“What’s your deal, Arys? What happened to the fight you promised to give me over this?”
He swung the fridge door open and pointed at a splash of ketchup spilled on a shelf. “Did you plan on using this later? Or, is this just how you are?”
I wanted to be offended, but I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. “Hey, rudeness. Just because your refrigerator has never had food inside it before doesn’t mean you have to be anal about it. I was going to clean it up. Eventually.”
Living together was not something either of us had been prepared for. Funny, considering we were part of one another. Unfortunately, our bond didn’t translate well into day-to-day living situations. We were both very much the lone-wolf type. If I didn’t find a place to live soon, we would drive each other crazy.
“I’ve decided it’s not worth fighting with you.” He jumped back to the original subject. “Like the ketchup splatters in my kitchen, your stubbornness is part of who you are. I want to protect you, but I don’t want to change you. So, if you want to go get Sinclair’s sorry ass, all I can do is support you.”
My eyes narrowed, and I paused partway to the fridge with a wet sponge in my hand. “Hmm… smacks of suspicious.”
“Let’s be honest. You’ll go whether I want you to or not. So fighting about it with you is irrelevant and a waste of time.” He watched me scrub the ketchup mess with a satisfied grin on his handsome face. “So, when do we leave?”
“I knew it.” I shook the dirty sponge at him before throwing it in the sink. “Always a catch.”
“Sorry, sweetheart but we share some serious power. Time to start acting like it.”
“Fair enough.” I knew he was right. It had taken time to accept and adjust to the power we shared. After a year, I was just finally feeling comfortable with it. Still, our union had sparked a firestorm in the paranormal rumor mill, and most of what they said about us was true. Now, we had to be ready to prove it when push came to shove.
I couldn’t be certain how much the FPA knew. Juliet had always known I was born with strange abilities. If they didn’t know about twin flames yet, they soon would.
“I’m supposed to meet Jez and Brogan at The Wicked Kiss in an hour. We need to do a locator spell to find the FPA. Apparently, they move their base a lot.”
Arys nodded, frowning at the ketchup-stained sponge in the sink. “They have a base in each major city. They keep it small enough to move often but big enough to serve their purpose.”
“Then let’s go. I’m eager to see the life I could have led.”
It was still early. The Wicked Kiss was nearly empty when we arrived, just the staff, but Shaz was absent. I wasn’t expecting to see him, as we had yet to face one another, but it had to happen. Still, I just wasn’t ready.
After failing to find a good quiet space where Brogan could concentrate and have room to make a salt circle, we settled on the ladies’ washroom. Jez perched on the counter, watching Brogan pour the circle. I leaned against the door, ensuring nobody entered until we were done.
“You’ve got something of Kale’s, right?” Brogan asked, getting comfortable inside the circle.
“I hope this counts. He gave it to me for my birthday, but it was his mother’s.” I passed her the cross, feeling anxious when it left my fingers.
“Perfect.”
Jez pulled a tube of lipstick out of her purse and began to apply it to her already fire engine red lips. “Hey, Alexa. Tell me again what the hell you’re thinking taking Arys in on a rescue mission for Kale.”
“What can I say? It’s complicated. Arys doesn’t want me to do this, but he understands why I need to.”
She shook her head of golden hair. “Poor Kale. I wonder what they’ve been doing to him. I’m almost afraid to find out. I don’t trust the government. Monsters. Worse than we could ever be.”
I made a face, sick at the thought of the hell Kale could be going through at my sister’s hand. “I’m sure I’m not one of his favorite people right now. He wanted me to let Shya kill him. He told me that he wanted to die that night.”
I could still see his face in my mind, the resentment in his eyes as he threw himself away from me before tearing out of the graveyard.
Jez turned from the mirror to face me directly. Surprise shone in her deep green eyes. “Did he really expect you to make the choice to kill him? He can’t possibly think you would. You two have this crazy, star-crossed lover thing going on. It’s kind of beautiful really.”
“Beautiful?” The word felt wrong. All wrong. “It feels like a sin.”
“That’s because it’s tragic. Your love isn’t meant to be, yet it still exists. So, a part of you always yearns for it.” Jez pinned me with a gaze filled with the pain of one who knows. “What makes it beautiful is that it’s strong enough to survive the fact that it’s wrong.”