Page 9 of Love’s Ace

Chapter 9

Wren

B y the time Theo finally finished his shower and came out of the bathroom, I was in the other room. I’d gone around and jammed his door from the outside, then run like a fucking coward.

I never ran from my problems, but the knowledge of what had happened, of what we’d done… the way my body was still burning…

I’d had to clean cum from the bathroom door before I’d left.

I’d never experienced anything like this. I occasionally had sex because it was something to do, because it was the phantom itch of a need I wanted to scratch. The one time I’d taken Ardor, the effects had worn off after a few hours. After the first orgasm, I’d already felt it waning. But this? Nothing was fading away; the need wasn’t subsiding. I could still feel the way he’d worked himself in his hand, could imagine how it would feel if I was the one doing it, if…

It was better for me to hide in my room, even though I left the door between us open so I could listen to see if he tried to leave when he thought I wasn’t around.

All I heard was the cool sound of sheets slipping back and then his breath slowly evening out to a soft snore.

Maybe I’d just imagined what had happened, because he certainly didn’t seem affected by it.

I was too angry and frustrated to sleep much that night. It came in fits and bursts that were filled with the memory of how Theo felt, even though I’d never touched him at all—my mind filled in the gaps with promises of soft skin and his burning eyes.

It was worse when I woke in the morning to two missed calls staring up from the screen of my phone. The first one was irritating, but not unexpected. Angela kept tabs on when I was in and out of our apartment building, so she would have noticed that I didn’t come home last night. She probably thought I was out fucking my way through a club somewhere with Ardor running through my system, and I was more than happy to let her keep assuming exactly that.

The other call brought me up short.

Aiden.

He had no reason to call me, because there was no reason for him to know what was going on. The only other time he usually contacted me was when there was a specific job he wanted me to take.

My eyes drifted to the open doorway, where I could still hear Theo taking deep, even breaths. How he was sleeping so soundly when he was in the presence of someone who had tried to and said they still wanted to kill him was beyond me, but at least it made it easier for me to get things done now.

I stood and pulled on my jeans, trailing outside. Theo wasn’t going to get out through his door, and my back was pressed to mine.

“Wren, so nice of you to bother answering.” Aiden’s deep voice spilled through the phone before the first ring had ended. Had he been waiting for me to call him? Shit, was it that serious?

“I was asleep.” That was a bit of a lie, but at least it made sense, given the hour.

“Busy night?” At least I understood the slight tease to his tone. We didn’t get vials of Ardor unless he authorized it, so it was only logical he’d assume that was what I’d been doing.

“You could say that.” At least it wasn’t strange for me to be a bit of an asshole, so it wasn’t like I was acting out of character. I wanted him to get on with it without asking too many questions, so I added. “Did you have a mission for me?”

There was a moment where he didn’t answer… a moment where I had to wonder if he knew something after all. There were times when it felt like Aiden had eyes and ears everywhere, when it seemed like he knew the things we were going to do before we’d even done them. There were times when I wondered if he was more than just a simple cupid, but he’d never let on that he was anything else… and I had to assume that centuries upon centuries made it easy to predict what people were going to do when you’d probably seen it all before.

Whatever it was, Aiden laughed.

“Nothing so serious. I just heard there was an attack last night, and you never came home. I was making sure you made it out alive.”

I didn’t want to know how he knew there was an attack—he always seemed to know when we’d fought without us having to tell him—but that was easy enough to answer.

“I made it out alive. I just got a hotel after.” And then, because I needed to give him a reason, I added, “You gave Angela my vial of Ardor. She was looking to share it with me.”

He didn’t pause this time. “If Angela wants rewards, she should earn them herself.” Aiden’s deep voice took on a tone of annoyance, and I inwardly congratulated myself. I knew he hated it when we weren’t working to our full potential.

“Well, I didn’t want her breaking into my room and asking me for a good time, so I went out. Don’t worry, your best isn’t broken or dead in a ditch… just tired of his coworkers.” I was glad I sounded nonchalant, a little arrogant. It was my normal tone. It didn’t give away that I had used the Ardor in a way that I shouldn’t have… a way that I’d only ever used it once before, with Sephtis.

A way that shouldn’t have worked with a cupid, but…

“As annoying as it may be, if you get into an altercation and decide to stay out, at least drop me a message so I know your wings aren’t in a ditch somewhere and I don’t need to fetch them.”

The thought made me shudder, but I laughed it off. “Sorry, Dad. Didn’t know you cared.”

“I don’t.” Aiden’s response was flat, and he hung up before I had a chance to taunt him anymore.

I blew out a shaky breath as soon as the line went dead and let my head fall back against the door. That had been close—entirely too close. I still wasn’t completely sure that it wasn’t some kind of ruse on Aiden’s part, that he wasn’t going to show up out of nowhere and point his finger at the mark I could clearly see on my bare chest. The red line that drifted behind me and through the door.

No…

Not through the door.

It drifted to the window facing out of Theo’s room. He was watching me with dark eyes. I had no reason to, but I felt exposed… raw. The sensation burned along our connection, and I only just managed to reel it in before it slammed into him. I stepped back into my room as he came through the joined door.

“Who were you talking to?”

Fuck, he sounded paranoid… and not at all like anything had happened last night. Not like he knew what it felt like to get off with me. If that was how he wanted to play it, I’d follow his lead. I crossed my arms and pressed my back to the door with a scowl.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It looked like it mattered.” He instantly mirrored my defensiveness, but there was a difference. Mine came naturally—it was like a cloak I pulled over myself to keep everyone and everything at arm’s length. When Theo did it, I saw a flicker of red pass through his eyes, like that beast inside him was lurking just beneath the surface and looking for any chance it could seize to come to the forefront.

I wanted to tell him to fuck off, wanted to lock him back in his room and keep him there… but I couldn’t do that without angering the thing inside him, and I didn’t know what it would do to me if I did. I didn’t want to see black eating across the line connecting us again, and I didn’t know how long the ward Sephtis had put in place would hold.

For the first time in my existence, I needed to figure out how to walk a fine line between keeping my distance and keeping someone close.

I had to play nice .

“It was my boss.” It wasn’t like giving him the answer was going to hurt me. A look of alarm crossed his features as soon as I spoke, though, that made me add on, “Don’t worry. He doesn’t know about what’s happening. He doesn’t know about…” I gestured to his chest and back to mine.

None of the tension left Theo’s body, though. He just drew further in on himself, his arms dropping almost unconsciously to his waist, like he needed to hold himself so he wouldn’t fly apart.

“Didn’t you want to ask him how to kill me without hurting yourself?”

The accusation in his voice was thick, and it wasn’t like there wasn’t honesty in the question. It made me grit my teeth and force myself to push away from the doorframe. I stepped close enough that he could have reached out if he wanted, could have attacked me. Instead, I watched his eyes drop to my bare chest, to the scars there, old and new… the newest shining a soft white and red with the essence of Ardor still clinging to it.

I blamed those shimmery lines on why I answered him at all. “No, I’m not going to tell anyone about you. They’d kill you.”

They’d kill us both, but somehow that wasn’t what came out of my mouth. Theo turned, trailing back into his room without acknowledging that I’d said anything at all.

I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.

I did know that I wanted to move hotels—maybe Aiden didn’t know anything, or maybe he did. It would still be better if we got out of the city, just to be safe.

The only problem was, I didn’t know how safe it was to take Theo out of the hotel room, especially during the day when there were so many people milling around. At any given moment, I could turn my head and see someone with a connection running between them—pink and red threads, some made whole by an arrow and some waiting for the attentions of a cupid. It was obvious that just the sight of them turned him feral.

It would be a damn shame if I had to kill him after I’d just told him I wasn’t going to let Aiden do it.

I still didn’t have any answers when I followed him across the hotel room and watched with wary eyes as he got dressed without looking up at me. We still hadn’t said anything about what happened while he was in the bathroom, but the attention he put into not looking at me told me he didn’t want to broach the topic. It was probably for the best. It had been a fluke, something that happened because I had pure Ardor running through my veins. I’d spent too long ignoring it, and the consequences of that had overtaken both of us. That’s all it was.

It had to calm down eventually, right? I wasn’t going to be beholden to need and want and feelings. It usually only lasted for a day. This was a little longer… but…

My mind flashed to Sephtis, who was still feeling the effects of it years later.

Fuck.

“Do you think you can hold yourself together long enough for us to move locations? If I take you out in public, are you going to attack someone?”

Theo’s head snapped up, and the burn of anger in his eyes should have been answer enough. His arms jerked when he pulled on his jacket and stalked over to me. “What’s wrong, Wren? Don’t you want to chain me to the bed and keep me tethered here like a monster?”

The low, near growling sound that escaped me wasn’t exactly peaceful, and my hands coming out to shove his shoulders weren’t kind. But…

“I want to move from this fucking hotel before Aiden comes looking for us and takes your head.”

I wanted to protect myself.

I wanted…

I wasn’t going to tell him that I wanted to protect him.

Theo stared at me, but I didn’t miss the way his hand came up to brush where I’d shoved him, where my fingers had touched the bare skin above his collarbone.

“I… don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?”

Those dark eyes, swirling with crimson at the edges, dropped to the ground before he spoke again. “I don’t know whether I’ll hurt someone if we go out. I didn’t… I don’t…” I waited for him to continue, and when he didn’t, I stepped forward. The motion made him jerk back, made him finally look up at me again. The red in his eyes was so bright it was nearly a crimson halo in the darkness of the room. “Usually when I kill people, it’s on purpose. I didn’t want to hurt anyone last night, Wren.”

Usually when I kill people …

Was he trying to tell me that he wasn’t a good person, that he was just as much a monster as I thought he was? He’d already told me he’d killed someone. It made sense—it wasn’t like good, innocent people were attacked by Enmity.

Still…

I didn’t want to hurt anyone …

“Well then, we just need to make sure you don’t hurt anyone today.”

There was a simple solution to this, of course. If we ducked into the alley, I could easily fly him to a new location. The thought of letting him wrap his arms around me, letting those fingers that were so close to claws get anywhere near my exposed wings, made me shudder.

It was never going to happen.