“She’s right here,” I hissed.
“Her powers…” Cassius shrugged. “She’s unstable, dangerous. I’m here to help her but I need to be human in order to do that.”
“Why?” I blurted out.
He shrugged.
I rolled my eyes in response.
“Seems odd…” Ethan put his hands on his hips, his muscles were tight like he was ready to pounce on something—maybe Cassius.
“What’s odd?” Cassius folded his muscled arms across his chest. Damn, did he have to still be so built? I scolded myself for my fleeting thoughts and quickly looked away.
“Well,” Ethan’s voice was doubtful. “Why would Sariel need you to be human in order to do that?”
“I don’t make a habit of questioning Archangels,” Cassius said in a hollow voice. “Do you?”
“Man has a point,” Alex piped up. “So what, you’re human, you help her, she kicks ass, and then you go back to normal?”
I stole a peak out of the corner of my eye to gauge his reaction. Cassius’s mouth turned down into a scowl. “Yes. Something like that. But I’ll need to be with her twenty-four seven, and I can’t very well do that if I’m not living… near her.”
Was it my imagination or did he just blush?
I blinked.
The pink tinge was gone.
Right, my imagination.
“House party,” Alex sang, “Does that mean we get to finish watching all the Disney movies Genesis set us up with?”
“No,” Cassius barked out while everyone else said yes.
“Outvoted.” Mason pointed with his spatula. “Trust me, Cassius, it will do you some good. After all, it’s good to remember what humans are like, think of your time here as a… learning experience.”
Cassius growled low in his throat. “I’d rather not learn from movies.”
“Don’t worry…” Alex swatted his back. “We won’t make you watch the romantic ones about kissing and falling in love and sweeping women off their feet and—”
“What?” Cassius blurted. “What did you say?”
“Uh, romantic movies, sweeping women off their feet?”
Cassius fidgeted in his seat. “It may help… learning how to deal with women, since I’ll be dealing with a prickly one for the next few weeks.”
Right. Now I was prickly. Had he been immortal I would have knifed him in the chest.
“Great!” Alex clapped his hands. “So that’s settled. Cassius stays here until Stephanie learns how to control herself… considering we don’t really know what she is…” All eyes turned to me with pity. “And since technically she gave her immortality to you…” Alex’s eyes narrowed. “Yet, now she has it back and you’re… human.”
“No.” Cassius cleared his throat. “For the time being no… but all will be well soon…”
“Not immortal,” I repeated out loud. I’d forgotten about that… barricaded the damn memory so far into my mind that I wouldn’t recall what it was like uniting myself with Cassius…
Because it was the only time in my entire existence that I’d belonged.
And it had been ripped from me the minute he chose to walk away. Granted he returned but I imagined there was more to the story, like if he didn’t help me the big bad Archangel was going to stab Cassius in the throat.
So really he had no choice.
My heart plummeted to my stomach.
“I think I’ll go lay down for a while.” My voice was weak. I didn’t look back, not even Alex called after me or even when I felt the ice start to tickle down my fingertips and lightly frost the air next to me.
Cassius
MY EYES WEREN’T USED to the dull colors around me. Gray used to be my favorite color—it masqueraded as something trivial and boring when really it consisted of a million different speckles of blues, greens, blacks, and even some white, constantly changing, shifting in its color—evolving.
Now, I glanced around at the gray countertop, the gray or what some would call silver appliances.
And I was bored to tears.
And irritated that something as simple as enjoying the visions in front of me, was suddenly gone—taken from me. Humans really had no understanding of the depth of color, and now I was realizing that first hand.
Particles of dust used to float in front of my face, pieces of moisture collected into the air, ready for me to use had I needed it.
Now, I sucked in air through lungs that by my calculations would stop working around the age of seventy-eight, possibly seventy-nine; it would be something simple that would take this body.
Morose thoughts clouded my vision—making it impossible for me to really see anything but my own demise, and the very simple fact that last week I had been different, I had been better.
This week… I was facing the greatest challenge of my existence, getting Stephanie to see me as someone other than her protector, her King, a monster.
I wasn’t sure what was typical. Did I wait an hour to go fetch her? Two? Maybe three? So I sat, my ass pressed against an extremely uncomfortable chair, and imagined a simpler time when I was able to simply force my will on anyone and be done with it.
The coffee Mason had given me was cold.
The ceramic cup cheap, breakable.
I think he meant it as a joke when he gave it to me. After all, it had some silly Vampire looking character on the front of it, blood dripping from his fangs. I scowled and turned the cup to face the other direction.