Page 32

Chapter 32

Theo

W ren.

I drifted, floating in a sea of darkness. And I wondered… Was this the afterlife? Nothingness? A punishment for every wrong thing I’d ever done.

Every sin.

But… in the darkness, there was a light.

In the darkness, the world smelled like berries and sweetness.

Like Wren.

Like home.

And in the darkness, I could feel his pain. Screaming, tearing through me.

I could hear Wren calling my name.

The light was beautiful—soft and sweet and violet.

I did the only thing I could do. I stretched out my hand and touched it.

I’d been so ready to die.

For Wren, for the first time… I’d been ready to die.

Which was why the sudden burst of air that spilled into my lungs was a shock to my system. My body jerked, my nerve endings shooting with fire… Fire ?

Heat.

The same burning that had driven me out into the rain, but this time, it wasn’t painful.

This time, it felt like power pulsing through me, like some part of me had been broken open and the flames had licked inside and made something new. Something strong.

It tore a growl from my chest and my hands slapped the ground as I pushed up.

“Theo?” Wren’s voice was broken—trembling, full of agony . And I understood.

I could feel it.

I could still feel him.

I could feel the pain on his back where he’d torn out his feathers, the pain in his chest that was endless, fathomless… where that light had been—that light I’d seen. It left him, tore him apart, and came to find me.

To bring me back to him.

My eyes flicked down to the thread. Twined with red and black and gold.

Our thread.

Our bond.

“I’m… okay.”

I knew that wasn’t right. My hand drifted to my chest. The cut had sealed, a dark scar across my skin…

And my fingers were still tipped in claws, still black in streaks up along my wrist, melting into my veins.

When I ran my tongue over my teeth, they were sharp.

And…

My shoulders flexed, and I felt it.

The movement of wings.

Dying hadn’t fixed me.

If anything, it made it worse… but…

“Are you with me?” Wren’s voice was careful, and my gaze flicked from him to the twins, who were still staring at us with their eerie, reflective eyes.

“I’m… yeah. I’m here. I’m with you. I’m…” I held my hands out in front of me, monstrous and tipped with claws, then glanced at Wren. “I feel fine.”

I really did. I felt stronger, more solid.

I felt like I could stand beside him and protect him.

When I started across the circle, a slender arm wrapped around my chest, and the knife I’d run through my body came back to my neck.

“Just because you proved that you’re hard to kill doesn’t mean you don’t need to be put down.” Helix’s voice was smooth, cool.

Delighted.

Like the fact that I’d somehow survived the sacrifice I was more than ready to make only made the situation more amusing.

But it was different now.

I felt different.

I jerked out of his hold, wrenching my body forward with all the strength, all the pull I’d felt from the light earlier.

The thread between Wren and I flared bright, and the man behind me snarled and let me go. I half fell into Wren when he ran toward me, and his arms around me felt like bliss. Like home.

“I’m going to fucking kill you for that.” Wren hissed it in my ear, his hand pressing over my chest like he could take back what I’d done. “Fuck. Fuck. Don’t you dare… don’t you ever… ” He was crying, stuttering over his words. “Don’t leave me like that ever again. I felt you go.”

“I won’t.” I wished we were alone for this, that my words were a promise I knew I could keep.

But at least we were holding each other again as I turned to the men—to the old gods. They stared at us with fury in their eyes, then that gaze trailed past my shoulder.

To Aiden.

Aiden, whose eyes were liquid, prismatic.

Metal, just like theirs.

“Brother. Unfair.” Helix’s voice was a whine, and he wasn’t talking to Celio.

His eyes were on Aiden.

“Aiden?” Wren’s voice was still thick with tears and grief, but he lifted his head to look at the man behind us.

Aiden sighed, like the entire situation was more annoyance than anything. “I don’t interfere with your little war, Helix. I let you fight for your own amusement… but these two…” His eyes shifted to us. “They’re mine now.”

“What?”

It was the other twin who spoke this time, the one with eyes as gold as the blood on Wren’s hands. “You couldn’t just leave the humans to war with the Enmity, could you? You had to intervene, to make something to give them strength and power. Soulmates.” Celio sounded almost petulant.

“What else can Fate do when his brothers decide to squabble?” Aiden stepped forward until he stood between us and those mirrored glares.

Brothers. Fuck .

“You’re their brother?” I echoed the word, but Aiden’s eyes flicked back to Wren.

“He’s not very smart, is he? You’ve always been so full of potential, your aura so strong, I thought you might defy the restraints that Celio put into place when he made the cupids. And look at you… you chose the one human who can’t understand what’s standing right in front of him.”

I should have been insulted, but I was too busy working it out in my head.

Love and Hate. Cupids and Enmity.

And Fate, somewhere in between.

The three rings.

Three brothers.

“I thought you made us, Aiden.” Wren drew me closer to him, turning so his body shielded mine, so his bloody wings could wrap around me like that would protect me from dying again.

“I bring the ones I find to Celio, and he gives you his gift. I would have done the same for Helix, but he wanted to let his little monsters run rampant. My real gift has always been the Ardor and your arrows . Your mission, Wren.” Aiden spoke like it should have been obvious, that he hadn’t made Wren, but he’d given him a purpose other than just a soldier in a war that meant nothing. “Love. Lust… the ability to feel and fall and struggle for the chance of it all. Celio just wanted to make pretty things with wings to fight the Enmity. I thought it would be interesting to throw soulmates into the mix. Like… you two.” His eyes flicked back to the thread between us. “You’re impossible, but here you are. And you…” Aiden’s eyes flicked up, and he smirked at me. “You died, but here you are.” His shrug was innocent, but there was something almost smug about it. “Fate, right?”

Fate. Because he’d been the one who made me realize that if I died, Wren could live. If I gave in to everything I was, the man I loved would be free. He’d been the one who told us to spend the night before making the thread between us so strong, so bright that it would lead me back to him.

Fate.

“You can’t have them—” Aiden cut Helix off.

“I already do. They’re soulmates, and that means they’re mine. I take full responsibility. Are you going to fight me on this, brothers?” Aiden sounded haughty, sure of himself.

But those two… there was something deadly about their stare, something that told me we were still in danger.

Then Helix slid his arm around his brother’s waist, drawing him close and whispering something in his ear.

“Fine,” Celio snapped. “Have them. But you owe us, Aiden. They broke the laws. There still has to be a price.”

Wren went stiff in my arms, but Aiden’s voice was calm, apathetic, like he’d dealt with this before and he knew he would probably have to deal with it again. “What price?”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll think of something. There’s so many things you’ve denied us, big brother. Maybe it’s our turn.”

Whatever they wanted, I could have told Aiden it wasn’t worth it based on the look in their eyes.

But I wasn’t going to say shit. They could tear him in half, as long as Wren and I got to leave this place first.

“Fine.”

The matching grins that spread across the twins’ faces told me I was right. But then Helix waved, and another roar ripped through the air. Aiden reached out, grabbing hold of both of our shoulders as the world around us seemed to tilt.

I wondered if we’d get torn apart in the storm, if they were going to go back on their word at the last minute… then Wren and I were falling into the dirt over the symbol we’d carved.

For a moment, we just lay there, tangled in one another, breathing in the dirt and the scent of the blood we’d spilled. Breathing in air that smelled like berries and roses.

Wren’s arms spasmed around me, and his fingers were sticky with feathers and blood when he took my jaw and turned my face up to look into his still-wet eyes.

“You’re… okay?”

“Yeah.” I felt… giddy. Lighter than I ever had. We were okay.

We’d gotten out of there alive.

Together.

And…

“Oh, don’t celebrate yet, boys. Just because my brothers let you go doesn’t mean I’m finished with you.”

Fuck, I’d hoped Aiden had stayed in fuck-off land with his weird brothers.

Wren went stiff for a moment before his arms around me tightened again. He pulled us to standing and took my hand.

We stood shoulder to shoulder as we faced Aiden, and a small part of me wondered how anyone had ever been fooled. His pale eyes were like eternity made into color—they weren’t like Wren’s at all.

“Fuck you, Aiden,” Wren snapped, and the shock on Aiden’s face was almost funny. Almost . “I’ve spent my whole existence thinking you were a fucking cupid and you’re… you’re what? Some cosmic entity?”

“Fate,” I muttered in his ear, and Wren laughed. Loud and shocked and a little angry.

“Fate! You’re fucking Fate? What the fuck. And you…” He paused. Wren’s eyes were softer when he looked at me. “You brought him back to me, didn’t you?”

Aiden moved forward, close enough he could touch the thread between us. It didn’t burn this time. It didn’t send a surge of strength ripping into my chest at the cost of Wren’s aura.

It was just warm.

Solid.

Real.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before. I’m curious… and now… well, now you have a choice.”

“A choice?”

“You’re a cupid and an Enmity. I can’t actually interfere there. You have to pick a side.”

Oh.

“You still… want me to work for you?”

“No.” Aiden answered Wren’s question with a smile. “I want you to both work for me. Theo can’t make arrows, but at least he can keep you safe while you’re shooting them.”

Wren’s fingers pulled from mine, and there was a moment where I thought he was going to swing at Aiden. Instead, he wrapped his arms around him and jerked him forward into a hug.

I was just as surprised when Aiden’s arms lifted and he returned the embrace. His voice was a whisper, words for Wren’s ears alone, but I still heard them.

“I’ve always believed in you, Wren. Of course I want you on my side.”

“I’m on whatever side Wren’s on.” I didn’t actually care if the conversation was supposed to be private. It felt wrong, not touching Wren, even if he was only a few inches away from me. I moved forward and slid my fingers gently over his wings, bloody where he’d torn out the feathers, but still there.

Still whole. Already healing.

Aiden glanced at me, his head tilting curiously before a smile quirked at the corner of his mouth. “Perfect. Then I expect you both at Love’s Ace tonight.”

Tonight.

He wanted us to come back to that hotel tonight.

He wanted me to be there.

With Wren.

“I still don’t understand.” Wren drew back from the hug and pulled me to his side again. “You’re paying the price for us. Why?”

“Look at you. Look at your connection… A cupid and an Enmity with a bond stronger than anything I’ve ever seen. That’s worth saving.”

“Aiden—”

He cut Wren off before he could ask anything else. “Or maybe I just like fucking with my brothers. Either way—” Aiden flicked his eyes at me. “Welcome to the team.”

He turned to go, but Wren wasn’t finished. “What are they going to do to you? They said there was a price. I don’t want you to get hurt because of us.”

That was kinder than what I’d been thinking earlier.

“Knowing Helix and Celio? Something I’ll despise.” Aiden shrugged, and the brilliant white wings spilled from his back. I realized they weren’t just white—they were the same prismatic shift as his eyes. “I forbade them from having a human once upon a time… from loving and hating and keeping him. They’ve never really forgiven me for it. I guess we’ll see what they come up with.”

Aiden’s wings rustled and then he was gone—into the air, the sky, before Wren could draw breath to ask another question.

That left us there, alone in the clearing.

Alone and together.

Wren turned to me, and his expression went soft, nearly weak.

“I thought I’d lost you… Fuck. Theo. I felt you die.” Straight to the accusations, but his lips still pressed to mine in a trembling kiss that lit me up from the inside. My tongue delved forward, dipping between that pout to lick apologies against the roof of his mouth. When he finally pulled back, his voice was breathy. “I love you, you fucking asshole. You can’t do that to me.”

“I won’t. I promise. I just…” I leaned in again, pressing my forehead to his. “It would have been worth it. And I…” I stepped back from him, glancing down at my hands again, shifting my shoulders to feel the wings at my back. “I’m… different.”

“I don’t care.” He cut me off before I could question it. “I don’t care if you’re a human or an Enmity, as long as you’re here. As long as you’re mine.” Something on Wren’s face shifted then, and the happiness that slid across his features was so bright it was nearly blinding.

“What?”

“Theo. You’re not human anymore.” He cupped my jawline, sliding his thumb along my lower lip and pressing between to feel teeth gone sharp.

“I… I know. But I’m still me, I—”

“You’re not human , Theo. Enmity don’t age. They don’t die unless they’re killed.” Wren’s smile was beautiful. “Forever.”

Oh.

Oh.

“Forever,” I echoed, almost numbly. I’d never even thought about it, the fact that I would age, that I would die. I’d never had space to think about it, but Wren obviously had… and he’d still been willing to tear his wings out for me. He still wanted to be with me. I felt it then—my lips lifting, the smile I couldn’t resist. “We have forever.”

Wren kissed me again, hot and hard, and his arms sliding around me held me so tight it felt like I might fall straight into him.

I wanted to. I wanted to fall into him for the rest of our lives.

For the rest of forever.