Her face flushed, and she turned her head to the side, hiding her expression. If at all possible, he’d have reached through the veil and touched her like a man. She seemed so solitary, standing alone in her room, waiting with thoughts crowding her head and no one to share them with. In that way, she was his mirror image.
“Please, do not look away. I would do anything to be with you.” She was his beacon in the dark. Something bright to look on in the pitch of his existence. No one shone like her. Nothing illuminated like her soulfire. Yes, he’d do anything. He had already.
She turned back, eyes flashing. Anger flared. “Yeah, speaking of which . . . you made a gate to Hell ? Who does that? And why would you think Kathleen would be there in the first place? What did I do to deserve that?”
“You laid down with me.” She’d accepted him, embraced him, in every way. The tide of that union still moved his Shadow.
“Oh, God.” She ran a hand through her hair, gathering it on the top of her head, and gripped her hand in the mass.
“Do you regret it?” That one touch. Human. Carnal. Ecstatic.
“Who are you?”
“I am a beast, Layla. The worst imaginable. Can we not leave it at that?”
“Hell no. Not when last night . . . when we . . . I . . . Just no.”
“Do you regret it?” he asked again. Her emotions were in turmoil, and yes, regret was one of them, overtaking the others. But regret for what?
“Well, apparently I am going to die.” She dropped her hand and her hair fell wildly around her shoulders. “What the hell am I supposed to do with that bit of news? I can’t believe it, and yet, I’ve had too many close calls to deny the possibility.”
“We will defy Fate”—and everyone else—“for as long as we can.”
“Fate. Bullshit. I’ve almost died a million times now.”
“Layla—”
She turned and jabbed a finger toward the canvas. Her voice lowered with menace. “There was a spider.”
Khan wished he had the angels’ gift to read minds; hers moved so fast.
“And the devil bitch,” Layla continued. “I let her out of Hell, and she’s killed half a dozen people.”
Twice that at least. “I built the gate. You were merely under its power. The responsibility isn’t yours.”
And he had no trouble bearing it. Death was his specialty. “Besides, this life is a second chance for her, too. She could have lived among you humans, tried for peace, respected life, but she chose otherwise.”
Layla made an impatient gesture. “Oh, just save it. I swear, around here if it’s not one thing, it’s another. All of it bad.” Her jaw clenched. “The question is: Why’s it happening now?”
Her tone suggested she knew the answer, but Khan replied anyway. “Fate.”
“No, buddy boy—” Layla sent a glare across the veil. “It all started when I met you.”
He shook his head. “But our meeting was predestined. I saw Fate herself on the road in front of the warehouse where you found me.” Moira had flashed her scissors. “Fate brought us together.”
“Whoa.” She held up a hand to stop him. “Fate’s a person?”
“A fae. Moira.”
Layla made a face. “And who said she gets to decide everything?”
“She doesn’t decide.” Just like Death didn’t decide when someone had to pass. “She does her duty. There is no life without magic, without Shadow. She is necessary to the ebb and flow of existence. Her role is prescribed.” It was the same with all fae, in one way or another, trapped by their purpose.
“Well, what about the first time?”
Khan was silenced. To which “first time” did she refer?
“When you and Kathleen made whoopee, was that in the cards?” Her tone was aggressive, the emotion coming off her now distinctly wild.
“No, I broke a law to be with her.” The fae were constrained by their natures, their duties, not by destiny. What was she after?
“Give Kathleen a little credit. If you broke a law, she broke it with you. And if she could do it, so can I.”
Careful, now. Layla was racing toward a decision. “I don’t understand.”
“I know,” Layla answered, a glint in her eye. “How could you? You’re not human.”
Her statement opened up a painful yawn of space between them. Fae. Human. They were worlds apart. Only a creature of Shadow would attempt such madness as to love a mortal.
“But because I kind of like you,” she said, “I’ll let you in on a little secret.”
“You ‘kind of like me’?” And just that fast, warmth spread through the chill of his Shadow. He could listen to her talk like this always. The spark of her mind combined with the snap of her temper—no wonder her soul was a living conflagration.
“It’s called free will.”
Oh, that. “Moira is necessarily cunning. Eventually the imperative of death will find you.” He knew the imperative intimately. All mortals died. While there was occasional elasticity regarding the moment of their passing, there were never any exceptions.