Page 89 of Love's Ace

Could he?

I stared at the books like I could somehow pull the answers out without opening them up. When nothing came to me, I turned back to him.

“Look me in the eyes and tell me that whoevermadethe Enmity couldn’t do something about what’s happening to Theo. Tell me I’m wrong, Aiden. You’veneverlied to me, so I’ll trust you. I’vealwaystrusted you to be honest.”

That silence again—long and drawn out and damning when he pressed his lips together and sneered.

“Hecouldfix it. But he won’t. Trust me on that.”

He.

It was a person.

Someone we could find.

Hewas real, which meant there was a chance.

“He will.”

“Wren, it’s suicide. What you’re trying to do will get you killed. Worse, maybe. You don’t understand their games. You don’t—”

“No.” I cut Aiden off, and a small part of me felt giddy. I’d never spoken back to him, never questioned him. Sometimes I’d resented him for what he’d done to me, but I’d never questioned that he wanted to protect me, if only to protect what he’d made. “No, you don’t get it. I’mnotgiving up on Theo. I’m not letting anyone or anything hurt him. If there’s a chance thatheknows how to fix this, I’m willing to risk it.” My fingers in Theo’s tightened, and I didn’t have to look at him to know he could feel my thundering pulse, that he could probably taste it on the back of his tongue. “I’d riskeverythingfor him. You tore me from my mother’s arms when I was a baby and made me this weapon, this thing to fight—to kill. Youoweme, Aiden. You owe me a chance to get everything you took away from me back.”

The silence only lasted for a moment this time before Aiden shook his head and snorted. If he felt guilty about the accusation that I’d always felt boiling behind my ribs but never been brave enough to say, he didn’t show it. But his posture went loose, and he looked at me with that hint of fondness I’d seen dozens of times after I’d come home from a dangerous mission. “And that’s exactly what you’ll lose, Wren. Everything.” His eyes flicked back to Theo, and he shook his head again. “I hope the few days you’ve spent with him were worth it.”

They were.

Fuck, they were.

Chapter 30

Theo

I’d never given muchthought to whether God existed. It always seemed pretty obvious to me that he didn’t, because my life had been a living hell and it wasn’t like I’d started out doing anything to deserve it.

So the book in my hands was a shock. Written word,proof,that there were higher things—notGod,exactly, but beings that created good and evil, made anger and fury, love and purity. Things that made lust and passion and humanity.

Things that made the aura that burned so bright inside Wren that it let him become a cupid to begin with.

Those things were real, and apparently that was what we were going to seek out.

It was dangerous—I didn’t need Aiden’s warning ringing through the air to tell me that much, or the look of worry on his face when he glanced between us.

I think he could see it just as much as I could feel it. Maybe we’d die, but we would die holding hands, we’d die trying.

We’d die together.

In the end, I had to think Aidencaredabout Wren, because he let us walk out of the room when Wren had spent the entire time since we’d met worrying that Aiden would tear his wings off if he saw us together.

“If you really insist on doing this, fine.” Aiden shrugged like it wasn’t obvious that he was vehemently against the idea. “I don’t want to kill you, Wren, and it’s obvious you’d die fighting me if I tried to dothe right thing.” Aiden’s eyes flicked to me when he said it, then trailed back to Wren. His voice was softer when he spoke again. “You’ve always been so graceful in the way you fight, so strong standing against anything thrown at you. You’re not going to be able to change things, but it would be tantamount to tearing your wings off anyway if I didn’t let you try.”

He turned his back on us then, one elegant hand raising and gesturing toward the bookshelf. “You want the black book with silver on the spine. If you’re really going to go to them and try to plead your case, I’d spend tonight like it was the last night of your lives…” He didn’t bother looking over his shoulder when he sat at his desk. “Because it probably will be.”

“I can’t believe he let us walk out of there.” Wren’s voice was hoarse, shaking like he hadn’t just been full of enough bravado to literally stand up to his maker. The second we were out of the apartment building, he swayed on the spot, and I wondered if it was only my arms around him that kept him standing.

We didn’t have to hide anymore, and Aiden had told us before we left that he’dhandledthe mess Wren left behind.

Though we didn’t bother to ask what he meant byhandled, it was still safe to assume we’d be better off changing locationsagain, on the off chance that Aiden changed his mind and came after us.

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