Succubus Revealed Page 0,79
to keep finding you."
"That's it?" I said. "Nothing else? If there's anything more . . . I mean, the stakes here are huge, Seth. I know you said you'd take your chances, but remember when we're talking about your soul, we're looking beyond the scope of one human life. We're looking at eternity."
"There you go again," he said, with a small, rueful smile. "Making an argument for the sanctity of the soul, a soul you threw away."
"And I told you before, I'd do it again."
"So you wouldn't have to face me and look me in the eye after what you'd done."
"In part," I said. "But also to save your life. To give you a chance at happiness. Because at that moment . . . that was more important than my eternity."
Seth took a long time to answer, and I again wished I knew what was happening behind those brown eyes. Whose thoughts were stirring in there? His or Kyriakos's? Or any of the other men I'd had turbulent romances with?
"You didn't want to face me then," he said at last. "But here you are. Why? To save your own soul?"
"To save both our souls," I said.
Seth straightened up from his slouch against the wall and moved toward the door. "I can't help you. I mean it - I don't remember anything else. Now. If you'd please make some polite excuse to the others and leave, I'd really appreciate it."
He came to stand in front of me in the doorway, and for a half a second, time stood still as we studied each other, only a few inches apart. A thousand feelings warred within me, powered by a thousand years' worth of lifetimes. With a slow nod, I yielded and let him walk past me.
He didn't look back.
Chapter 16
The next week was one of the longest in my life. Every moment that passed was a moment without Seth and another reminder that I'd lost my one great love.
Even if I hadn't quit as Santa's helper, that job would've been done now anyway, so my days were made even longer by their emptiness. Hugh was over a lot that week, and sometimes he and Roman tried to cheer me up or at least distract me. Mostly, they were holed up together, working on my appeal to Hell. They occasionally consulted me on it, but Hugh had most of the info he needed and simply had to put it all together in the appropriate manner. The two of them discussed other things too, mostly having to do with Hell's legal system in general. I didn't entirely understand why, but Roman was very adamant about learning every detail of it. It was like he was trying to pass the bar exam or something.
I tried to preoccupy myself with packing for Las Vegas. Even with my appeal, I couldn't count on anything changing with my current Hellish status. So, I had to go forward with life as though Vegas were definitely in my future. Packing was mindless enough, however, that it didn't distract me so much as just provide more time for me to ruminate and agonize over being apart from Seth.
Packing also had its own pitfalls because I kept running into things that reminded me of him. The worst was when I unearthed a box of keepsakes collected from over the centuries. The most recent addition was a ring Seth had given me last Christmas, just before we broke up. It was a modern twist on a Byzantine wedding ring, decorated with dolphins and sapphires. Even when we'd gotten back together, I'd left it in the box. Little did he know that I also had - in the same box - my actual wedding ring from the fifth century. It was worn with age but hadn't entirely lost its gleam. Looking at them both gave me a weird moment of disorientation as I tried to grasp the idea that they'd technically been given to me by the same person.
During that week, I also received a fair amount of e-mail from the Las Vegas crew. Phoebe, Bastien, Luis, and even Matthias had stayed in touch since my visit, and all seemed to have increased their excitement over my pending move. Messages I would have found so witty and touching a week ago now left a bad taste in my mouth, now that I knew the truth about the transfer. Luis was simply helping to orchestrate Hell's grand plan to keep me and Seth apart,