Page 82 of Love's Ace

Being with him was enough. When I opened my mouth to say it again, he cut me off with a kiss—so hard the sharp points of histeeth drew blood, so sweet it made everything inside me feel like I was melting.

When he pulled back, his pupils were blown. When he looked at me, I saw the entire universe in the dark swirl of his eyes.

I saw forever, and I fell into an eternity of red stars when he spoke.

“I love you too.”

It was impossible… Itshouldhave been impossible. I’d spent a century furious, a century angry and jaded. A century killing Enmity and humans who were turning, and letting all those feelings fester and grow inside me.

And it was all gone. Dissolved into the air because Theo was here, and because he leaned in again and pressed his mouth to mine after his confession, kissing me like he wanted to make sure the words were somewhere safe, trapped in the depths of my chest so no one could ever find them and use them to hurt him.

I didn’t know how to tell him I would die before I let that happen, so I kissed him back instead, making sure the press of my body and the way I held him was all the promises he’d never had, all the promises I’d been born to give.

Every piece of me that had always been waiting for him.

Chapter 28

Theo

Getting instructions on howto clean up dead bodies was the strangest thing I’d ever experienced.

I’d killed people before. I’d told Wren as much, so it wasn’t like I was ashamed of it.

When I’d done it, though, I’d left them in the street and banked on the fact that they weren’t good people, that I’d be able to get away with it because no one was going to give a shit about what happened to them.

We’d showered and slept, then spent the rest of the day at the house hoping that Erin was just as much of an asshole as I remembered. When I’d lived with him, no one had ever really come to bother us. If they had, Erin was usually too drugged out of his mind to bother opening the door. I was banking on the fact that not much had changed, because that meant we could wait until it was safe to head back to try and clean up the mess we’d left behind.

“I’m not coming to help.” Gethin’s voice came in loud and clear through the phone, and I glared in Wren’s direction. For someone he seemed to consider a very good friend, Gethin wasextremely intent on making sure he never helped Wren with anything important.

I could understand, though—the vision of his shoulders, of those scars digging so viciously into his flesh was burned into the back of my mind.

The image of that happening to Wren because of me…

I had to swallow down the thought. I would just make sure itdidn’thappen. That’s the only thing I could do.

He loved me.

Fuck, someone loved me. I didn’t realize that would be something I’d guard so fiercely, so violently.

I didn’t realize it was something I was willing to fight for.

Love had never been in the cards for me until Wren. I was still in disbelief that he’d evensaid it,that he really meant it.

I was even more shocked that I’d said it back without fear, without question, like I’d been incapable of doing anything else.

This had all been inevitable, from the second we’d met… It was still impossible to reconcile the fact that it had barely been a week with the way it felt like every moment of my life had started when I met him.

“I know, Gethin. You aren’t going to help. You aren’t going to come anywhere near us. You’re going to be a hermit in your graveyard forever. Got it. But what the fuck do I do about…” Wren’s eyes glanced around, and his lips pressed together for a second before he spoke. “So many pieces?”

There was silence on the other end of the call, and a sigh. “How many pieces exactly?”

“I…” Wren looked around almost helplessly.

They wereeverywhere. The people who had hurt me wereeverywhere, and I was beginning to wonder if it would be better to scrape up what we could and set the house on fire. My fingers trailed the length of his spine, and he sighed as he leaned back against me.

“Wren?”

“I can’t count. It’s a lot.”

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