A heavy sigh slipped past his lips. “Better not to care. Then the pain doesn’t slice all the way to the bone.” He shrugged. “Surface cuts.”
“Are more easily infected,” I pointed out. “Sometimes deceiving in looks… they appear easily fixed, but scratches bring in more bacteria, causing a slow break down of the skin, of the organs in the body, killing you before you even knew you were sick.”
“In rare cases.” Cassius lowered the flame with his hand. “You are correct.”
“So, control the fire.” I stood, brushing the fur to the snowy ground. “I’m sensing a theme here, I need to control everything or lose control and kill.”
“Killing is fun,” Cassius said in a hollow voice. “At times it helps.”
“At times?”
“In the moment,” he corrected. “It helps.”
“That’s what I thought.”
He hid his yawn behind his hand and stood.
“You aren’t really getting much sleep right now,” I said in a guilty voice.
“I shall sleep when I’m dead.” He flashed me a grin, lifting his hands into the air. Snow started to fall, landing only on us, missing the fire completely.
“I like that trick,” I whispered, holding my hands out to catch the snowflakes.
“I knew you would.” Suddenly he was next to me, his hands holding mine in place as giant snowflakes kissed my skin. “You’ve loved snowflakes since you were born.” I expected him to be smiling at the memory; instead his eyes were black soulless pits of despair as his breathing slowed.
“You saved my life as a child… and as an adult again.”
“Saved the one who would later kill me.” He nodded. “Poetic, isn’t it?”
“Tragic.” I caught a snowflake and pressed it against his palm. “I was thinking tragic.”
Cassius wet his lips, his eyes focusing so intently on my mouth I had no choice but to lean in.
The flames sparked higher.
The snow fell harder.
We moved closer.
Our lips touched.
The fire roared to life.
“Control the fire,” he whispered against my mouth. “Control the flame.” He licked my lower lip, then kissed me harder as I greedily grasped for pieces of his hair tugging him against my body.
With a moan, he lifted me into his arms, his mouth making love to mine, kissing me so tenderly that I had to hold back tears.
He was kissing me with emotion.
Actual emotion.
Not lust.
But something else, something more important, more raw.
“Control the flame,” he whispered again.
“What if I don’t want to?” I pulled back just enough to gaze at his full lips and attack again.
“Then you’ll destroy the forest.”
“Burn it to the ground.” I gasped as his hands moved to my hips, slowly lifting my shirt. My eyes blurred as the vision around us changed. Suddenly we were in a cabin, it felt warm, but maybe it was just the kissing.
Cassius tore at my shirt, dropping it to the ground. With a gasp I launched myself into his open arms as he muttered a curse.
I had no idea what I was doing—why he was letting me, or if it was a dream, reality. I had no sense of time.
Only him.
Cassius.
I breathed out his name as icicles formed in front of me only to disappear from the heat of his kiss.
Was I a completely selfish person? To want him so bad? In any way possible? That even if he was merely offering me a kiss, only to ignore me later, possibly fight me for his life—I would take it?
Ever since becoming what I was, the line between right and wrong had been blurred into lines that didn’t quite go straight, they weren’t completely left or right. And at times, when I felt like I was making the right choice, the line would simply right itself, going straight again.
Was that what life would always be like? A series of squiggly lines that made no sense until after my decision was made? And how was that fair?
“Humans…” Cassius kissed down my neck and then flipped over my arm as the blue veins made tiny little lines down my wrist to my fingertips. “The majority of humans are born with an innate knowledge of right and wrong. Angels aren’t born, they are created. And created only with a duty. At least, that’s what was believed. Until they became… jealous.”
“Jealous?” I whispered as he continued drawing circles on my wrist. My shirt was gone, as was his. Every part of his stomach was thick with bulging muscle, his chest was the same. He might be human—but he still had the body of some mythological god. Maybe that was why people tried to falsely worship him and the rest of the immortals. They didn’t know any better? To them beautiful was to be worshiped.
When a lot of times, beauty was to be feared.
At least in the immortal realm.
“I wish I could still hear your thoughts,” Cassius whispered. “And I’m sorry for getting carried away, I simply…” He shrugged. “I wanted to taste.”
“Was it worth nearly freezing to death?” I asked.
He chuckled darkly then kissed me again. “Yes.”