Page 41 of House of Kallan
I tried to look on the positive side. Lazarushadfound him. And hehadrestored at least some of his life. But to me, he had still suffered death. He was still gone for some time. And he wasn’t at all completely living anymore. His heartbeat was just an echo of what was once there. His lungs didn’t function. I wasn’t even sure if he had lungs.
Or if he had any kind of internal organs. I knew he couldn’t truly die again because he wasn’t really alive. That should have been a comfort, but it wasn’t. Not really.
He was alone when he died. We weren’t with him. Although he claimed he didn’t remember his death, I was pretty sure he was lying. For one, he still had a scar from the wound that killed him. When he told us he didn’t remember, it was methodical. Said too quietly. Rehearsed.
What he was really saying was that he didn’t want to talk about it.
I could respect that. But I didn’t believe for a minute he didn’t remember. All I could think was that someone murdered him, and he died by himself. What was he thinking in those moments?
The second day which felt like it was just yesterday, was the day that we learned Cobalt was dead. Or, I supposed more accurately, the day we determined that Silence had killed him. The day that we were told our husband was dead would forever live in my head.
Sometimes, if I let myself think about it, I lived through some kind of muscle memory and my entire body seized up with grief and sobs overtook me. I remembered thinking that I’d never see him again. How I’d never see his smile or hear his voice. I’d never be able to tell him I loved him and hear him tell me he loved me too.
What was the last thing I had said to him? Was it mean? Was I being an asshole? Did he actually know how much I loved him?
Seeing him walk out of that Silence facility was like seeing another husband as a ghost all over again. There was a moment of stunned silence where I think we all simply stared at him. Imagining him walking out.
It couldn’t be real. He’d been dead for years. In all honesty, death would have been preferred over the hell he lived through. As much as I was thankful we had him back, I was also aware that he lived with that experience every single day. It never went away.
There were literally scars all over his body as reminders of the things they did to him.
Death really would have been kinder.
But now, one of my husbands was out in the world, dealing with Silence again. On the one hand, I should be grateful that he couldn’t really die again. However, given all the advances that Silence continued to present, maybe they’d found a way to kill even a ghost.
The thought made me shudder.
“You’re going to pace a hole into the floor,” Rahael said, and I stopped, sighing heavily.
“I know, but it’s so late,” I said.
I was always the one who stayed up late waiting for someone to get home. But tonight, we were all awake. It was as if there was just something in the air that left us unsettled. Maybe it was the hour. Close to three in the morning; the witching hour.
Or something like that.
“Lay with me,” Rahael said, reaching for me from under his blankets.
Nodding, I crossed the room and crawled on top of him. He wasn’t much bigger than me. Then again, maybe I was bigger than him. Angels tended to be the same overall shape. As if there was a single mold and that’s how we were produced.
It was weird, really.
Our features changed between families, but angels were justduplicates as far as how they were built. I was pretty sure Rahael and my cocks were identical, even.
“He’ll be fine,” Rahael said.
I sighed again. “I know. Logically, I know that. But… what if he’s not? What if Silence gets tired of us stealing their abducted women and their lab-built monsters? What then?”
“Then we deal with it,” he said. “Hawthorn isn’t alone, you know. He’s got Ady, Cyprien, Anakin, and Oliver.”
“What good is Oliver?” I asked.
“Asshole,” Aden muttered from across the room, where he had his face in a book.
I smiled. “You know what I mean. Humans are… fragile.”
“I’m going to show you how fragile I am when I hit you upside the head with my 1982 leather-bound, gold sprayed and embossed World Edition letter M encyclopedia,” he said.
Rahael laughed, wrapping his arms tightly around me. I grinned too, even as Aden didn’t look up from his book.
