Him saying my name doesn’t make me feel any better. I don’t want to associate him with anything human-like.I hate him. Absolutely hate him. Die, die,die.
“I will kill you for this!”My face contorts into a snarl as I jump up, stalking across the cliffside with every intention to punch him in the face, and then?—
My rage suddenly plummets, flickering out.
“You’re…” I have no words. No feelings.Nothing. I am a blanket of melancholy, and it’s wholly unnatural.
“Yes, I am,” he hums. Another violent pull of compulsion has me desperate to move towards him again, though I try my best to resist it. “Do you feel the source yet?”
“I… suppose?”
His hint of a smile doesn’t falter. “What does it feel like?”
“A pull.”
“That’s because it is. Everyone’s soul has tethers to other souls. They just exist in a higher dimension, beyond your physical body. Try finding the pathway between us and pulling back.”
In my distraction, listening to his words, I give in to the compulsion. My feet drag me closer to him, bringing me right up to his towering body and obnoxiously beautiful face. I can’t even help it. I’m dying to be closer to him. “I can’t possibly do that.”
“Try,”he grinds out slowly, his voice a low growl.
My breathing hitches.
I certainly feel it, whatever he’s doing, but I’m hopeless to stop it. My hands reach out with a mind of their own, touching his face, his stubbled jawline, so broad and delightfully angled. Sliding down, down to the pulse thrumming on his neck. I want to swim inside of it, be inside of him?—
Wait. No, I don’t. What the fuck?
I grind my teeth, focusing on the pull. Vaguely, I can sense it, hiding in some strange pocket between here and… Elsewhere. I try to grasp around with my mind so that I might pull it back, but my hand takes it too literally, grabbing the collar of Abaddon’s armor.
All to no avail.
Wherever the pull is coming from, I can’t quite reach it.
“Abaddon,” I pant, my grip tightening, pulling his head down towards me. My face finds his muscled neck, inhaling him and that thrumming pulse in his jugular. He smells like charcoal and vanilla, sandalwood and heaven. “As much as I want to master this, I don’t know if it’s going to happen today. I think I’m more likely to try to eat you, become you, or fuck you.”
I hadn’t realized he was frozen still until his eyes flare wide and he steps back, nearly shoving me off him in the process. The metaphysical pull disintegrates, and I’m able to focus again. Abaddon’s breathing isragged, and so is mine, but that look on his face… I think he might beafraidof me.
And here I am, looking at him like he’s a tasty piece of meat.
“That’s enough for today,” he says firmly, backing away.
“You don’t say?” I put my hands on my knees and lean my weight into them, catching my breath. I can’t stop thinking about biting his goddamn neck. I wonder what his skin would taste like. Salty? Sweet? “Again, a warning would have been nice.”
“Tomorrow.”
Not even a breath later, I’m hit with a gust of wind and the sound of beating wings, propelling him away from here in a hurry.
19
I’m surrounded by a clean, shining, perfect utopia of a city.
Glass buildings gleam with sunlight, reflecting mountains across the bay. A crisp, chill wind carries the smell of salt towards me, dancing with the calls and cries of seagulls. Beneath the shrill sounds, there’s the faint murmur of a city in motion—people going about their daily lives. The idling of a car, distant conversations, children laughing, a dog barking…
I glance across the street, finding a fluffy white cloud of a hound, overjoyed to chase a squirrel up a tree at the expense of its exasperated owner. It brings a smile to my face.
Too bad it’s not real.
The lucid awareness hits me like a sinking, heavy weight.
