Deity

“Alex, don’t move around too much.” Aiden placed his hand on mine. “He patched you up, but you need to take it easy.”

I stared at Aiden, and when I spoke, my throat felt raw. “Linard stabbed me, didn’t he? With damn Titan blood?”

Aiden’s eyes flashed to a dark, thunderous gray. He nodded.

“Rat bastard,” I croaked.

His lip twitched at what I said. “Alex, I’m… I’m so sorry. This shouldn’t have happened. I was there to make sure you remained safe and—”

“Stop. This wasn’t your fault. And obviously I’m okay for the most part. I just didn’t expect Linard—Romvi, yes. But Linard?” I started to move, but Aiden was faster, gently pushing my shoulders down. “What? I can sit up.”

“Alex, you need to lie still.” Exasperated, he shook his head. “Here, drink this.” He held a cup in front of my face.

I took the straw, glaring at him over the rim of the cup. The peppermint-flavored water did feel absolutely divine, easing the soreness in my throat.

Aiden stared back at me, drinking me in as if he’d never expected to see me again. An image of him leaning over me, stricken and pleading, flashed through me. An array of emotions flickered over his face now: amusement, weariness, but most of all, relief.

He pulled the cup away from me. “Easy.”

I pushed the covers down, surprised to find that I wore a clean shirt and the gray sweats that the Covenant usually handed out. Ignoring the twinge of pain, I pulled up the hem of my shirt. “Oh crap.”

“It’s not as bad—”

My hands trembled. “Really? Because I think this would make your James Bond proud.” The angry red line was two inches long and at least an inch wide. The skin around the mark was pink and puckered. “Linard tried to gut me.”

Aiden took my hands and pried them away from my shirt. Then he pulled it down and fixed the blankets around me carefully. It never failed to amaze me how… careful and gentle Aiden was with me even though he knew I was tough to the core. It made me feel feminine, small, and cherished. Protected. Cared for.

For someone like me who was born and trained to fight, his gentle handling undid me.

A muscle flexed in his jaw. “He did.”

I stared at Aiden, sort of in awe. “I’m like a cat. I swear I have nine lives.”

“Alex.” He looked up, meeting my eyes. “You used all those lives, and then some.”

“Well…” The musty scent came back to me.

Aiden cupped my cheek, and warmth sped through me. His thumb smoothed over my jaw. “Alex, you… you died. You died in my arms.”

I opened my mouth, but closed it. The bright light and the sensation of falling hadn’t been a weird dream and there was more… I knew it.

His hand trembled against my cheek. “You bled out so quickly. There wasn’t enough time.”

“I… I don’t understand. If I died, then how am I here?”

Aiden glanced at the closed door and exhaled slowly. “Well, this is where things kind of get strange, Alex.”

I swallowed. “How strange?”

A brief smile appeared. “There was a flash of light—”

“I remember that.”

“Do you remember anything after that?”

“Falling—I remember falling and…” I scrunched up my face. “I can’t remember.”

“It’s okay. Maybe you should get some rest. We can talk about this later.”

“No. I want to know now.” I met his gaze. “Come on, this sounds like it’s going to be interesting.”

Aiden laughed, dropping his hand. “Honestly, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it.”

I started to roll onto my side, but remembered the whole no moving thing. Staying still was going to be a challenge. “The anticipation is killing me.”

He inched closer, his hip bushing my thigh. “After the flash of light, there was Leon crouching over us. At first, I thought he’d just gotten to the room, but he… he didn’t look right. He reached for you, and I thought he was going to check your pulse, but he put his hand on your chest instead.”

My brows lifted. “You let Leon cop a feel?”

Aiden looked like he wanted to laugh again, but shook his head. “No, Alex. He said that your soul was still in your body.”

“Uh.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Then he told me I needed to get you to the med clinic and make sure the doctors started surgery to stop the bleeding, that we weren’t too late. I didn’t understand, because you… you were dead, but then I saw his eyes.”

“All-white eyes,” I whispered, remembering a brief glimpse of them.

“Leon’s a god.”

I stared at Aiden, unable to come up with any response to that. My brain pretty much shut down with that little piece of information.

“I know.” He leaned over me, smoothing my hair back with one large hand. “Everyone pretty much had the same expression when I brought you in here. Marcus had arrived then… and the doctors were trying to get me to leave. Some were closing off the wound. Others were just standing there. It was chaos. You had to have been…. gone a couple of minutes—the time it took me to get you from your dorm to the med clinic, and freaking Leon just popped into the med room. Everyone froze. He walked up to you, put his hand on you again, and told you to breathe.”

Breathe, Alexandria. Breathe.

“And you breathed,” Aiden said, his voice hoarse as he cradled my cheek. “You opened your eyes and whispered something before going unconscious.”

I was still stuck on the whole god part. “Leon’s a… god?’

He nodded.

“Well,” I said slowly, “holy daimon butt.”

Aiden laughed—really laughed. It was deep and rich, full of relief. “You… you have no idea…” Averting his eyes, he ran a hand through his hair. “Never mind.”

“What?”

Jaw tensed, he shook his head.

I reached up and the moment my hand touched his, he threaded his fingers through mine and looked at me. “I’m okay,” I whispered.

Aiden stared at me for what seemed like eternity. “I thought you were gone—you weregone, Alex. You had died, and I was… I was holding you and there was nothing I could do. I never felt pain like that. His breath caught. “Not since I lost my parents, Alex. I never want to feel that again—not with you.”

Tears rushed to my eyes. I didn’t know what to say. My mind was still reeling from everything—total brain overload. And he was holding my hand, which was not the most shocking event of the day by any means, but it affected me just the same. I’d died. And a god who was apparently a Sentinel here had brought me back, and all that jazz. But it was the way Aiden was staring at me, like he’d never expected to talk to me again, see my smile, or hear my voice. He looked like a man who had stood at the edge of despair and had been pulled back at the very last second, but was still feeling all those terrible emotions, still not quite believing that he hadn’t lost something—that Iwas still here.

I realized something so important, so powerful then.

Aiden could tell me he didn’t feel the same way I did. He could fight what lay between us night and day. He could speak only in lies from here on out. It didn’t matter.

I would always, alwaysknow differently.

Even if space separated us, or a dozen rules were imposed to keep us apart, and we could never be together, I would always know.

And gods, I loved him—loved him so much. It would never change. There were so many things I was unsure of, especially right now, but that I knew. Before I could stop it, a single tear escaped, ru

He drew in another breath, this one much sharper, more broken. The bed dipped as he moved, and his hand slid into my hair, where his fingers curled around the strands. His lips were warm and smooth against my cheek, kissing the tear away.

I became very still, afraid that any movement would send him away. He was like some kind of wild creature about to break.

When he spoke, his breath danced over my lips, sending shivers through me. “I can’t feel that way again. I just can’t.”