“I don’t think you were in the presence of a wraith, of death. I’ll bet you were surrounded by life.”
Her chin quivered. “I screamed when I got in that car wreck with Aunt Maggie. I saw Shadowman, my father, then. I have spent a long time wondering why I lived while everyone I’ve loved died.”
The reason seemed obvious, but Adam voiced it. “You had something important to do with your life. It wasn’t your time.”
“So what now? You take me to Times Square and I let it rip?” She laughed bitterly.
Reading the naked pain in her eyes, Adam filled with regret—not for the sex, not anymore—but for everything else. Everything that she’d endured, and yet she remained bright, intelligent, and strong. The woman was remarkable. She’d handled her burdens far better than he had handled his.
There was no way to spin what had happened between them. He owed her the truth.
She must have seen the shift in his eyes because she reached for her book again, opening it to a random page and tensing her forehead in deep concentration. “There are actually some very interesting folktales recorded here…”
“Talia.” When she didn’t lift her head, Adam grabbed the book and dropped it on the floor. Her hands, now empty and open, trembled. He filled them with his own and gripped.
“Talia, listen to me. In another world, another time, we could have been something to each other. But it’s impossible now—I know you understand that. I should’ve never allowed it to go as far as it has. I’m so sorry…”
Her head snapped up, eyes flashing. “I’m not. I’m the child of Death, and this war is probably going to kill us both. I’m not sorry for one minute of it that I choose to live. I know what I am now, and I’ve got a general idea of what I am supposed to do. I could’ve, should’ve, been living all along.”
He stroked his thumbs across her palms—she was silky soft, warm. It would be so easy to run his hands up her smooth arm, to gather her onto his lap and follow the softness of her skin to warmer places on her body. To use sex to forget everything. If Custo weren’t going to be here any minute, he just might have.
He forced himself to cease stroking her. “We’ve got a tough road ahead of us, and I don’t want to confuse the situation.”
She pulled her hands free. “Don’t patronize me. I’m not confused. It’s not so very difficult what I have to do.”
Talia stood and walked to the windows overlooking the sharp lights of the city.
“I didn’t mean it that way.” He followed her, gaze meeting hers in the night-darkened glass. And just like that they were back to where they started an hour before. His body remembered and stirred against his will.
“It’s fine. I’m fine. I’ll do what needs to be done. I’ve been searching my whole life for a reason I’m so different. Now I have it. Ending the wraith war is the reason I was born.” In the reflection, her face was composed. Too composed. Stony.
Adam dropped his gaze to the floor. If he continued to look at her, he was going to do something that messed with their heads even more.
But she was right. She had something to do. Jacob was still out there. He and his maker had to die.
Adam raised his head. “Custo’s going to be here soon. I’ve got to get some things together, inventory the supplies we have here.”
Talia watched Adam retreat into a back room, presumably to check supplies, but more likely to get away from her. The distance between them was both a relief and a disappointment. If the conversation had gone another way, and it could have if she’d let it, there would be no distance between them right now at all. None whatsoever. Her core contracted at his absence, fisting with an ache in her abdomen that echoed in her heart.
This could have all been different.
Another world, another time, he’d said. That was just the problem. Even if they managed to live through the next twenty-four hours, they were literally from different worlds. The hard truth was that death and life were incongruous. Those who attempted to meld the two either ended up wraiths—everlasting life, or ghosts—everlasting death. She was the daughter of Death. Adam was bursting with life. Incongruous. Incompatible.