“You’re part Angel,” he said slowly. “It will never feel the way it’s supposed to simply because you are missing half of the whole. Being a Dark One means being in a constant state of loneliness without any way to alleviate the pain.”
I flinched. Was that what this feeling was? This hollowness in my chest that made me stare like a lunatic at every single human relationship like I was starved for attention? For physical touch?
“Ah…” Cassius nodded knowingly. “You’ve been wondering if something’s wrong with you, am I right?”
I swallowed and broke eye contact unable to bear his scrutiny; he saw too much, even as a human it was like he saw beneath the surface of everything.
“So, you really were at a coffee shop…” He reached out and touched my face. His fingertips were warm. “Watching humans hold hands, laugh, love…” His head tilted to the side, not in a mocking way, almost like he was puzzled. Or maybe I was the puzzle. “Tell me, did it burn?”
“What?” I croaked, how did he know?
“After the hollowness slices open your chest.” He moved closer to me, dropping his hand so that his body was almost pressed against mine. “I used to call it the burn of wanting what I knew I could never have. Humans were created for partnership, companionship. Angels, as you know, are the exact opposite. Thus, the burn, the feeling of being ripped in half. Your Angel blood tells you it’s ridiculous, stupid even, to want what you can’t have, and why it says, why want something so weak when you are who you are, what you are?” His voice broke. “But the human side of you… it longs. It desires.” His forehead touched mine. “Oh… it burns all right. It burns you from the inside out. And the darkness beckons during the burn, it calls.”
“Does it ever go away?” I whispered, completely unnerved by our conversation. I had a sudden urge to itch my chest, to make the burn go away because even then my body was remembering it, like a thirst I couldn’t quench.
He let out a long sigh then backed away from me, away from whatever private moment we were sharing. “It can.”
“Did it for you?”
He froze, his hand midair as he was reaching for a light switch. “Once.”
“When?” The air stilled around us. “When did it stop?”
Cassius hung his head. “The minute our lips touched, those brief seconds you saved me, touched me, joined with me. For those measly seconds—seconds of living a lifetime of a million lonely seconds—I was complete.”
I covered my face with my hands.
“Let’s go,” he said gruffly. “There’s more to show you.”
He left the room.
But I was glued to the spot, unable to do anything except focus on breathing in and out. I wanted to ask so many more questions, was he angry at me because the only moment of peace he’d had was in my arms? Was that it? My heart clenched as rejection washed over me.
Of course.
That’s why he’d run off—hidden.
Maybe that was why he was being punished, because he did hide, he did run. And it was my fault.
I’d made him want.
And now… he was forced to spend the next twenty-eight days with me. I guess the only positive out of the situation was that he was human. I had no effect on him.
Because if I did, he’d have already fallen.
Humans were weak.
Slaves to their emotions.
Dark One or not, in an entirely human state, Cassius wouldn’t have stood a chance against me.
But he continued to do so.
Which made the rejection sting all that much more—as a Dark One, I couldn’t even entice him.
“Stephanie,” Cassius barked from somewhere deeper in the house. “We don’t have all night.”
Scowling, I stomped after him. I could last the next three and a half weeks with him. I just needed to keep my heart on lockdown—just like he was doing.
If a measly human could do it.
There was no reason I couldn’t.
Cassius
Pompeii 79AD
“YOU CAN’T DO THIS!” Eva screamed at me as I moved farther up the mountain. “Cassius, STOP!”
The ice in my veins rose to the surface as a flash of lightning lit up the sky. “And what would you have me do? Save them all? Only to have them turn on us? Destroy us? They are an abomination, Eva! They. Must. Die.” White filled my vision as the screams of people in the city started to multiply.
“Earthquake.” I spoke the word in ancient Aramaic, the tongue of Angels.
The ground shook beneath my feet.
I kept walking.
Eva followed.
Finally, I turned on my heel. “Do not make me destroy you, Vampire!”
Her eyes closed, and then she held out her hands, palms facing toward me. “Cassius, most of them are innocent. Will you destroy them? The children? The mothers? The grandmothers?”
“If I let one go free, one who is infected…”
“Then choose, Cassius,” Eva said in a challenging voice. “Choose who goes free, save a few. All I ask is that you save some.”
“You misjudge our relationship, Vampire.” I hissed out the lie as the air took on a bitter taste from my own inability to admit the truth. “Only you would ask this of me. Notice how the rest of the council members have already fled the city, and yet here you stand.”