Page 105 of Hounded: Ashes to Ashes

“You knew I was… dying?” I stumbled over the word and the realization that followed. “Is that why the museum? And the piano bar? Andbowling?”

Every question rang out like a judge’s gavel slamming down.

How many times had we done this? How many lifetimes had I spent waiting for him to tell me something?Anything. How long had I lived in ignorance and fear and feeling so incomplete because the person who knew all my secrets just… kept them?

And now, when I thought I was finally free of that, able to decide for myself who I was and look back on where I’d been, I was still somehow caught in the dark.

“Goddamn it, Loren!” I shouted.

He flinched, and I wanted to stop. I really did. It hurt me to hurt him. To scare him. To make him sad. But the anger—or was it fear now?—spilled over, rolling like a wave that crashed into us both.

“You’ve been gaslighting me for how long?” I asked. “Days? I thought we were better, but you were just playing nice!”

Damn, that hurt. And it made me feel stupid. I’d been blindly optimistic and so eager to accept that we could somehow be all right in the middle of this epic disaster. That love really did conquer all. Like we weren’t already defeated.

“Even death row inmates get to pick their last meal,” I said. “I didn’t get to pick anything because I didn’t fucking know!” I rambled and paced while Loren and Evander looked on. Well, Evander was looking. Loren was studying his damn shoes or the texture of Sully’s rugs or some shit. He was here, but not. If he could have run, he would have. Maybe he should have so I couldn’t keep yelling at him.

“And now you’re gonna ship me off to Heaven?” I blurted. “Are you that eager to get rid of me? That fuckingrelieved?”

All this time, I’d stood apart from him, and my bones ached from the distance. It was a chasm that had been opening deeper and darker for weeks, and now I was too scared to cross it.

I slammed my foot onto the floor again, jarring my body with the impact.

“Say something!” I shouted.

Loren’s arms came up like he needed to hold me back. Like I wasn’t already so far away.

“I can’t,” he whimpered.

The stupid angel was lurking. Observing like this was a tennis match with words being volleyed back and forth. But with Loren, there was no volley. Just me serving aces and feeling like a bully berating him and breaking his heart.

But I couldn’t stop.

“No.” I stormed over to him, and damn if that man didn’t cringe like I was much bigger, stronger, and meaner than I was. Like he didn’t tower head and shoulders over me and have the claws and teeth of a devilish beast at his disposal. But, in all our years together, the hellhound soul never seemed to completely settle in his skin. It was as stifled by Loren’s meek demeanor as he was strained by its savage urges.

I was the most vicious thing in the room right now, leaning into Loren’s personal space and scowling so hard it felt like the wrinkles in my forehead might get pressed in permanently.

“You don’t get to go quiet on me this time.” I stabbed my finger at him. “You don’t get to shut down because it’s too hard or you’re too sad.” Sucking a breath, I turned that finger toward myself. “I’mthe one who’s dying, Loren. If anyone gets to check out of this situation, it should be me.”

“But you won’t die,” he said, too quietly to be convincing. “We’re saving you?—”

“No, you’re not.” I jerked my thumb toward Evander. “I’m not going with him. I’m not going to Heaven. Everything I have is here.”

The same skittish feeling I’d had racing through Brooklyn’s streets twisted my heart. I could have run now, but that felt wrong. I would never run away from Loren. I craved him like he was a drug all his own. A fix I sought out incarnation after incarnation.

My pulse spiked when I imagined the absence. Dumping Ecstasy down Sully’s garbage disposal was bad enough, but quitting love? Abandoning my partner, my protector, my peace in human form? Impossible.

“You really think I would float off to some fucked up paradise and leave you behind?” I reached for Loren, placing one handon either side of his face so I could catch my fingers in his hair. “Lore, baby,” I cooed. “You’remy paradise. My forever.”

He met my gaze, and the utter defeat in his eyes chilled me. “Nothing’s forever, Doll.”

My lips fell apart, but I couldn’t yell anymore. Not at him. Not at the sense of loss that had chased me for lifetimes. Memories, powers, and people, they all went away.

“Don’t say that,” I rasped.

“This is regrettable,” Evander said, “but it may be the only way any of you will survive.”

Of course. Nero and the hounds were looking forme. Huntingme. If I was gone, they would leave, and Loren, Sully, and the others would be safe.

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