Page 124 of Infernal

Chuckling softly, he reached over and grabbed the edge of the comforter and then draped it over me, tucking me in as I pressed my ear against his chest and listened to the melodic thumping. He played with my hair, twirling it around his lean fingers as I tried especially hard not to fall asleep.

I wasn’t ready for this night to end.

“Do you really think I’ll be whole again someday?” I asked suddenly, looking up at him under my lashes.

His eyes were fixed on a strand of my hair as though it were some fascinating new specimen of life. “Don’t you?”

“No.” I picked my cuticles as I tried not to let the grief rush back and strangle me just yet. I just wanted one more moment, one more beautiful, fleeting night before I let the darkness back in to suffocate me.

“He would forgive you, angel. You know that, don’t you?”

I looked up and met his unwavering gaze. “How can you say that?” I asked, growing upset by his baseless words. “You didn’t even know him, Dominic. Not the way I knew him.”

He stopped playing with my hair. “I don’t need to know him, angel. I know he loved you, and if he loved you and knew your heart even half as much as I do, he’salreadyforgiven you.”

My heart swelled with the kind of hope that moved mountains. I didn’t want it to, but I couldn’t help but be affected by his words, by the sureness in which he spoke them.

“You can’t know that,” I said, swatting the hope away like a bothersome fly, but all the while, yearning to trap it in my hands and never let it go.

“But I do, angel. Iknowhe’s already forgiven you, becauseIwould’ve already forgiven you.”

I looked up and met his eyes again, though I could barely see through the blur of tears trying to fight their way out.

Maybe Dominic was right. Maybe Trace had already forgiven me, and maybe now I just needed to forgive myself.

“Will you visit me during the summer?” I asked him, realizing in that moment just how hard it was going to be to not see him for six weeks. He had become such an integral part of my days, of my being, that I wasn’t sure I’d make it the whole summer without him.

“Why? Are you going to miss me, angel?” he asked mischievously as his lips curled into a lopsided grin.

“You know I will.”

“You can always stay here with me instead,” he offered, his eyes darkening seductively.

“And do what? Exchange sexual favors all summer?” I teased.

That delicious growl at the back of his throat was back with a vengeance. “Well, now that you mention it…”

“Be serious, Dominic,” I said and smacked him in the chest again.

“Iambeing serious.” The intensity in his eyes picked up at he gazed back down at me. “I meant what I said to you in my car that night. I want to make you forget, angel. And I don’t mean with compulsion.”

The way he was looking at me just then…I almost took him up on his offer.

But alas, I knew that wasn’t a possibility. Because things were different now.

Iwas different now.

“Forgetting what happened won’t make it go away,” I said softly, my voice soft and reflective. “It’ll just set me up to make the same mistakes again, and I can’t let that happen. I need training, and I need real-life experience, and if I go on the road with Tessa, I know I’ll get that.”

He exhaled gruffly as he let my words sink in. He didn’t like it, I could see that, but he knew I was right.

Going on the road with Tessa would make me stronger, make my skin a little thicker, and take me one step closer to the Slayer I was meant to be. And I knew Dominic wanted that for me, no matter how much it hurt to let me go, because he loved me, and when you loved someone, you sometimes had to let them go.

“Fine,” he said begrudgingly as he folded his arm under his head and stared up at the ceiling. “But I’m going to need an exponential amount of those sexual favors.”

My mouth spread into a grin. “Does that mean you’ll be visiting me?”

He met my gaze and held it. “Any time, any place, angel. You only have to say the word,” he said and then drew me in closer to him until I was tucked all the way against his side, breathing him in like a second chance at life.

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