Page 3

Chapter 3

Wren

T here was no reason for the arrow in his chest to be bright red. There was no reason for the way his eyes widened to make my mind momentarily fog in confusion.

There was absolutely no reason for him to go limp in my arms, and for me to feel the pull of it when his body fell and the arrow caught between us dissolved into a red thread—soulmates.

Soulmates?

That wasn’t fucking possible. It was even worse, because I could feel the dark, sucking sensation in the middle of his chest—the pull where the Enmity had infected him.

It leeched slowly along the thread that connected us and tried to take me with it. I could see the red line slowly draining of color. My lack of emotion gave the darkness more grasp to flow upward.

I had a flare, a momentary burst of sensation that I always got when I stabbed myself but…

But…

My heart wrenched, and I gasped. I didn’t realize I was falling to my knees with him until I was already doing it—with each pulse of the traitor organ, I could feel him.

With each pulse of my heart, my arms spasmed tight around the limp body trapped against mine. I wanted to yank the arrow out, but it was already too late. I could see the glow of a swirling mixture—white and red—Aiden’s Ardor shattered in my pocket.

The ability to feel love, to truly feel emotion.

Pierced through my heart.

And I knew what was wrong.

I’d seen this happen one other time, given my vial to a forbidden cause. I was a complete idiot for not putting the vial away before I came out.

Then again, I’d thought I was simply going for a quick flight, not…

Not this.

Not…

“Fuck.” I hissed the word out, because the red line surged between us, and where the brilliant color met black, I felt the burn of it like acid.

I could feel the pain in his chest.

I could feel the Enmity inside him slowly clawing and seeping out through his veins.

Taking over.

Ready to kill him.

Ready to kill us both through the connection I’d forged that should never have happened. It shouldn’t have been an arrow of Fate that I hit him with.

“Sephtis!” I screamed, yanking the medallion I wore from around my neck with one hand while the other cradled the man against me. I didn’t even know his fucking name, but I could feel every beat of his heart. Every beat as it grew weaker. Every beat as the blackness started to eat around it. The necklace swung in front of me—silver with a black stone inlaid in the center.

“Sephtis, gods damn it all, I’m calling in my favor.”

I’d thought I would call it in one day for something interesting—maybe something entertaining. After all, it was rare to have a Reaper owe you…

But…

Well, in the end, I guess saving my life—and the life of the man who I’d accidentally tied to me—was a better use.

For just a second, I thought he wasn’t going to show. There was a moment of silence where another scream tore from my throat and the man in my arms echoed the sound, a moan that made him scramble, made his fingers clutch at my shirt and his body shiver. He bowed forward and when his forehead pressed to the exposed column of my neck, he inhaled sharply and settled.

And that’s exactly how Sephtis found me, appearing in a white burst of light and blinking down at my body collapsed on the ground with a bleeding half-Enmity clinging to me like I was his only lifeline.

His golden eyes widened, and the sweep of his black hair spilled into his face as he tilted his head.

“Well, Wren, I hope you didn’t call me here to join you on the ground.” He looked down the length of his body—well muscled and clad in dark jeans and a black turtleneck. “I’m not really in the mood to…”

His teasing faded as he noticed the blood spilling from my chest and the swirl of red and white staining the front of my shirt.

When he realized what it was, his eyes widened.

When he saw the red thread drifting between the two of us, his jaw dropped.

“What did you do?” His voice was hushed, and he actually dropped to a crouch to stare at the red line with wide, curious eyes. When his fingers stretched out to touch it, my hand rose of its own volition and pushed them away.

“I don’t know. Something happened. Something must have tampered with my arrows. You know I only pull what I need.”

Sephtis’s eyes shifted between the two of us, and his silence was louder than anything he could have said.

“He’s dying.” He finally spoke, and my arms holding the body against me spasmed.

“I know. And I don’t know what will happen to me when he does. Look at this.” I pushed him gently away from me so the Reaper could see the way the black essence of the Enmity was slowly eating at the red thread between us. Sephtis frowned and leaned in close, and this time when he lifted a hand to touch it, I didn’t stop him.

His finger ran along the line of black and it pulsed beneath his touch. When it suddenly shot forward and up, when the body in my arms started to spasm, I tried to jerk free.

Sephtis wrapped his hand around the thread and squeezed tight. For a moment, it felt like the breath was cut from my chest, that everything around me was whiting out.

Was I dying?

I’d always thought it would be at the claws of an Enmity, with my wings ripped from my shoulders and my life spilling out… not like this.

Not with Sephtis and his pretty face looking at a red string of Fate that I should never have been able to create for myself trailing between my body and that of my sworn enemy.

But…

Here I was.

And when he smoothed his hand along the line, air rushed into my lungs. I looked down to see the black slowly fading away, seeping back into the chest of the man who moaned and tensed before falling completely limp. At the base of the crimson, a symbol flared to life—the same symbol on the pendant Sephtis had given me. It faded to a soft white, and in my arms, the man’s heavy breathing leveled out.

“What did you just do?” My eyes lifted. For a moment, Sephtis’s golden gaze was black like a starless night. As the color slowly seeped back, he shrugged.

“I don’t know how long it will hold, but for now… I’ve stilled the spread. But you have to know that I can’t keep him alive forever, Wren. Eventually, death will take him.”

I shook my head and forced myself to stand—it was harder than it should have been, because the man in my arms was taller than I was, and he was still unresponsive.

“It’s fine. I’ll figure out how to sever the tie before then.”

“Can’t you just cut it?”

My eyes darted down to the red line, to the color that was slowly bleeding back into it since Sephtis had wiped the black away. I shook my head.

“I’ve never heard of a cupid being… attached to someone. I know when a human loses their connection, it opens them to the Enmity. What if it does something to me?” My fingers came up and tugged the line, and just that gentle pluck made my chest burn, made it ache like I was trying to pull something physical from my body. The sensation was enough to make me sway, and it was only Sephtis’s hand on my shoulder that steadied me.

“How did this happen, Wren?”

He’d asked it before, but…

“I had a vial of Ardor in my pocket, and when I shot him he ran the arrow through us both.” My voice was soft, a whisper that made it seem like I was trying to keep a secret I was afraid the heavens would hear.

His golden eyes flickered to the red and white mixture drying on my shirt… then, for a brief moment, to his own chest. Of course, he understood—intimately.

“I see.”

He stooped and picked up the necklace that I’d dropped when he showed up and pressed it back into my palm. “Here.”

“We’re even now, I—”

“I don’t know if I would call this even, Wren. Anyway, you might need me again if something happens to your soulmate.”

“He’s not my—” But before I could get out the protest, another blinding flash of light sent me reeling back, and when my vision cleared, he was gone.

“Fucking Reapers,” I groaned, then looked down at the man still sleeping in my arms. I had no idea what Sephtis had really done, other than funnel the black filth of the Enmity back into his chest and seal it away. I didn’t know if it would help with the lack of sanity that I’d seen in his eyes.

Except for right before he’d collapsed.

They’d been so wide then, a soft brown instead of that violent red, and I…

“Fuck. Fine.”

I needed to figure out how to safely sever the connection between us.

I needed to figure out what the fuck I was going to do, because I could feel his heartbeat pounding at the back of my throat, and it was so overwhelming I wanted to claw the thing out, to cut it free.

Once I got him settled and secured, I’d go back to my apartment and get some supplies. Then I could figure out what to do about this…

Unfortunate accident.

In my arms, the accident in question stirred for just a moment before moving to curl his face against the pulse in my throat. He settled there, and I ignored the way the soft exhale of his breath made me shiver. The tension in his body ran out like water slipping through my fingers, and I didn’t know what to do with it.

I didn’t know what to do with him .

I couldn’t bring him back to Love’s Ace—if anyone saw him, I wasn’t sure what would happen to me. For all I knew, they’d accuse me of using the Ardor to make this happen on purpose. It wouldn’t be the first time a cupid tried to go rogue to maintain the feelings the vial gave them.

But this… this was an entirely new level of betrayal to our kind. A cupid tied to an Enmity was…

Unheard of.

Impossible.

It was dangerous . There was no way around it. If I let myself believe that this was anything more than a freak accident, I might feel sympathy for him. I might want to protect him.

To—

He pulled back, and my eyes instantly drew to the way his full lips were slightly parted, the soft bruises under his eyes.

To the red string connecting us.

No.

I couldn’t take him back to Love’s Ace, and I couldn’t sever the line between us without knowing what would happen.

Until I knew what to do with my living, breathing problem, I needed to make sure he was somewhere safe.

Somewhere secure.

Somewhere that he wouldn’t be able to stab me in the back while I was least expecting it. At the end of the day, he was nothing more than a monster walking under the thinly veiled guise of a human man.

It didn’t matter what that costume looked like—he’d tried to kill me when he ran that arrow through the both of us.

I wasn’t going to forget it.