Page 86 of Hounded

“What for?” Joss asked.

The tires crunched over gravel and grit when my foot moved to the brake pedal at last. The cab slowed to a stop, and I stared out the windshield at the horizon dotted with distant city lights.

I died for the same reason I lived. Hellhound Loren had not learned from human Loren’s mistakes. Maybe it was best I didn’t make my own decisions anymore because I so often made the wrong ones.

When it came to the value of my own soul, only one thing had seemed worth the trade.

“Love.”

30

Loren

Manhattan, New York

December 3rd, 1902

They’d sent Beatrice home to fetch the girls and, in the quiet sanatorium ward, it was just Jonathan and me. I’d come every day for weeks, watching as his health continued to decline. No amount of sunshine and fresh air would cure the disease determined to siphon the life out of him. So, we waited for the end.

He was only thirty-six. I’d imagined decades more together—sharing fragments of his life and watching his daughters grow up. His life was mine, in a way. I was a piece woven into their tapestry, a close family friend, an honorary uncle, a secret lover. But I didn’t have it in me to be secretive now.

In the bed, Jonathan dipped in and out of restless sleep. His features had grown gaunt, and his body was frail. Despite that, it was a tight squeeze maneuvering myself onto the mattress beside him. I crowded into the narrow space and laid my head on his chest to listen to hisheart’s muffled beat.

He turned and draped his arm over me, smoothing my hair against my back while I gulped down sobs.

“You’re always here, aren’t you?” he said softly. His ribs rattled through an inhale. “You always have been.”

I couldn’t speak. I’d often been silent while watching him waste away, knowing I would soon be alone. Bereft. Somehow a widower without ever being wed.

He kissed the top of my head, and I threaded my arms around him, loathing the feeling of his bones too prominent, his figure too fragile. I wondered if he would dissipate beside me, wither and crumble, leaving me clinging to ashes and dust.

“You’ll be there for them, won’t you?” He spoke so quietly that I strained to hear him, but his next words came through with greater conviction. “You’ll take care of Bea and the girls.”

I raised my head to meet his gaze while blinking through a film of tears.

Jonathan smiled. “You should marry her. It would be advantageous for you both.” He coughed, and the sound felt ripped from him. His body convulsed, and I squeezed my eyes shut so I didn’t see the blood dribbling from his lips.

He rubbed my back again. “You could have a family. I know you want that.”

I wanted it with him. Only with him.

I held no ill will for Beatrice, and certainly not for his daughters who were far too young to lose their father. But Jonathan left a void I could not fill. I would care for his family as best I could, but they would never be mine.

Jonathan coughed again, and his hand snagged in my hair. “I’ve been good to you, Loren. Now, you can be good to them.”

At the far end of the room, a pair of white-dressed nurses bustled in, escorting Beatrice and the two young girls. I scrambled out of the bed, nearly tumbling onto the floor in my haste.

Jonathan’s next coughing fit commanded the attention of the arriving women. The nurses rushed ahead as their patient’s wracking hacks speckled the white sheets with red.

Edith and Dorothy clung to their mother’s skirt. All three of them stopped in the aisle between the rows of empty beds while I worked my way to standing.

Beatrice covered her daughters’ eyes with her hands as she looked at me. Her expression wavered between confusion and concern.

I’d never been sure how much she knew. My arrangement with Jonathan was longstanding enough she might have accepted his visits to my flat as a matter of fact. But I doubted any woman wouldn’t have grown wise to the true nature of our relationship after twelve long years.

If she’d questioned Jonathan about it, I imagined he would have reminded her—as he did me—of all she had because of him. How good he’d been to her.

I imagined, too, that she had decided what I had.

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