I sit up to scoot down the mattress to her feet when I notice Chaz across the room. He’s passed out in the most uncomfortable-looking rocking chair. The knit blanket he has draped over him only covers his chest and arms.
Trying to keep from waking two people, I carefully move to the end of the bed and untuck the sheet and comforter. I draw the covers back and sigh at the purplish splotches from her toes to her ankles. The doctors’ timeline was off. She only has a week—or she would have only had a week. But we made a deal a long time ago to let each other go before the end-end.
One of her big toes taps, and I look up to her waiting. So much for being stealthy.
“Sorry,” I whisper, flipping the covers down.
The springs squeak as I crawl over her to the edge of the bed. I slip on my shoes to avoid the draft on the floor and check the angel in the corner. Once I see his deep and steady breaths, I cross the room to her side. Nyla rotates her hand, palm up, as I reach her. I slip mine into it and squeeze. Hard. Then I stare at the sheets beside her.
A tug brings my attention up, and I swallow back the threat of tears, seeing the worry in her eyes.
I force a small smile. “I’ll be fine. Eventually.”
Her eyes move behind me and then back to mine, and her grip tightens. I want to ask her if she’s scared, but she’d say no regardless of the truth. She stares up at me for a minute before her eyebrows dip. I know what she wants. She wants me to say goodbye.
“Not until you do.”
She squeezes my hand again, and I shake my head.
“The deal is, we say goodbye. I don’t trust you to uphold your end if I go first.”
And now, my sister is glaring at me on her deathbed, but when I loosen my hold, hers bears down. We stand off until her lids close.
“Goodbye.” Her voice is hoarse, the word a whisper, but it’s everything I fucking need.
I clamp my eyes shut, burying a sob. “Goodbye, Nyla.”
My jaw clenches, and I only focus on breathing. Her pulse speeds under the tip of my thumb where it touches her wrist as she manipulates the life inside her to its end. The pace quickly slows, the space between beats growing longer and longer … and then nothing. My eyes stay shut while I search for any hint of what’s always been there, but I can’t sense the life force inside her anymore.
I can’t feel my sister.
I whimper, and the rocking chair groans behind me. Nyla’s hand falls back to her side when Chaz pulls me to him. His arms envelop me, and I fist the back of his shirt. My nose is buried in him when I take my first breath without her.
With the exception of my last one, Nyla and I always moved after a resurrection to avoid people noticing one of us had aged in reverse overnight. We’d be each other’s aunt or grandmother, depending on who looked the part. I haven’t dealt with a permanent death in over a century. Fortunately, being taught to live under the radar with minimal acquaintances cuts out a lot of the work. A few phone calls, a little paperwork. Still plenty more than when Papa died though.
By the time I get in the shower that night, I’ve gone from raw nerve ending to desensitized. My heart is beating, my lungs breathing, my soul in my body. I’m not the one who died, but I’ve never felt less alive. Numb and in slow motion. I get it now—why Kai jumps off cliffs and chases the adrenaline rush. Not feeling alive while you still are is terrifying even if it allows you to avoid the pain.
When I get to the bedroom, Chaz is on the edge of the bed. His hooded eyes dance over me in the towel, and the spark reaches my skin. My fucking cliff. He plants his hands on the mattress behind him as I crawl right onto his lap, my hair dripping on his bare chest. His is still damp from his own shower. I put my arms around his neck, and he leans back, tipping his face up.
“Touch me.”
“You’ve had a long fucking day,” he says.
“I have. And right now, I want you to touch me.”
He shifts his weight to one arm, and he pushes his hand into my hair. “You forgot to say, Simon says.”
He’s studying my mouth, so I bring it closer. Our noses graze, but his lips stay a few charged air particles away, his breath teasing my skin. I press a palm to his chest, wanting his heart beating against it. Then I push further below the surface, down to the life flowing through him.
We both move at the same time then—him sitting up and me sliding forward.
“Touch me,” I say again, feeling him hardening beneath me. “Please.”
My breaths are more desperate, and he pushes under the towel, up my thigh. He slips his hand the rest of the way around, gripping my ass to hold me to him while his hips flex into me. I skim my hands up his neck, into his hair, and when I rock against him, his fingers dig into my flesh.
“We don’t have to do this tonight, Nyx.” But he keeps drawing me to him, rubbing his erection where I want him. His lips stay just out of reach. After four days of missing them on me—and hating myself for it—the near touch of them pulses through me.
“Kiss me.”
His chest heaves against mine, his face conflicted until his gaze drops to my mouth.
“Fuck it,” he says.
He slams his lips onto mine, growling, and in the next breath, his tongue plunges into my mouth. My body responds the way it always has to him, slowly coming back to life.
I gasp as he tears the towel off, flinging it across the room. He breaks the kiss and dives down, grazing his teeth over one of my nipples before pulling it into his mouth. When I arch into him, he leans forward, lowering me onto his arm behind me, and then he sucks the other nipple in. I lock my arms around his neck and let him bite and lick the sensation back into me.
“God,” Chaz rasps, “I missed this body.”
He drags his tongue down, pushing me back until he can trail it all the way to my stomach. I move my hips against him, and he groans, dipping into my belly button before he pulls me upright. Our mouths collide again while he turns us around. Chaz crawls onto the bed with me wrapped around him and nudges his sweatpants and boxers down all at once. He lowers me to the mattress and pulls away to finish kicking them off, and then he’s between my legs. I try to pull him to me, but he hovers over me, keeping his mouth out of reach again.
“Yeah, baby?” he says, his hand cooling against the back of my thigh. “You want something?”
“You, Chazaqiel.” I clasp my hands behind his neck and bring myself up to kiss him.
It elicits a groan from him, and he suddenly scoops me off the bed. He pulls me into his lap as he sits back on his heels, so I’m straddling him again. His hands roam over me before they settle on my hips and urge me up. I gasp as I lower onto him, and he pushes his forehead into my collarbone.
“Fuck,” he hisses.
I slide up and sink back down with Chaz gently thrusting up into me. One of his hands runs the length of my back, a chill crawling my spine. I feel the shadows on my skin. Every touch and breath from him. He’s resurrected me from wherever I was. The emotionless limbo that was fogging my brain.
My lips latch on to his. This time, they press harder, asking if he missed more than my body. If he wants all of me like I want all of him. And when he cradles my face in his hands and pulls back, I see it in his eyes before I hear it.