Page 29 of Falling for Famine
A loud whistle made the choice for me. Ghost was suddenly gone to make our tea, and my pulse was a loud thrum in my ears as I finally sucked in a breath.
Chapter Twelve
Limos
Every plan I had evaporated the moment Nomi told me to leave. Seeing the demons circle around her, the angels readying their swords to plunge into her heart, it’d roused thatterrible feeling in my chest I’d suffered all week. Made worse by the thought that if I left, they’d succeed the next time they tried.
She hadn’t been afraid. She was grateful and determined to make the most of the time she was given.
Nomi had all but sacrificed herself for a stranger, and I’d never been so angry. I hadn’t even understood the emotion until it consumed my thoughts and summoned a storm inside my body. She told me to leave her to die, and she…thanked me. For what? For not once thinking about her until that moment?
I hadn’t once felt shame, not even when it came to Ares. Gratitude and determination to aid her in any way I could, yes. But shame? Never.
Yesterday, my shame was so strong it buried me.
Demons and angels and whoever else, they might want to claim her beautiful mortal soul, but I wouldn’t let them. I’d unmask this wild rage and set it loose on her enemies.
Perhaps this was what Ares meant when she said one day I’d understand that my aversion to them was ill-conceived and baseless. That one day I’d meet a mortal who’d give me a perspective that would forever change my mind.
No surprise, Ares saw the truth where I couldn’t.
So few had been on the other side of my power, and they were ill-prepared to fight it. But their numbers would grow, and there was still the issue of Michael. I’d need to be careful with how I moved now that I had Nomi to protect.
But that could wait a few days.
Thankfully, my connections meant I had food stocked before bringing her here. I didn’t have a need for such things, but she needed them to survive. I didn’t hesitate to stock every house and place I might find use for. I’d made all the arrangements before we even left her apartment.
She’d want for nothing.
After Nomi joined me to cook a simple meal and drink the tea I prepared, she struggled to keep her eyes open. She insisted she was fine, but she slow-blinked and her voice grew quiet. In a matter of minutes, she lost the battle with herself and slumped.
She hadn’t been sleeping much. The fear of missing a single moment with her loved one had driven her body to its limits. I wanted to track Ares’s location, but Nomi needed time to recover even if she wouldn’t admit it. So we’d remain here for a few days.
I noticed how quick she was to put everyone else first. Nomi was one of the most selfless mortals I’d ever encountered. Every thought, every action, it was always considered next to everyone else. But it came from a place of fear. She didn’t want to be a burden, not even to me.
It was clear by the way her chosen father stared at me, she’d always been this way, and I’d need to be careful with how I navigated it. For once, I understood Ares’s fussiness. Was this what she complained about each time Idisappearedas she called it? When I simply existed and did nothing else?
It was vexing.
When Nomi’s head hit my shoulder, I swept my slumbering wisp into my arms and brought her to the best room in the house. It was cozy and had the best early-morning views. I covered her shivering frame with blankets and, after a brief moment of hesitation, climbed into bed with her. The urge to be close to her was one I’d been failing to deny myself all day.
She moved and went onto her side, facing me, and I froze. “Ghost?”
“That’s right, little wisp,” I answered her, feeling a bit odd caught in the act of following her into bed.
She smiled in such a soft way my eyes couldn’t help but get fixated on her mouth. With a sigh, she wiggled closer and put an arm around my waist. “Stay close. You’re always so cold. Must be a ghost thing,” she mumbled into my chest.
I so rarely found a reason to smile, but around her I was doing it so often I didn’t recognize myself. It was harder and harder to keep my unreadable mask in place. The cracks this mortal made in it were growing and beyond repair.
I eased closer and brushed her soft face with my knuckles, luxuriating in her warmth and cookie scent. It was becoming impossible to deny myself the touches. I no longer tried to. Anytime I wanted to, I did. And the way her head moved into my touch, her mouth parting on a sigh, my little wisp didn’t mind them either.
“Wouldn’t it be better if I stayed away? Won’t I make you cold, too?” I couldn’t help but ask.
Everything about her puzzled me, but not in a way that was frustrating or bothersome. In a way that made me desperate to figure her out. I’d studied the mortal every minute of every day since meeting her, and it didn’t feel like enough to get at the heart of this sweet creature.
The agony staining her past never bled into her present. She refused to let it. She chose happiness, even when it didn’t choose her.
Nomi’s face was in the hollow of my neck, and the intense heat that always seemed to go straight to my groin when I touched her was already zinging down my body.
