Page 20 of A Heart Of Bitter Poison
I didn’t see anything.
“Maybe he wrote a message in hidden ink and you missed it. Where’s the note?”
I grit my teeth in a grimace of a smile as my eyebrows climb my forehead.
Ediye’s eyes take on a flat glare. She knows me too well. “You destroyed it, didn’t you.”
I nod.
“Let me guess. You flushed it down the toilet? You probably took a giant shit on it while you were at it, right?”
I snort.Dammit.I wish I’d thought of that.
I shake my head.
“You set it on fire?”
My grimace widens and I nod again.
Ediye sighs and looks to Cole with a weary expression. “Well, whatever useful information might have been there, it’s clearly gone now. But I suggest we get moving immediately and not wait for morning. We don’t know how close his portal is or whether Zida is lurking. And even if he did help us out in some way, I’m not entirely sure it wasn’t for his own benefit.”
“Agreed,” Cole says, holding out a hand for me to take. “Come on, Lu. I’ll help you upstairs. You’ll probably want another shower before you enter the Realm of Light.”
I give Cole a grateful but weak smile and place my palm in his. He guides me to my feet then braces a steadying arm across my shoulder and looks to Eryx. The angel still sleeps peacefully beneath the crocheted blanket. “Anything you can do to stop that from happening again in future?” he asks as he looks to Ediye with a nod in the angel’s direction.
“Don’t worry,” she says with a smile and a wink. “When I’m done with him, you’ll be able to fill this room with decapitated snakes and he won’t bat a beautiful eye.”
“Thank fuck for that,” Cole mutters. He stops for just a moment when we reach Eryx’s side, letting go of me to kneel and sweep a gentle kiss to the angel’s cheek. When he rises, he grasps my shoulder once more and then ushers us up the stairs.
When we get to the hallway, Cole deposits me at the bathroom door before checking every room. He returns with some clothes balanced on his palm, a simple white button-up shirt and jeans. He hands them over but hesitates at the door and I tilt my head in a question.
“I don’t know if this will bring you comfort or ease your anger, but I come from a realm of love. I know when I see something real. For what it’s worth, Lu, he cared about you. Maybe he still does.”
We stand unmoving for a long moment. It’s not just Cole’s words that settle like a ball of lead in my chest. It’s the regret and pain in his eyes, both so at odds with his radiant, youthful features. I feel like I’ve been knocked a bit off balance by him, and when I try to right myself nothing looks quite the same.
But there’s no fucking way I’m ready to let go of an ounce of the betrayal and anger I feel, no matter how far I’m tilted off my axis. So I dart a dark look down at my body before pinning Cole with a red glare. I sweep my free hand down my torso. I point to my throat and mime talking and shake my head. I twinkle my sad little fingers in Cole’s face. And with every wordless communication, tears of fury and sorrow gather in my eyes until they threaten to spill across my cheeks.
The look of sympathy that Cole gives me nearly crushes the last remnants of my broken heart. He lays a hand on my arm and gives a gentle squeeze. “I know, Lu. I know he let you down. But I choose to believe that a person can do terrible things withoutbeingterrible. Ihaveto believe that.”
Cole leans forward and brushes a kiss on my cheek before he pushes his hands into his pockets and turns away down the hall.
When I finally step backward into the bathroom and close the door, it feels like the world beyond this room is turning around me, but I’m the one staying in one place.
CHAPTER9
Traveling with an angel is… demeaning.
There’s no other way to put it.
For one, it just doesn’t appeal to my feminist sensibilities. Look, I don’t mind being rescued once in a while. I enjoy acts of chivalry. Exhibit A: when Ashen cut Jessie’s hands off. That was hot as fuck, if you ask me. I would have jumped his bones in that pool of pissy blood if it wasn’t for the hunger and poor timing. But clinging to Eryx like a baby koala as he hurtles us through the sky is just not my thing.
Secondly, I’m a vampire. So I know you’re thinking it…
…Just say it already. I’ll wait.
Hold on tight, spider monkey.
Ugh. There it is. It’ll be another fifty years before I get away from that shit.
