Page 31 of The Raven
Kiss her.
Tell her how much I fucking loved her before it was too late.
“But youstayedin town?”she eventually said, after a few moments of tensesilence, the air crackling between us.
“Yeah. Someone broke into yourflowershop, and you called thepolice. Itook the report and came to yourshop. You were…shocked,”I chuckled,recallingthe way she threw herself into my arms. It was shortly after that she broke down intearsand told me she was engaged.“We were hugging whenEricwalked in and asked what was going on.”
“You met him?” she replied, astonished.
I smirked. “Yeah. We became good friends.”
Her brows shot to her hairline. “You were friends?”
“We all were. The three of us. I wanted tohateEricbecause in my mind, hestole you from me. But I couldn’thatehim. He was too good a person tohate, and it was obvious how happy he made you.”
Shame filtered into her blue eyes, and she bit her bottom lip.“I betrayedEric,”shewhispered, not quite able to meet mygaze.“Last night when we…I betrayed him.”
Giving in to the need totouchher, I reached out andplacedmy hand on thecurve of herhipand let it rest there.“From what I knew ofEric, he would have understood. He knew about our past, and he alwaysusedto say-”
“My heart was big enough to love the two of you,”she interrupted, finishingmy sentence. A hint of disbelief coated her voice, almost as if she’d justremembereda snippet from her past.
For a few minutes, neither of us spoke as we stared at each other, a millionmemoriesfrom the past racing through my head and mixing with thequestionsI’d been desperate to ask her since she reappeared in my life.
“Can I ask you something now?”I said, breaking the silence. Shenodded.“How are you here?”
Her eyes darted between mine as she gave herself a few seconds before replying. “I don’t know. I just…woke up in the in-between and met Oz.”
“Who’s Oz?”
“Osiris. He was waiting for me. He showed me what happened on the nighttheViperskilled me,”shereplied, her lipspullinginto a sad smile.
Defeat swirled through me like a vortex. Osiris was the God of the deceased. She really was dead.
“He gave me achoice,”she continued, shifting closer to me so our faceswere only an inchapart.“He showed me what happened, and he told me I had achoiceto make if I wanted mysoulto rest.”
It sounded like something right out of a film or a book. I tightened my gripon herhip,feelingthe firmness of her body, and reassuring myself that thiswasn’tall in my head.
“Asoulcan’t rest until it resolves its unfinished business,”Iwhispered,repeating the words she’d said to me in the alley.
She nodded, hergazedropping to my lips as a look of uncertainty washedover her face.“I don’t have long,”she said, meeting my eyes again.“I have to finish what I’ve started or I’ll never find peace.”
“How long do you have?” I swallowed, pushing down the emotions clawing their way up my throat.
“Until Halloween. One year since they killed me.”
Fuck. Halloween was two days away.
An invisible sledgehammercrackedmy heart in two as my mind spun. Icouldn’t lose her. Iwasn’tready to say goodbye. But the thought of her beautifulsoulneverfindingpeace was a thousand times worse than losing her again.
“Let me help you.”
“No,”she said, her voice firm, and her eyes blazing with determination.“They can’thurtme, but they canhurtyou.”
I squeezed her hip. “They can hurt you, Raven. They hurt you last night. I won’t stand back and watch them do that to you again.”
Her hand reached out to stroke my cheek, her fingertips brushing tenderlyacross my skin andleavinga path of fire.“And I won’t stand back and watch themkillyou,Mase,”she said softly.“You…you mean too much to me toallowthat to happen.”
Catching me off guard, she pressed her lips againstmine, delicate at first asif shewasn’tsure how I would react. I couldn’t stop the moan fromleavingme at getting to taste her mouth again. When my fingertips dug into herhip, she deepened thekissbefore rolling me onto my back and hovering over me to continue claiming my mouth.
