“—he died?”
“Quickly,” Cassius said smoothly.
“That’s horrible!”
“As opposed to him dying alone in his home? He died with me—an honor I don’t bestow on just anyone.”
I frowned. Is that what was going to happen to me? I’d touch nice old men and decide to steal their lives? As if on cue, a Darkness started spreading throughout my stomach, like a warmth I couldn’t control, and then as soon as it appeared it dissipated like it was never there in the first place.
Unsettling.
I hated feeling out of control.
“You forget.” He turned to face me, his face dazzling beneath the moonlight and stars. “We are better than them. We always will be. That’s not me being cruel or arrogant, it’s a simple fact. The blood that runs through your veins…” His fingertips danced across the pulse point on my wrist. “It’s holy.”
I licked my lips in irritation. The last thing I felt was special—and definitely not holy. “Doesn’t feel that way.”
“You’re part Angel,” he said slowly. “It will never feel the way it’s supposed to simply because you are missing half of the whole. Being a Dark One means being in a constant state of loneliness without any way to alleviate the pain.”
I flinched. Was that what this feeling was? This hollowness in my chest that made me stare like a lunatic at every single human relationship like I was starved for attention? For physical touch?
“Ah…” Cassius nodded knowingly. “You’ve been wondering if something?
?s wrong with you, am I right?”
I swallowed and broke eye contact unable to bear his scrutiny; he saw too much, even as a human it was like he saw beneath the surface of everything.
“So, you really were at a coffee shop…” He reached out and touched my face. His fingertips were warm. “Watching humans hold hands, laugh, love…” His head tilted to the side, not in a mocking way, almost like he was puzzled. Or maybe I was the puzzle. “Tell me, did it burn?”
“What?” I croaked, how did he know?
“After the hollowness slices open your chest.” He moved closer to me, dropping his hand so that his body was almost pressed against mine. “I used to call it the burn of wanting what I knew I could never have. Humans were created for partnership, companionship. Angels, as you know, are the exact opposite. Thus, the burn, the feeling of being ripped in half. Your Angel blood tells you it’s ridiculous, stupid even, to want what you can’t have, and why it says, why want something so weak when you are who you are, what you are?” His voice broke. “But the human side of you… it longs. It desires.” His forehead touched mine. “Oh… it burns all right. It burns you from the inside out. And the darkness beckons during the burn, it calls.”
“Does it ever go away?” I whispered, completely unnerved by our conversation. I had a sudden urge to itch my chest, to make the burn go away because even then my body was remembering it, like a thirst I couldn’t quench.
He let out a long sigh then backed away from me, away from whatever private moment we were sharing. “It can.”
“Did it for you?”
He froze, his hand midair as he was reaching for a light switch. “Once.”
“When?” The air stilled around us. “When did it stop?”
Cassius hung his head. “The minute our lips touched, those brief seconds you saved me, touched me, joined with me. For those measly seconds—seconds of living a lifetime of a million lonely seconds—I was complete.”
I covered my face with my hands.
“Let’s go,” he said gruffly. “There’s more to show you.”
He left the room.
But I was glued to the spot, unable to do anything except focus on breathing in and out. I wanted to ask so many more questions, was he angry at me because the only moment of peace he’d had was in my arms? Was that it? My heart clenched as rejection washed over me.
Of course.
That’s why he’d run off—hidden.
Maybe that was why he was being punished, because he did hide, he did run. And it was my fault.