Page 27
Story: Love’s Ace
Chapter 27
Wren
W e were quiet when we left the house and made our way back to where we were staying. In the back of my mind, I knew I needed to do something to clean up my mess. I could just imagine it now—Sephtis shaking his head at the torn apart souls he’d have to scrape together to ferry.
Then again, I was pretty sure Sephtis could see the weight of what made up a man. He’d know why I’d done what I’d done. He couldn’t blame me for it.
And if I could go back and do it over and over…
I had to cut the thoughts off, because I felt the surge of anger again. That darkness wasn’t mine . At least… it wasn’t something I should have been able to possess.
It had always been there, just below the surface.
Maybe Theo and I had connected because of more than just the Ardor.
My eyes glanced down at my bare chest, and my brows knitted together.
The swirl of red and white had faded to faint lines… it had been like that for days now, hadn’t it?
The Ardor had faded.
What I felt now…
What was happening now had nothing to do with the vial.
I glanced over at Theo, but I kept my mouth shut until we were back in the house and the door was closed.
“I should call Gethin. He’s better at cleaning up murders than I am.”
“Wren—”
“Then again, with what I did, if Aiden or any of the others find the bodies, they’re going to think Enmity did it.”
“Wren!” Theo caught my wrist as I started toward the room to find my phone, and when he whirled me around to face him, I couldn’t quite read the expression in his eyes.
“Did you kill them because of me?” He sounded… pained. Miserable. And I hated hearing it.
“No, it wasn’t… I mean, yes?” I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say—I wasn’t sure what I could say that would make what I’d done okay. They’d tormented him, they’d ruined his life… but I’d still been a monster. Theo told me he’d killed people, but this wasn’t just killing.
I’d hunted them.
I’d murdered them.
And I wanted to do it again—I wanted to find every person that had ever touched him and bleed them out while they were screaming.
I wanted—
“Did you kill them because of what I’m becoming? I saw it spilling into your chest, I—”
“No, Theo. I didn’t do it because of the Enmity.” It wasn’t a lie. I wasn’t sure if he’d want to hear about how much I hated the couples I brought together sometimes, or how I relished the moments when I got to fight Enmity. I didn’t want to tell him the black strands he saw were something that had always been brewing just beneath my chest.
I didn’t know if telling him I’d always been capable and the darkness in his chest had just given me the rage to finally give in would help the situation.
Theo seemed unwilling to go without an answer, though, because he took my hand and flipped it over, looking at the way the cuts on my palms from my frenzy were already starting to heal.
“Then why?”
“I…” Fuck , what did I tell him? “Don’t worry about it, okay? It’s done. That’s all that matters.”
It was all that mattered.
When I pulled away to go for my phone, he followed me, catching the door before I opened it. “Why did you do it, Wren?”
Why was this so important?
“Theo, I need to call Gethin. I have to get everything cleaned up, I need—”
“ Why ?” His voice broke when he shouted, and I whirled. I couldn’t lie to him. I couldn’t keep this from him.
I couldn’t do a damn thing but give him exactly what he wanted and hope that it wasn’t too much—hope that the red thread between us, already shining bright again now that the darkness had faded, wasn’t wrong.
“Because they hurt you, okay? Because you’re mine, and I saw how much they hurt you and I… fuck, I…” I took a breath and felt it rattling around in my lungs.
I felt like I was going to fly apart.
I felt like I was three words away from being whole for the first time in my life.
“Wren?”
Whole. I wanted to be whole.
“Gods damn it, Theo. I love you, okay?” His eyes went wide and he froze, but it was too late now. The words were coming, and I couldn’t stop them. It felt like they’d lived just beneath the surface of my skin my whole life, trapped against my ribs, beating violently to find their place. To find his expression, his heart. His touch.
I couldn’t stop now that I’d started.
“Maybe it doesn’t make sense, but I fucking love you so much it hurts, so much I can’t think around it, can’t breathe around it. I love you so much that the thought of someone who hurt you existing for another second drove me crazy.”
“Wren…” He sounded so soft.
So sweet.
So broken.
So perfect.
And he was crying. My hand came up, cupping his jaw so I could wipe away the tears. I leaned forward, pressing my lips to his so I could whisper the last bit of my confession into his mouth, offer it to his tongue so he could taste the truth, swallow down the promise I was giving him.
“You wanted to know? Then listen to me. I love you enough that I’ll break all the rules. I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt you. I will kill anyone who tries to take you away from me. I love you. I love you, Theo.”
“Fuck… Wren…”
“Do I need to say it again?” How much did you have to say something for a person to believe it? I’d spend eternity whispering it in his ear, following behind him like a shadow if I had to. I understood if he couldn’t say it back. I understood that he’d gone through so much he might never say it.
It didn’t matter.
Being with him was enough. When I opened my mouth to say it again, he cut me off with a kiss—so hard the sharp points of his teeth drew blood, so sweet it made everything inside me feel like I was melting.
When he pulled back, his pupils were blown. When he looked at me, I saw the entire universe in the dark swirl of his eyes.
I saw forever, and I fell into an eternity of red stars when he spoke.
“I love you too.”
It was impossible… It should have been impossible. I’d spent a century furious, a century angry and jaded. A century killing Enmity and humans who were turning, and letting all those feelings fester and grow inside me.
And it was all gone. Dissolved into the air because Theo was here, and because he leaned in again and pressed his mouth to mine after his confession, kissing me like he wanted to make sure the words were somewhere safe, trapped in the depths of my chest so no one could ever find them and use them to hurt him.
I didn’t know how to tell him I would die before I let that happen, so I kissed him back instead, making sure the press of my body and the way I held him was all the promises he’d never had, all the promises I’d been born to give.
Every piece of me that had always been waiting for him.