“Fuck, Abbs, don’t look at me like that.”
She half-smiled then reached up and rested her palm on my cheek. I nearly fell off the edge of the bed onto my ass with the sweet gesture. She hadn’t been this mellow in months, and her touch… it was as if the Abby I once knew was back.
“What’s the date?” she asked.
I frowned at the peculiar question. “What?” Why would she care about the date?
“The date?”
“October third. Why?”
She nodded, turning her head to stare at the ceiling. “It’s time, Damien,” she whispered. “I can’t do this anymore. I should’ve never… I thought I could survive this, but I can’t.”
My gut twisted as I stared at her, unable to believe what she was saying. After all this fuckin’ time, she was giving up. But it was there in her eyes, the resolution, and the finality of what she was asking.
She wanted me to kill her.
“No!” I shouted. “Fuck, no.” I shot to my feet and paced the length of the floor. “No. Do you fuckin’ hear me, Abbs? Absolutely not.” I kept my head down, unable to look at her again and see that look, the one resigning herself to death. “Are you mad? Do you know how long we’ve been here? Do you have any clue what you’ve survived? And now suddenly you wake up all sane and calm and decide, ‘Yeah, Damien, you can kill me now.’ Jesus, Abbs, you don’t get that choice, and you sure as hell don’t have any right to ask me to do that.”
“Damien,” she whispered.
I approached the wall and slammed my fist into it. Then with my arms shoulder width apart, I rested my palms on the wall, leaning in to it and closing my eyes, rage whirling.
“Damien.”
She wanted me to kill her. She wanted to fuckin’ die.
“Damien. Please.”
I turned and looked over at the bed. She was sitting up, duvet tucked up around her, red hair tangled and strewn in every direction.
“Will you talk to me? For a little while. You know, before I become a bitch again.” Abby half-smiled and, despite the tightness in my chest alleviating when I saw the smile, I wasn’t sure if I trusted it. Her thirst for blood was strong and her body’s instinct was to get it any way she could.
‘Give her a reason to live.’
I had to give her a shred of hope to overpower the poison that was streaming religiously through her veins. One flicker of hope. That was all I needed. All she needed to keep fighting.
I walked to the bed and sat, but it was awkward with my back half turned, so I moved up to the headboard and leaned against it and stretched my legs out, crossing my ankles. It was a vulnerable position, but it was early morning and she’d be pretty weak after the all-night ranting of bloodthirsty Abby.
What I didn’t expect was her shuffling up next to me and resting her head on my chest.
Fuck. This was a bad idea. Really fuckin’ bad, and yet I stayed where I was.
“I wanted to have sex with you from the second I saw you,” she said. “It was so cute how uncertain you were.”
I snorted. I’d never been uncertain about anything in my life until the last six months. She was either delusional or thinking of someone else.
Her palm lay on my abdomen and one finger slowly shifted back and forth as if she didn’t even realize she was doing it. I fuckin’ realized. My cock realized it, too.
“You kept glancing at the other people around, watching what they were doing as they picked through the peaches in the bin. You picked up one and squeezed it. I remember thinking how gentle you were with it and how it contradicted your fierce scowl.”
She tilted her head to peer at me, her cheek sliding over my chest. I was met with a sweet smile and a hint of laughter sparking in her eyes. Fuck, I hadn’t seen that look in over half a year. I quickly looked away, clenching my jaw.
“You put the peach back and picked up another, studying it like it was a mathematical equation.” I snorted again. I remember thinking the peaches were all crap. “I was about to come over and help you, when you tossed the peach back in the bin as if it disgusted you. Then you moved to the bin of apples, grabbed three, and marched down the aisle to the checkout.”
“I don’t fuckin’ march and I never liked peaches,” I muttered. I sucked at picking out fruits with all the rules of which were the best. Too firm. Too soft. Too ripe. Not ripe enough.
“Liar,” she said.
I chanced a glance at her and she smiled as she rolled her eyes. I didn’t know why I did it. I was crazy to, but I placed my hand on her head. I didn’t stroke, didn’t caress, just rested my hand there. I heard her slight inhale, and then she relaxed again.
“You thought I was smoking hot,” she continued.
I grunted to hide my grin because she was right. As soon as my eyes landed on the cute red-haired beauty, my body reacted to her.
“It didn’t take much more than dropping my basket and a quick spell to get the pop bottle to explode, and I had your attention.”
My eyes narrowed and I stiffened. “You did that on purpose? A fuckin’ spell?” She bit her lower lip and nodded. “Productive.”
“Sometimes. Sometimes it gets me into trouble,” she paused, then added, “like now.” She was quiet for a minute, her breathing matching mine so our chests rose and fell at the same time. “Didn’t think you’d be interested when you found out I was a witch. Scars and witches generally don’t get along, even if it is just sex.” Her finger stilled on my abdomen and her palm lay flat. “Why did you, Damien?”