The comment should have landed like a bomb, blowing up our tender moment. Instead, Ossy chuckled and tried to draw me closer. “Congratulations on yours, too, baby.”
“I don’t have a beloved.” I would feel it, right? It seemed like something as important as finding the person the god of love deemed perfect for me would come with a signal. I half-expected my person to have a beacon spinning around his dick. But I’d never met anyone like that yet.
That was the comment that landed like a bomb. His face fell, and he stepped back, though he kept hold of my arm. But it wasn’t because he wanted to touch me. It was because we needed to stick together. We needed each other if we wanted to get out of the building. It was dark enough to get lost, and with the room expanding, who knew where we’d end up? I didn’t even know how far we’d have to walk to get out of the closet.
“Don’t you want to be my beloved?” he asked, sounding almost hurt, as if I’d said something wrong.
I stiffened, my body tensing as his words sank in. “If I had to pick someone, I would pick you. But it isn’t my choice, Ossy.”
Tension left Ossy like air escaping a balloon. He rubbed his thumb against my wrist. “You are my beloved. Donn is blocking the feeling when we’re in the building. As soon as we step outside, you’ll feel it. That will prove it to you.”
“How can Donn block the god of love?” Not that anything involving the gods made sense. But it didn’t matter. “All I want is for you to be happy, even if that’s not with me.”
He cupped my cheek and smiled. “I am happy, Phinny. You make me happy. And right now, you not believing me makes me frustrated, but I’m still happy, too.”
“It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s just that I don’t understand why I don’t feel it. And if you don’t, too, then how do you know for sure?”
I thought about all those times we were in my apartment or in Ossy’s bungalow by the beach. Did I feel anything? Some sort of connection? Did he? I didn’t know if I had. I certainly hadn’t been paying attention. Maybe, for us, the bonding had been stop-and-start from day one. Every time I walked into this building, the god of death sucked our connection away. Or maybe something else was at play that I didn’t know about. Either way, it made me wonder whether Ossy and I had always been chasing a connection that Donn had constantly stolen from us.
It seemed like I was always chasing him, always looking for him, and always forgiving him whenever he ditched me. The space between that push and pull left me feeling weak, without the power to control my own feelings. The theft had to play a part in that, too, didn’t it?
“Did you feel it?” I asked. “Outside of the office, all those times we were together?”
Ossy shook his head. “I think that when Grym met Elliot, something opened up inside all of us. I realized it on the farm. I think Elliot was supposed to be the first. It opened a floodgate that not even Donn can close.”
Maybe that was how it was supposed to be.
“This changes the realms,” he continued. “The veil between the living world and the dead is getting thinner. It won’t take much to make it crumble. I think that’s what Donn is afraid of.”
“Rightfully so.” If I were Ossy’s beloved, then I was part of the dismantling. I didn’t know how I felt about that. It seemed scary, all things considered.
Ossy was right. I had felt something when I talked to him on the phone in my apartment last night. There had been a deep longing for him. I stepped into his embrace and rested my head on his chest.
“I want to believe you. I really do, Ossy.” I sighed. “If we really are supposed to be for each other, then I don’t know if I can take you constantly flaking on me.”
“From now on, you are my top priority.” He sounded sincere, but Ossy always did, and then he flaked again.
“You have a lot to prove.” That was if we were beloveds.
“I know you don’t believe me. I wouldn’t believe me either. But I’m in this forever. Whatever the future brings, it will have you and me together in it.”
Those were big words. Bigger, maybe, than me and the rest of the beloveds, because if it were us together forever, it would mean we would take part in tearing down the veil between the living and the dead, wreaking havoc in the god of death’s realm. And on Death itself.
Chapter Fifteen
Ossy
As soon as we arrived at the farm, I would show Phin how much he mattered to me. I would show him there was a connection, even if we couldn’t feel it at the Soul Management Bureau. The farther from Donn’s realm, the more Phin would feel our connection.
Even though I could no longer tell if Phin was my beloved, I could still express my love for him. That was something Donn couldn’t take away from me. Because that was the thing: Phin and I had built a bond, and all those times together had meant something. They weren’t wasted moments that amounted to just getting each other off and moving on with our day. I felt the connection, even if it didn’t seem like it. I knew Phin was scared and that the love was shared. It wasn’t one-sided. That meant Donn couldn’t block everything. Just that niggle of knowledge when I encounter a beloved, including my own.
That was what pissed me off most about this whole thing. So we had beloveds, but we weren’t supposed to have feelings for them? Everyone, dead and alive, was loved by someone. I hadn’t met a person yet who went unloved. The families of the deadgrieved for them. Their absence caused pain. But the pain was really the love they felt. Grief equals love. If something happened to Phin, it would devastate me. I mean, technically, he was immortal and could walk between realms, including between the afterlife and the living. Nothing could ever separate us. Or maybe I should never say never. It would be difficult to separate us since we were bonded.
Even if he had never recognized the bond for what it was, he had felt something, right? He let me hold him. That had to mean he accepted me as his love, at least on some level. “You’re mine, baby.”
“You’re mine, too.” It came out breathy, as if he were saying it more to himself than to me. Maybe it was too much for him to hope for, which made me sad on some level. It meant there was also doubt alongside hope.
“I’m definitely yours,” I countered.
