Page 106 of Hounded: Ashes to Ashes

I was the problem, and I wanted to be the solution. But not like this.

I held Loren’s face and searched his dark eyes.

“Can you come, too?” I whispered. “If Moira could ascend, then maybe…”

His head shook the answer I already knew. Moira used my tears. A fucked up little miracle I could not recreate. But angels did miracles, too…

I glanced at Evander but didn’t get a word out before he, too, shook his head.

“No…” The word I’d said with such vehemence earlier now came out as a broken cry. I knotted my hands in Loren’s hair while fighting the sudden weakness that threatened to take me to my knees.

“Baby, no.” I looked at him, begging. “Don’t make me go. I don’t wanna leave you…”

I’d stay with you forever if I could.

Loren’s arms fell away, and I crashed into him, burying my face in his chest and daring Evander or anyone else to pull us apart.

I was leaving. Always going, decade after decade like the goddamn disposable thing I was. I wanted nothing more than to stop that cycle of love and loss because I knew it was destroying us. Destroying Loren, like a piece of him went with every iteration of me.

But, if I didn’t leave, he wouldn’t survive, and I couldn’t—Iwouldn’t—watch him die.

I barely felt Loren holding me, so consumed with burrowing into him, imprinting him on my body and mind, to think of anything else. But his hands were warm on my back, and his lips were soft when they pressed against the top of my head. He didn’t say anything and, for once, I didn’t want him to. All that remained was goodbye, and I couldn’t say that, either.

“I love you,” I said, crying dry and half-strangled. “I’ve loved you every time. All the time, baby. I’ll never stop. Not even in Heaven…”

Promises and professions tumbled out, one after the other, until I was breathless. In the pause between gasps and shudders, a new hand touched my shoulder.

I clung onto Loren with my eyes squeezed shut. Denying. Delaying. I became most aware of his grip on me when it loosened.

“They’re coming now,” Evander said from behind me. “We have to go.”

Slowly, I pulled back from Loren and faced the angel. His visage was a blur to my aching eyes.

“The hounds?” I sniffled. “They’re coming here?”

Evander nodded.

Visions of the wrecked gallery returned, beautiful things rendered ugly and smeared with swaths of inky black blood. Because of me.

“But if I leave,” I began.

“You’ll survive,” Evander said.

The assurance soothed my raw nerves, but only until I realized I’d misheard.

“Me?” I asked, my voice swiftly returning to full strength. “What about Loren?”

Loren, who was standing beside me, mere inches away. At least, he had been, but now he seemed distant and out of focus. I cast a sweeping glance around Sully’s apartment and found it all fading.

“Wait!” I exclaimed, kicking my feet in the empty air.

Evander alone grew clear and his grip on me turned immovable as the room and its contents blanked in a blinding flash of white.

Loren

It feltlike this when he died. When I watched him burn down to powdery ash that I then tried to corral or contain for fear the breeze might scatter it. Carry his remains away like crisp autumn leaves and take him far from me.

But the wind didn’t steal him. He wasn’t taken at all. I gave him up. Because I had to. Because I loved him. Because it was my purpose to protect him. Even at the expense of myself.

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