I pressed my face against his chest, taking in his scent, warm as a summer bonfire, sharp and dark as the pines. “They tried to take me from you,” I muttered, only half-lucid, somewhere between a dream and that deep darkness I’d swam out of. “They tried, but...but I’m yours. I’m yours.”
“You’re mine, baby girl.” His arms were so tight, so strong, as if they hadn’t been broken and bleeding the last time I’d seen him. “You’re mine, and nothing is ever, ever going to take you from me again.”
I drifted in and out of consciousness. Leon had tugged his shirt onto me and held me close against him to keep me warm. I still didn’t fully feel real, as if my body wasn’t sure if it was flesh and blood or still drifting in that awful, screaming other place.
Thunder cracked through the soft sounds of rain and I jolted, my eyes flying open.
“Shh, you’re alright.” Leon’s fingers stroked over my arm, easing the fear out of me. We were walking through the trees, and I was cradled in his arms. I felt so heavy and achy, and my head was pounding.
Muffled, as if from a great distance, I could still hear a voice in my mind, screaming in fury. “Raelynn! Raelynn, you’re mine!”
I shuddered, pressing my face closer against his chest. I knew there were more scars across his skin now, scars still pink from having only just healed. I wanted to kiss them, to thank him somehow, but I was so scared that my head felt like a balloon that was about to pop.
“God is calling me,” I said. “Still calling me. Leon, it won’t stop.”
“It will stop,” he said. “It can’t take you, Rae. It can’t take a soul that’s been willingly given to another.”
I looked up at him, even though his face was blurred without my glasses. “I thought you were dead, Leon. I thought the Reaper killed you.” The thought made me choke up, the memory of him lying broken and bloody.
“I’m not going to leave you that easily, baby girl.” He smiled, and his fingers tightened around my arm. “There’s no getting rid of me now. You’re stuck with me.”
The God’s voice grew muffled as we walked, until it was only a faint murmur. Then it was gone completely, and thunder rumbled again as lightning lit up the skies.
Leon chuckled. “God is furious. Such a storm.”
“Will It give up?” The thunder was so loud it hurt my ears. “When will It stop?”
“You injured It,” Leon said. “It’s weakened. The witch, Everly, told me she intended to kill the God. With It injured, perhaps now is her chance.”
“Everly…is a witch?” I thought back to that soft-spoken girl, who’d looked at me as if she could see my very soul, who’d drawn cards to warn me of my fate. I remembered that she’d felt wild, even though she was so quiet. A feral being, forced to pretend she was domesticated.
I closed my eyes again. I was completely soaked, but Leon’s body heat kept me from shivering. “Do you think she can do it? Can she kill a God?”
“Her mother was one of the most powerful witches I’d ever met,” he said. “Her daughter carries that legacy. If anyone can kill a God, she can.”
I couldn’t imagine how a being so great, so incomprehensibly powerful, could be destroyed. Thinking about it made my head hurt, and I groaned softly into his chest. “I want to go home.”
“I know, baby girl. We will. But I’m going to make sure no one ever takes you from me again.”
I wanted to ask more questions, but tiredness won out. Exhaustion wouldn’t allow me to stay awake another second. I drifted off to sleep in the arms of a Killer, my Killer, as he carried me away to spill more blood in my name.
Nothing had ever felt so right, so complete, as holding Rae in my arms. Limp with exhaustion, twitching in her sleep, but back with me. Back where she belonged. Battered and scarred but alive.
I knew that nightmares would torment her for weeks, and that the memories of this would never fade. It would stay with her, always, like the cuts on her body that would become scars. I couldn’t forgive myself for it, for not fighting hard enough for her, for having just laid there, broken, when Jeremiah and his minions took her.