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“Oh, Sage, this is okay. You can do this.” He dabbed at a tear. “You can cry. It’s okay not to be strong all the time. That’s what makes youhuman.”
In so many ways, that was exactly what I needed to hear. His words became my unraveling. Tears poured down my cheeks—the tap had sprung a leak and I had no interest in fixing it.
Kaleb hugged me tightly as I let it all out.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
I raised my head from Kaleb’s soaked shoulder, our heads both swiveling to look towards the door—the balcony door.
“Damn, I didn’t pick a good night to introduce you two,” Kaleb muttered to himself as he pulled back.
“Sorry. What? Introduce us two?” I asked, brushing the dampness from my cheeks. I could almost guarantee my face was a puffy mess right now—my nose probably doubled in size, my eyelids definitely swollen.
“Yeah,” Kaleb said as he strode over to the door that led outside. He opened it and a short, cloaked figure walked in.
Feminine hands reached up and slung the hood back, revealing the heart-shaped face of a woman who looked to be not much older than me. Long, nearly black hair framed her lovely features. She didn’t wear any kohl or paint her lips—she didn’t have to because she was naturally beautiful. Vibrant hazel eyes were framed in long, sweeping lashes. Angular cheekbones contoured her feminine features.
She swatted Kaleb’s chest, knocking the wind out of him, as she smiled politely at me. “Well, are you going to introduce us properly or what?”
“Sage—” Kaleb rubbed the spot where she smacked him, a grin saddled on his lips, “—this is Fallon.”
Sage
“We sort of . . . met before. You were a raven though,” I said, fluttering my fingers up and down as if they were wings.
Kaleb shot me an awkward look.
I stopped my fluttering and dropped my hands immediately, feeling every bit of the idiot I probably looked like. I hoped she didn’t take offense.
Thankfully, her smile widened. “Yes, we met when I was collecting his soul.” She made it sound romantic, but that could just be the way she spoke—she had a very sensual voice.
. . . hislittle marblesoul, that was. I mentally snickered. I tucked my lips between my teeth, physically silencing myself and my big mouth before I could cut a joke that might not make for the best of first impressions.
“Yes, that’s right,” I said with a soft nod.
“Yes,” she said, returning the nod.
And then the three of us just stood there stiffly, the conversation dying out. We exchanged a few smiles, our gazes bouncing off one another. Mine ricocheted off Kaleb and then landed on the teapot . . . that was it.
I gestured to it. “How does some tea sound?”
“Yes, please,” they both chimed in, just as desperate for something to break the proverbial ice. They glanced at one another and chuckled.
That’s when I saw it—it was in the way they looked at one another. She tilted her head just slightly, her expression softening and her eyes rounding at the corners with wide-eyed wonder for my . . . ding-a-ling brother.
Unable to help himself, his hand saddled up on the small of her back and he guided her closer to him. There was a gravitational pull between the two—like they needed to make physical contact with one another just as much as they needed to breathe.
I knew that feeling . . . I had once felt it with Von.
Although it was faint, my heart stumbled just a tick. I tried my best to ignore it and placed the kettle over the fire.
While I waited for it to boil, Kaleb and Fallon seated themselves.
“How did it go?” Kaleb asked Fallon, his voice tender—caring.
With my back facing them, I quirked a curious brow. I had never quite heard him sound likethatbefore.
Fallon let out a deep breath before she answered, “Another one, the same wound in her stomach as the last.”
