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Maybe Hel was right. I should let her take me so that Addie could live out a better life without me. I wouldn’t be a drain on her anymore if I was in Hel’s care. Sure, I would turn into a monster like Fenrir, but it would all be worth it to know that Addie was happier.
At least, I thought so until she dropped the crystal pendulum and reached across to hold my hand. My heart fluttered. She always pulled the most unexpected reactions from me. When butterflies danced in my stomach, I felt like a teenager again. I stole a sidelong glance at the soft yet determined woman beside me.
Her hair had been drawn back into a tight braid. A baseball cap held it all down. I knew she wore both for convenience and comfort, but I wanted to take the hat off and run my fingers through the soft strands of her black hair. I’d spent a number of nights wishing I could crawl into her bed and sleep beside her.
Last night had been the best sleep of my life, but she’d tossed and turned the whole night. A co-worker once explained how she’d read a study that men slept better next to women, but the women slept fitfully next to men. It was how she’d coaxed her husband into buying a bigger bed.
I would have slept on a dog bed on the floor if it meant that Addie slept better.
“You have a serious look on your face,” Addie noted. “Are you worried about what’s going to happen?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Our faceoff with Fenrir hadn’t been on my mind at all. How did I tell Addie that I’d been thinking about buying myself a dog bed? It was bad enough that she already put a collar on me.
I wasn’t a submissive man. Never had been, and never thought I would be. Yet, I was ready to roll over and expose my belly to this woman. I wasn’t mad about that, either.
Her brow furrowed, and her lips pursed into a pink pout. “What’s so funny?”
“You have me bewitched,” I said, thinking that it was charming.
Addie yanked her hand away from me. “I’m not doing any of this on purpose. I didn’t mean to take your soul! I don’t even know when that happened.”
The narrow, crowded roads of the city distracted me while Addie crossed her arms over her chest. I’d meant it as a compliment, but it seemed that I’d managed to poke a sore spot.
The truth was that I didn’t know how to deal with women. I’d never been a good mind reader. Their thoughts were a mystery to me. Sure, I could read their emotions on their faces, but that would never tell me where those emotions were coming from. In this moment, I couldn’t help but feel like it was all my fault, and I didn’t know how to fix it.
Addie turned her face away from me. “I didn’t mean it.”
So, I played it off like it didn’t matter—because itdidn’t.“I was frustrated at first, but I meant what I said. I like that you have my soul.”
I pulled into a parking garage and took the ticket from the machine at the front. Didn’t these places used to have people? The way that Addie stared at someone near the machine made me think that I was right, and the ghosts of past workers were lingering. I liked to think that they hated these new machines, even if they did offer us a bit of privacy during this conversation.
“When I said you had me bewitched, I meant—” The car shook before I could finish.
We fell silent. Addie’s eyes went wide. She threw her door open and lurched out. I followed so I could stay right behind her. When the cool touch of a ghost’s presence made my skin prickle with goosebumps, I knew what was going on.
Addie clutched the sides of her head and winced. I jerked her back into my body like that would help silence the screaming ghosts. I couldn’t hear them, but I knew they were there.
“Quiet,” I snarled at them.
Even if I couldn’t see or hear them, they could hear me. I growled in warning.
“He’s close,” Addie said breathless. “They’re pissed that he’s feeding on them. He’s…eatingghosts.”
“We’ll take care of it,” I said to the empty space I assumed to be occupied by ghosts.
Together, Addie and I stepped outside under the sun. I kept a hand on her lower back and wished I could pour energy into her the way she did to me.
Leech, the word came to mind. The voice belonged to someone I hadn’t spoken to in a long time.
You’re sucking the life out of me!
I stole a glance at Addie and wondered if she’d met Paige, yet. I really hoped that she hadn’t. If Paige found Addie, then she would show Addie the kind of man that I used to be. Though I wasn’t the man that Paige married, that didn’t absolve me of my past.
I’d never meant to drain Paige of her spark. It wasn’t something I’d done consciously. Yet, she’d suffered all the same.
Hel’s offer looked even better until Addie took my hand and guided me to a small restaurant on the bank of Lake Onondaga. Addie’s touch was enough to make me want to stay. It was more than a want. I would have fought tooth and nail to stay beside her.
At the door, Addie hesitated. She stole a glance in my direction, but her eyes were unreadable. I could tell her thoughts were on me if only because she fought to hide them. I gave a squeeze of her hand to assure her that everything would be fine.
It was a harmless lie. Right?
“He’s probably waiting for us,” I warned Addie.
She rolled her shoulders back. “Let’s just get this over with.”
