Page 45 of The Devil Takes
“Whatever.” Frank was laughing, and the laughter sounded fake to me. Nothing felt real. Like the world was made of plastic and it was melting beneath my feet.
I don’t know how, but somehow I made it up to my room in one piece. I could still hear Brett and Frank’s laughter echoing through the back of my mind as I lay with my blanket over my head, my hands shaking. I wanted to text Tommy, but I didn’t. I already knew what he’d say. He’d warned me about this. Warned me a thousand times. I just…I couldn’t. I was too tired.
Too fucking tired.
I wanted to escape.
I wanted comfort.
I wanted Haden.
Sleep, I commanded myself.
Sleep.
Please—
God. I refused to cry. Pathetic. Fucking pathetic. I squeezed my eyes shut tight, forcing myself to breathe through my nostrils as my hands shook and my stomach churned.
Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep.
He was back again. I could sense his presence as his soul flickered to life a few feet in front of my desk. I steeled myself, my words already prepared as I pushed my paperwork to the side and caught the faint traces of sugar on his skin.
“You can’t keep coming here.” My voice was steady. Steadier than I felt.
Percy’s hands flexed, clenching into fists, his big body quaking. He was dressed this time. Fully dressed. The shirt he wore was slick with sweat, his loose gray pants covered in years old stains, the hems full of holes.
“I can’t help it.” His words were nothing but a quiet, broken breath.
“You are the one crossing between realms, not me.” I reminded him.
I doubted he understood what he was doing at all. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he thought this was all a dream, that his visits here weren’t as real as the visit I’d taken to the surface when I’d first met him.
“I can’t—” There was a hurt quality to his words, like a cornered animal, but still, I refused to look him in the eye. I knew I’d give in to him the moment I did, and it was better for us both if we ended things now, before it was too late.
For months, I’d picked apart crumbs of knowledge till I’d come to my current conclusion.
“You do not realize the danger,” I spoke candidly. It was true. He had no idea what the lasting effects of soul wandering were. He had no idea that the bond between us grew stronger with every trip to my realm. That his body lay empty back in his world full of humans and laughter—and experiences I could never give him here.
His soul was missing.
Like it always was at night when he searched for me.
His body, a lifeless husk left behind unprotected.
I knew this. I’d known this for months after some extensive research of my own. And yet…for months, I had not been able to bring myself to send him away. I’d feasted on his pleasure, became familiar with the way he sobbed, the way he begged—though I’d somehow refrained from fucking him again. A miracle considering the fact he made me weak in a way that was not becoming of a king.
“Haden, please.” Such sweet words. Like candied sugar spinning round and around.
I couldn’t give in.
Not this time.
It was for his own good. And mine, I added privately. I couldn’t keep going like this. Couldn’t keep seeing him, tasting him, touching him. Couldn’t let him continue to wake up the parts of me I’d killed. Couldn’t let him thaw the last frozen bits of my heart. He couldn’t stay. He wouldn’t. He didn’t belong here.
He belonged beneath the sun, where wild things grew, and young puppies like him could frolic with endless possibility at the tips of their fingers. He belonged between colorful bodies full of life. Mistakes yet to be made. Sins yet to be punished.
I could not offer him that here.