Page 37 of Demon's Heart
Strong arms wrapped around him, and Ollie laid his headagainst Dante’s chest without hesitation. Ollie’s trembling hands stilled, and he wrapped them around Dante.
He was no longer floating away.
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Ollie whispered, unable to stop his shivers. “It’s like something’s happened inside me, and it’s not right.”
A whine escaped Dante, sounding more like a hurt animal than a man. “I’m sorry, Ollie. There was only one way to save you. That’s why you feel this way, but we should be able to fix it. It won’t feel like this forever.”
Ollie buried his face against Dante’s bare chest. He didn’t know what Dante meant, yet Dante’s minty scent tingled his senses, and after a few deep breaths, Ollie’s tremors stilled.
Dante stroked Ollie’s wet hair. “Can I wash you?”
Ollie nodded into Dante’s chest. God, he hoped he’d feel better when the blood was gone.
Dante helped Ollie out of his shorts and underwear and tossed the soiled clothes aside, along with his bloody jeans, leaving them both completely naked.
Ollie registered their nudity in passing like he noticed the shower’s grout was darker than the tiles. His body felt foreign and wrong. He needed Dante, but not in the way he normally would have while in a shower with no clothes on.
Neither of them spoke. Ollie wasn’t sure he could have. There was a lump in his throat he was afraid to dislodge, not knowing what might come out.
He held on to Dante’s shoulders as the bigger man washed him with sweet-scented soap and a soft cloth. Dante’s careful touch felt like heaven, and slowly, the lump in Ollie’s throat dissolved.
Eventually, the water running off them turned clear, save for the suds. Ollie felt more whole than he had since opening his eyes and, for some reason, didn’t want to let Dante go.
“Where are we?” Ollie asked when Dante had finished washing them both and he’d reluctantly released Dante’s shoulders.
Dante stood frozen for a moment too long before turning off the water. “This is my house.”
Ollie turned, ignoring the emptiness growing inside him once again, and reinspected the ridiculously large shower, realization hitting him like a smack in the face. “It’s because of your wings. That’s why it’s all so…large.”
“Exactly,” Dante said as if Ollie had made a clever discovery and not the most obvious observation on the planet.
Dante stepped around a tiled wall—there was no door closing the shower—heading into the rest of the bathroom. There was another tattoo around Dante’s hips, like a rope or a…tail?
Ollie stood rooted to the spot. He was beginning to suspect this wasn’t a hallucination, which wasn’t comforting. A hollow void bubbled inside him, growing like something sick and painful was coming.
Dante reappeared, towel around his waist and another held out for Ollie.
When Ollie didn’t reach for it, Dante wrapped it around him. It was no surprise the towel was enormous and engulfed Ollie like a blanket.
Dante pulled Ollie against his chest and held him tight, and the sick feeling roiling inside Ollie faded.
“If you’re a demon, why did you save me?” Ollie whispered, lying his head against Dante’s shoulder.
Dante sighed, almost sounding content as he rested a hand on the back of Ollie’s head. “Demons aren’t evil. We aren’t what Christianity or any other human beliefs make us out to be.”
“Then why call yourself a demon if that’s not what you are?”
“That’s a good point.” Dante paused, running his hand through Ollie’s hair. “I’m a Fallen Eternal—an immortal being who possesses magic, banned from the Eternal Realm.”
So maybe saying he was a demon was better than that. Ollie had no clue what any of that was supposed to mean. “If you saved me with magic, why do I feel so…broken inside?”
Dante pulled Ollie tighter against him. “I feel it too.”
The strange sense that something wasn’t right intensified, broadening and filling Ollie with an unfamiliar, painful regret.
Ollie gasped, clutching his chest. “What is that?”
Dante pulled back, looking down at Ollie, his eyes red-rimmed and sad. “To save you, I had to link us. It’s called a mating bond. But I couldn’t complete the ritual like we would have if you were conscious.”
