Hexed (The Gwen Sparks Series Book 4) (24 page)

“I haven’t,” Dorian said, snapping me out of my memories.

My eyes opened. “What?”

“I’ve never restored a soul,” he clarified. “Just yours, and no matter how pissed you are at me, I don’t regret doing it. You can bitch at me all you want, tell me I’m wrong, but it won’t change the fact that I would do it again given the chance.”

Ignoring what he said, I asked, “Were you and I in an alley at some point in the past?”

Dorian had been looking down at the floor and looked up at when I asked. “Why?”

I recited the words back to him that I’d heard in my mind. “Did you say something like that to me?”

Dorian nodded, his jaw slackening. “Yeah, and it holds just as much truth now as it did then.” Moving toward me, he wrapped his arms around my body and hugged me to his chest. I didn’t know why these small pieces of my memory were resurfacing, but I had to hope that my memory was slowly coming back.

“I don’t want to hear about me restoring your soul again,” Dorian said against the crown of my head. “It’s done and because of that I’m able to hold you in my arms right now.” He leaned back, and I looked up at him. “Tell me about the woman.”

Nodding, I stepped out of his arms and sat in a chair near the window, pulling my legs up. I really wanted some coffee and a shower, but there were bigger issues. I proceeded to tell Dorian everything, beginning with how the woman showed up in my mirror. When I was done, Dorian sat at the end of the bed and bent over, resting his arms on his knees.

“Do you think it’s Hecate?” I asked.

“She said you’d die in two nights?” Dorian asked, ignoring my question. I thought back to what the woman said about in two moons the sand would run out and electricity would find its home in my chest. An involuntary shiver made its way through my bones, chilling me from the inside out.

“Yes and that they would be successful in their assignment,” I repeated. “Do you think she means the NAWC?”

Dorian nodded. “I don’t know who else it would be. We need to call Fiona and see what progress she and Ethan have made with the spell’s ingredients.” He rose and started toward the door. Without the barrier of his leather jacket, I could see the width of his back and the stretch of his T-shirt as it circled his muscular biceps. He really was magnificent to look at.

Stopping at the door, he turned. “Get dressed, and we’ll get breakfast. Aiden doesn’t have a damned thing to eat in this house.”

I nodded and he slipped out of the room. Standing, I was about to head downstairs to retrieve my bag when I noticed it sitting near the dresser. Dorian must have brought it up last night after I fell asleep. I don’t know why, but that made me smile.

Dorian and I went to a small café called Espresso Self for breakfast. I had the best cream cheese muffin and a large mocha latte. We were currently at the grocery store to get food for Aiden’s house. We’d ended up taking Lauren’s white Mercedes, stealing her keys from the counter, and leaving a note. Dorian assured me that she wouldn’t be up until this evening, but I still felt the need to leave a message letting her know. Besides, we couldn’t carry groceries on the back of Dorian’s bike.

“Look at us being all domestic,” I said with a laugh as we moved down another aisle. Grocery shopping with Death and acting like everything was normal was just funny. Dorian grabbed a couple bags of chips and threw them into the cart.

“Cupcake, you’re the only woman in this world that could domesticate me.” He accentuated his statement with a sexy smirk. I enjoyed the playful banter and imagery for a few seconds, knowing that if things didn’t work out, I wouldn’t be around long enough to play house with Dorian. Ignoring that thought, I grabbed a box of microwave popcorn and tossed it into the cart.

Turning into another aisle, Dorian grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels while I scanned the wine selection, choosing two different sweet reds. When I heard Dorian chuckling behind me, I spun around and raised a questioning eyebrow.

“What?”

“Why did you choose that wine?”

I looked down at the bottles in my hands. “I don’t know, it sounded good?”

The side of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile. “It’s because you love sweet red wine, and that’s the brand you always buy.”

“Maybe my subconscious knows me better than I do,” I told him, placing the bottles in the upper part of the cart.

“Or maybe your memories are resurfacing,” Dorian offered. “First you remembered something I said to you, and now you choose your favorite wine.” We were smiling at each other, standing in the middle of the alcohol aisle, when Dorian’s cell phone began ringing.

Reluctantly, he pulled the phone out of his pocket. “Hello?”

I began moving down the aisle, trying to give Dorian privacy while also trying to listen to what he said. I had a feeling that if he was getting bad news he’d try to hide it from me.

“Distilled water and lemons?” Dorian’s voice held a hint of doubt. “Yeah, we’re grocery shopping right now actually. Uh huh. No, we’re staying at Aiden’s. I’ll fill you in when you get there. Bye.”

Half turning, I asked, “Who was that?”

“Fiona, she needs us to pick up lemons and distilled water.”

“Why?”

“Something about purifying for the spell. They’re meeting us at Aiden’s tonight.”

I stopped walking. “They found all the ingredients?”

Dorian nodded. “Yeah, sounds like it.”

Tears sprang into my eyes as my lips stretched into a huge grin. After days of wondering whether or not I would survive, if Flora would suffer for my survival, we finally received a piece of good news.

Dorian lifted me into his arms so that my feet dangled off the floor, and kissed me. I laughed against his mouth as he twirled me around. This news was a rainbow popping through the raincloud following me. For the first time in days, I felt like I could breathe.

I LEFT GWEN a little while after we got back from the grocery store. I’d been jittery all morning after hearing about the woman visiting her. I knew who it was, knew I needed to track her down and talk to her. I’d called Bree to hang out with Gwen until I got back, knowing she’d keep an eye on her without trying to hit on her. I didn’t trust any of the men spirit walkers to be alone with Gwen, or Mariana for that matter.

Standing on the side of the house, hidden by a tall evergreen bush, I closed my eyes and concentrated on Amara. I didn’t actually need to leave to do this, but I didn’t want to explain to Gwen where I was going or what I was doing. It was better if she didn’t know that a Fate had been trying to talk her into surrendering her life, and that I was friends with said Fate. She would twist it into some bullshit about how it was proof that she shouldn’t be alive, like I didn’t know that. When someone’s ticket is punched, that should be it for them. And Gwen was only half right when she said the reason she was alive was because we slept together. I’d slept with a lot of women in my lifetime—a lot—and I’d never saved any of them from death. No, the reason she was alive when she should be comfy in the Flora cemetery was because I…loved her.

My eyes snapped open, frustration at my lack of concentration caused me to grumble. I’d actually told her I loved her, and she hadn’t said it back. I still didn’t know what that single tear meant, if it was out of happiness or sadness. Was it because she didn’t remember me or because she didn’t feel the same way?

Tipping my head up, I studied the sky as though the answers would be written in the storm clouds rolling in. Shaking myself out of it, I bowed my head and closed my eyes again. I needed to see Amara and figure out what sort of game she was playing. As Death, I have many different talents, one being able to transport myself to anywhere in the world. Since I was the only angel of Death, it came in handy when I needed to pop over to another continent and deal with an unruly soul. I’d been so focused on Gwen that I hadn’t concentrated on work. Luck was on my side though; everything had been running smoothly—until now. The balance of life and death was so out of whack that it played hell with my senses, almost like a compass being thrown off near a magnetic field. My inner compass’s needle was bouncing every which way but straight, but I knew that was because there was a soul living when it shouldn’t be.

Air began to swirl around my body in a gentle vortex as I concentrated on finding Amara. I pictured her face, the feel of her essence, and the wind picked up. When I opened my eyes, I was no longer standing outside of Aiden’s house, but in on a beach. Another little trick of mine was being able to tell exactly what part of the world I was in. Currently, I was standing on a beach in Oahu, Hawaii. The bright sun beat down against my black leather jacket, such a difference from the stormy gray sky I’d left behind. White sand shifted under my feet as I made my way over to where Amara lay sprawled out on an oversized towel.

Her long dark hair was plaited on the side, resting against her shoulder while big black sunglasses protected her eyes against the glare of the sun. She wore a white bikini that left little to the imagination and, despite my feelings toward Gwen, I found myself appreciating her body. She and Gwen had similar builds, lean and curvy in all the appropriate places. I smiled down at her as my eyes came up to the swell of her breasts. They were nice enough, but my body didn’t react toward Amara’s body the way it would have before Gwen.

“I’m guessing this isn’t a social visit?” Amara said, not sitting up to acknowledge me. My head lifted to survey the beach. There were about nine other people sunbathing and four swimming, no one close enough to hear our conversation. Shrugging out of my leather jacket, I sat down beside Amara’s towel with my knees bent.

“You wanna tell me why you’re visiting Gwen?” I asked.

A little smirk bent the side of her mouth up. “I knew having that vision in front of her would tip you off. You always were a perceptive one.”

“Amara,” I said in warning.

She sat up, stretching her arms behind her, and stared out at the sea. “You have disregarded the rules, Dorian. You took fate into your own hands, and it needs to be corrected.”

“I’m working on fixing it.”

Amara finally looked over at me, her features neutral as she spoke. “Yes, the little spell Gwen told me about. It won’t work, you know that, don’t you?”

I ground my teeth together. “It will. I’ll kill the rogue before he has a chance to touch her.”

Amara stared at me for a long moment, tilting her head to the side. “You’ve gotten attached, Dorian.” She shook her head as though she pitied me. “They are not cut from the same cloth as us, you know that. They are fragile and expendable while you and I carry on through the millennia. She will never be one of us.”

“I know that,” I spat, anger filling my veins with ice. “I know her life must end eventually, but not yet. I—I need more time.”

“You have plenty of time,” Amara replied. “It is she whose hourglass has run out of sand. You and I are only here to direct them, not interfere. Your interference has already shifted the world. If the problem is not taken care of, I’m afraid I won’t be able to protect you.”

My head snapped up. “Protect me from what? If you haven’t noticed, I’m invincible.”

Amara whipped off her sunglasses, her face scrunching in annoyance. “This is not a joke, Dorian, and you’re only invulnerable to human weapons, not ours.”

“Are you threatening me?” I laced my voice with the icy fury racing through my body.

Amara shook her head slowly. “No, I’m warning you. If this problem is not fixed as soon as possible, you will be stripped.”

“Bullshit,” I growled. “They can’t strip me; the successor has not even been born yet.” I’d heard stories that beings such as Amara and myself had what was known as successors, people born throughout time to replace us. After countless centuries, I’d given up hope that there was any truth to the stories. And without someone to take my place, the powers that be could not strip me of my title and authorities. I couldn’t even register not being the angel of Death. I’d been responsible for death for as long as I could remember. There was nothing before this.

“They can and they will,” Amara cautioned. “This isn’t some slip up, Dorian. You broke one of their cardinal rules and restored a soul that expired. Your mistake tilted the very balance that holds everything together. Are you ready to give up everything for her?”