“It wasn’t intentional.” She stepped back, clasping the gaping fronts of the sweater. “The night I left the garage, I didn’t know how to fight properly. Aba, Nate’s demon friend, showed me how to defend myself, but demoniis were a whole other ballgame.”
She stared at the series of stylized stars inked on Nik’s left pec, remembering the horrible night. “It was the first time I came across them. They didn’t react when I touched them, maybe because of not having true souls, and I saw their fangs. Terrified, I ran. They gave chase. I ducked through an alley but tripped and fell into an open manhole. It saved me. Eddi found me moments later, sitting in a pool of sewer water…” Sorrow engulfed her, knowing her friend was gone.
“We’ll get the ones who killed him, moró,” Nik said softly.
She inhaled deeply, then continued. “Eddi took me under his wing, and I’ve been with him ever since. I realized it was safer to stay there, and I occasionally visit the garage.”
Nik parted the torn sweater she clutched and carefully peeled back the gauze. The symbionts gleamed like dark ruby-red stones.
He frowned. And she knew why. The lesion along her sternum had closed, but her flesh remained swollen and red around the middle symbiont.
“Nik.” She grasped his wrists as he retaped the dressing. “What did you mean I gave you a modicum of peace?”
His concerned expression morphed into the cold, hard man she first met. “I’m a magnet for dark souls. When I kill demons, if I’m in the way, their souls enter me instead of sinking to the Purgatory, and their battering inside me is a relentless cacophony. There is no rest from them.”
“So you don’t sleep?” she asked, shocked. “At all?”
He shook his head. “The only way to cope is—was to let my abilities freeze everything inside me. Even my emotions.”
Shadow blinked. My poor Nik. “How did this happen to you? Becoming a soul catcher?”
A stark look of torment darkened his eyes.
Fear gripped her. “Nik, what is it?”
He wheeled around to the basin. Head lowered, the muscles on his broad back bunched, hands clenching the countertop.
“I told you about me,” she whispered. “Things I’ve never told another soul, and you won’t let me in, not even a little.”
You can’t demand his truth when you’re not staying.
The fight bled out of her. For a moment, she’d forgotten her own dark reality.
“It doesn’t matter.” She pressed cold fingers to her heated face. “Is Lore still here?”
He turned his head to the side, his stare piercing her. “Why?”
She had to force out words, wishing desperately her life was different, but it wasn’t. “So I can leave. You’re okay now—”
He straightened from the basin. “No.”
“Nik, I have to. I’ll give you my cell number, or you can leave a message at The Shelter for when you n-need help with the souls—”
“You think that’s why I want you?” he demanded, his fury scalding her, and she winced. “I’ve lived millennia with those things inside me, and I would have done so for eternity. Now I know you actually need those things to survive, it’s a huge fucking relief.”
“Nik, please stop,” she begged.
His jaw hardened, his eyes becoming colder than the ice he summoned. “You want to leave because of this Nate?”
“What? No! Don’t you understand, even though you’ve given me succor with those souls in you, I will have to do it again. And again, and again…forever!”
“Then I’ll make sure the demons I kill, their souls come to me.”
God, she wearily shoved back her hair. He was making this so hard. “Would you really kill innocent demons just so I can survive? Because we both know demoniis don’t possess true souls.”
He stared at her.
“I can’t have more deaths on me, Nik,” she whispered. “I just can’t. I live with one, and it eats at me every time I need to nourish my nodes. I won’t put that burden on you.”
Her insides ripped apart at the flash of pain in his eyes. His head lowered, and he stared at the floor for several seconds before he glanced up. “Do you want me, Shadow?”
Oh, god. “Please, don’t.”
“Answer the damn question.”
The chill in his tone speared her heart. “I do…but it’s impossible—”
“How would you know if you won’t even try?”
“What happens when I need to feed in a few days? You nearly killed that demon at the club in New York. And we weren’t even involved back then—”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he shot back, eyes intense with emotions she was too afraid to name. “I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you at the castle. I searched for you for five fucking months after you disappeared.”
Her mouth fell open, hope leaping into her, and just as fast it faded at the hopelessness of her situation.
At her silence, his jaw clenched. He removed his cell from his jeans pocket, glanced at it, then opened the bathroom door and walked. Warily, Shadow followed into the bedroom. He headed to his closet, disappearing inside, then reappeared a moment later, pulling on a black t-shirt. “It’s close to dawn. I have to do a recon of the village and its surroundings.”
He strode for the balcony door, and her stomach hurt. Bile crept to her throat. “Nik…” she choked out in a pained rasp, unable to let him go without saying something. He stopped but didn’t turn. “I’m so sorry.”
For a moment, he didn’t move, only his shoulders lifted and fell with a deep breath. He opened the door. “It’s not your fault you cannot feel the way I do. Life is what it is. Sometimes the things we want are just dreams.”
He left, the door shutting quietly behind him.
Her legs too shaky, Shadow sank onto the bed. The hurt in his eyes scraped her raw.
God knew her life was one of constant turmoil, with her endless need to find demon energy donors, and with memories of her past sucked into a dark abyss. Then there were those jerks in the underground, all wanting a piece of her…all of it leaving her always watching over her shoulder. Despite everything, she’d managed to survive the last five years because she’d turned her focus to saving those who couldn’t protect themselves from the dangers and brutality of life. This gave her purpose.
Now, she finally found the one person who called to her on every level, who made her feel whole, and she couldn’t be with him because life hadn’t finished fucking with her as yet.
Maybe a hot shower would help her mind refocus, because right now, she felt like shit at her decision to leave Nik when her heart screamed for her to stay.
With a weary sigh, she detoured to his closet, hoping he wouldn’t mind if she borrowed a shirt. As she entered the fairly roomy space, his scent of stormy nights, cedar, and a hint of leather, so much stronger here, enfolded her. Her throat clogged with unshed tears as she surveyed the black clothing overwhelming the railings and the several shelves stacked with even more black.
A single lower shelf contained colors, t-shirts in gray and navy.
There was just something so lonely at seeing all the black—the stark reality of his life as a Guardian. She didn’t have all the details, but deep down, she sensed more. A world of darkness, no color, no happiness…