AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My heart pounded, a mixture of shock and dread washing over me. I knew it couldn’t be Susannah—not truly. She’d surely forgotten all about me and was living a life with a loving husband and children. This was a cruel trick by the hunters. Still, I couldn’t ignore the little voice inside that I didn’t know for sure.
“Susannah…” I wrestled with the emotion welling up inside, the need to fix her, the agony of guilt. I didn’t believe it, but I still asked the question. “Where are you? Tell me where to find you.”
Evelyn’s lips moved again, her voice urgent and pained. “The old forest, near the abandoned mill. Hurry, Maverick. It hurts.”
I clenched my fists, struggling to maintain composure. This was exactly the kind of trap the hunters would set. Lure me out with a plea for help, using the memory of the woman I loved. But if there was a chance, however slim. No, impossible.
“Evelyn, can you hear me?”
The woman’s eyes flickered, a momentary return to consciousness before they rolled back again. “Please,” Susannah’s voice continued, softer now, fading. “I need you.”
My mind raced. If I ignored the message and it was real, I couldn’t live with myself. But I’d be surely walking straight into a trap, endangering myself and my associates.
“Evelyn,” I said again, more forcefully. “Fight it. Come back to me.”
Her body convulsed, and she let out a gasp, her eyes returning to their normal brown. She surveyed the room, bewildered, and then at me, bemusement etched on her face. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” My voice was tight even to my own ears. “But you might want to make that your last drink.”
She shivered, rubbing her arms as if to ward off a lingering chill. “I felt like I was losing myself. It was terrifying, like being pulled away.”
I nodded, my mind already made up. “Like I said, you’ve had enough now. You should get some sleep.”
Evelyn smiled, her eyes darkened into a seductive hooded invitation. “You look like you could use some time to relax as well. Want to join me upstairs?”
“Not this time.” I stood up and threw a few coins on the table for the waitress when she came back. “Something’s come up, and I have to move on now.”
She snatched my hand, squeezing it tightly. “Be careful, Maverick. Don’t do anything reckless.”
I gave her a grim grin as best I could, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “I always do, but thank you.”
As I stepped out into the night, the chill wind biting at my skin, I steeled myself for what lay ahead. Whatever I found would be a trial requiring craftiness and strength. It would break my heart one way oranother, and though I didn’t have a heart left to break, that is exactly what terrified me the most.
No, it had to be a trap.
Whether it was also a genuine cry for help or not is what would haunt me forever. If I’d left her only for her to meet the danger I’d tried to save her from. Because I couldn’t go after her. Not only would I be dragged back to Hell and held captive, but I would be their gateway to an entire network of fallen seraphim on the human plane, too, and I couldn’t carry that shame.
“Aw fuck, what am I doing?”
I turned around and crossed back through the threshold, finding Evelyn and holding up a finger. She beamed at me and finished her drink as I paid the bartender for the room above our heads. Winking at her, I grasped her hand as I passed and led her upstairs for a night of forgetting all our troubles.
Evelyn proved to be an effective remedy I’d return to occasionally over the next decade or so. A submissive firecracker, always glad to see me, never demanding, never expecting more than the moment we were in. But I knew to make myself sparse so as not to make her a target. I couldn’t live with myself if I ever did that again.
Chapter Eighteen: Uncharted Waters
Tess
“What the fuck areyou doing here?” he barked, the heat in his glowing red eyes growing more and more furious, causing my limbs to go numb in terror.
I flinched, pulled my arm back, and threw a punch at his face, but he caught it easily, chuckling. With an amused, pitying expression, he let go of me and, with his other hand, swung at a man approaching us from the side, throwing him to the ground.
That’s when I saw the huge crowd closing in from behind him. He snapped his head back to me and locked his crazed eyes on mine.
“What an exciting development that we could have never predicted,” Reaper announced like a deranged children’s show host. “This way!” He captured my wrist and hauled me down the dark hallway. Trembling candelabras barely illuminated the long, winding corridorsas he raced us through. I could barely make out any shapes at the speed we were going.
Even if the house didn’t shift and change, leaving us dazed and perplexed, I couldn’t have navigated back.
When we stopped in front of a door, he checked both ways, making sure no one was around to see us.
