Page 14 of His Angel

“Stop!” His hand clamps over my mouth. “You don’t get to carry that. You did what you had to. And Anthony? He knew the risks, sticking his neck out for you. He’s not your fucking martyr.”

I bite his palm, hard, and he hisses.

“Fuck!”

I scramble away from him and grab his shirt, quickly pulling it on. “And you’re not judge or executioner.”

“Well, that’s debatable. Jesus.” He shakes his hand. “We’re biting now?”

“You need to stop,” I warn, putting more distance between us.

“And you need to realize that Anthony was a dead man on borrowed time, whether you lied to him or not.”

“You don’t get to decide who lives and who dies just because you want me, Isaia.”

“Want? Oh, baby girl, it’s so much more than that.” He stalks closer, his frame towering. “Iwanta cigarette. Iwanta lifetime supply of free bourbon. Iwantworld fucking peace. But you? I don’twantyou, Everly Beaumont. I fucking crave you. Deep in my marrow, I yearn for you. Even when I’m with you, inside you, that deep, dark hankering is still there. It’s like I can’t get my fill of you, like I’m trying to pour water into a broken fucking glass while I’m dying of thirst.”

He stops inches from me, eyes pinned on mine, and I don’t know if I want to run from him or pull him closer.

“What I feel for you is torture and rapture at the same goddamn time, and it scares the shit out of me because I know…I know, one day I’ll go too far and fuck this all up, because nothing—and I meannothingin this life is meant to feel so strong and addictive as the way I feel about you. What I feel for you? It’s a fucking disaster.”

I can hardly take a breath, hardly think straight as Isaia strips himself bare for me to see the deepest, darkest, most vulnerable parts of him. It’s too much. Too…real, and I have no idea what to do with that.

My legs give way, and I sink onto the bed, pussy aching from Isaia’s fuckery—a twisted game I crave more of with every breath.

“You’re all gods in this world,” I lock eyes with him, “aren’t you? You’re all power-hungry gods blinded to the destruction you sow.”

There’s a sudden shift in the air when Isaia goes on his knees before me, fingers bracketing my ankles, eyes trained on mine. “That’s where you’re wrong, troublemaker. We’re not gods. We’re slaves. Captives. And the only way we can survive,” he lifts his hand to cup my cheek, “is to protect those we’re shackled to.”

My heart constricts with so many different emotions, I’m not sure how long I can keep it contained before it bursts from my chest.

His thumb traces the wet path of my tears, sparking a shiver. “You think I’d let anyone keep you from me and just sit on my hands? You’re my tether.”

The words hang there, heavy, sinking into me like a brand, and I think I know what he means by torture and rapture at the same time because what he just said, it makes my heart swell inside my chest while it bleeds.

How can I still love the man who killed my best friend without remorse or guilt? A man who would do it again if he had the chance?

Am I sick?

Am I screwed up? Insane?

God, it feels like it.

“You’re my heartbeat, Everly, and I’d slaughter a thousand worlds to keep you breathing beside me.”

Something cracks open inside me, unleashing a fear far stronger than what I felt at the church, so I lean deeper into his touch, letting his warmth seep into my cheek. “What if that heartbeat stops?”

He kisses me, lips brushing mine tenderly. “Then so does mine.”

Chapter5

EVERLY

Iremember when my dad died, what I felt. It was a kind of sadness I can’t put into words, almost like an ache that lingers, a bruise I could press on if I wanted to.

Somehow, it was something I could choose to feel, something I could shove into a drawer, and pull out whenever I had a bad day, or when the melancholy of a rainy afternoon seeped into the corners of my heart. It just sat there, a quiet companion in the backdrop of my life that I could acknowledge whenever necessary.

People always talk about grief as this bone-crushing weight, a tidal wave that drowns you whole, but it never hit me like that.

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