel the way his chest constricted at the words, a sensation so painful it made my breath catch. “It obviously isn’t safe for you to go back, or you would have already. And it’s not like you can just drop me off somewhere and leave me. What if you got caught, and you had to stay away for hours? I don’t know what would happen if…” He cut himself off abruptly, but the tight line of his mouth told me he hated what he was saying, that he even had to think it.

“Until we can figure this out, I’m not going to leave you, okay?” I realized how that sounded the instant it came out of my mouth, so I quickly added. “I’m not leaving.”

The promise was a soft whisper, and my hand holding his was the only thing that stopped Theo from fully recoiling. I’d never met a person who was in just as much pain from a promise as they were from a blow, but I was beginning to realize Theo had never had a promise made to him that he could believe.

I didn’t know how to make him trust me. I didn’t know how to make him understand that I meant everything I said, that I didn’twantto hurt him.

Fuck, things really had changed.I’dchanged. I’d connected soulmates more times than I could count—I’dseenlove at first sight, fueled by the wings of lust and the promise of a bond deepening over time.

I’d never imagined the possibility that I’d experience it myself.

It was getting hard to deny the truth, though.

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