“There will be no threat tohislife.”
“Just mine.”
“So long as I don’t take his blood without his permission, or physically force his hand, the choice remains his.”
Thick, viscous fog sucks at my feet.
All around, shadows press in.
I try to swallow my fear. But it is a persistent thing, crawling right back up my throat again.Talking seems to keep it down the longest. And just maybe, if I say the right thing, I won’t have to fight two demons tonight. “How do you know Seraphina wants out?”
He scoffs at the question.
“You said it yourself. Two hundred sixty-eight years is a long time. And for every second of it, she’s been with Dante. Forgive me, Rafe, but they read a bit like soul mates.”
Toxic ones, certainly.
But soul mates nonetheless.
He doesn’t take the bait.
I keep pressing. “Do you really think she’ll come out and the two of you will ride off into the sunset?”
He chuckles dryly, like my question is silly.
“She seduced you so she could reclaim her powers. Took advantage of your love to get the upper hand. From everything I’ve read, she never loved you back.”
He whirls on me, his eyes glinting. “You make a lot of assumptions, young Selah.”
I lift my chin. My assumptions are logical.
“What makes you think I want to ride into the sunset with her?”
His question throws me off balance.
“You assume because I loved her once, I love her still?”
“But … ” I blink a few times. “Don’t you?”
He huffs, a quick exhalation through his nose, then continues onward.
“Then why go to all this trouble?” I ask, following him once again.
“Did my dear brother happen to mention, in all his precious journaling, how Seraphina brought me back to life?”
My brow furrows.
No. He didn’t.
“My existence is tethered to hers. And for the past two hundred sixty-eight years, she has been sealed inside a cold, dark tomb. Not dead. But not exactly alive either. It’s a long time to exist in such a way.”
He’s not talking about her.
He’s talking about him.
“An immortal life in a dark and broken world is a cruel thing in any circumstance. But especially mine.”
“Your lives are connected,” I say.
