Chapter Eighteen

G

She let the shirt fall to the floor beside us. The sound it made was, in reality, barely there. A muted thud and nothing more. To my ears, though? It signaled the gates of hell being unlocked and pushed open wide in an earsplitting invitation for the demons to come out and play.

An involuntary growl escaped my lips as she pressed herself against me. I felt her breath on my chest, a scorching alarm that my control was in danger of slipping. My mind clouded, and my breathing quickened. She was right about one thing. The pain had ebbed, the newly released adrenaline chasing it to the far reaches of my mind, even if for only a short period of time.

She ran her hands over my bare skin, fingers curling to let her nails graze the planes of my chest. The sensation was unlike anything I’d ever felt. No one had ever touched me like that. There was so much need, but also an unparalleled sense of connection. Sera’s fingers moved with not only lust, but something far deeper and more complex. Something I never expected anyone to feel for me. “Tell me you want me to stop…”

Yes.

“No,” I responded, my voice hoarse. If she stopped, I would break. I would crumble into a million pieces with no way to put myself back together again. “I don’t.”

“Tell me you don’t like how this feels.”

I don’t.

“I can’t.” The words came out harsh, the monster Cora created rabid and fighting to get his hands on her. But that thing would have to battle me. It was closer than it ever had been to overtaking me, but for the first time, I felt confident that I could beat it back. I was sure because I refused to taint her in that way.

“All I’m going to do is touch you, G. We’re not taking it any further than that. Not now.” Her hands continued to move, up and down my chest, caressing, playing with the lines and ridges that came from Cora’s mandatory gym sessions. Small circles and feather light skims, each touch bringing me closer to madness and peace all in the same instant. “You need to see that you’re not poison. Not to me.”

She was wrong. So very wrong.

“You can kiss me.” Hands still moving, slow and frustratingly high, she lifted her head to stare at me. “If you want…”

Perfectly pink lips parted, her body all but pleading for me to do it. I closed my eyes, remembering what she’d tasted like. No words came to mind, only a feeling of peace. Kissing Sera had been like coming up for air after suffocating. It’d been like uncurling my body and using all my muscles after being knotted up and chained in one position for what felt like decades. While I hadn’t told her the whole truth, I’d surely told her enough to send her running—and she was still here.

Maybe…

My fingers twitched, and before I realized what she was doing, her hands were at her shirt, lifting it over her head. Slowly, carefully, like one wrong move would have me disappearing.

She wore a simple tank underneath it. The neckline, while not overly low, gave the smallest preview of what lay beneath. The way the material shifted as she breathed in and out, creating a frustratingly perfect tease, was what tore at the remains of my protest. It broke me in the most amazing way.

“You told me once that we were fighters. That together, we could deal. Whatever your life was—whatever Cora did to change you—is irrelevant.”

“Irrelevant? Are you cr—”

She covered my mouth with her hand. “Because even if some small fraction of what you think of yourself is true, I negate it. I’m your light, and you’re my darkness.”

I moved her hand away. “You don’t need any more darkness in your life.”

“Don’t I?” She took my hand and held it to her chest, over her heart. “I believe everyone needs an even balance. You can’t have one without the other.”

My arms encircled her waist and hefted her off the ground, across the room, and to the bed, where I set her down on the edge. “Are you sure that’s what you want?” My voice sounded wrong. Deep and desperate. The protests I’d had moments ago, the ones I would have sworn life and limb on, were forgotten. I stood in front of her. Inches separated us, but we didn’t touch.

“I think I’ve had more than enough time to think about it.” She lifted her head to look up at me, voice trembling just a little.

I dropped to my knees beside the bed and leaned forward but stopped before brushing my lips to hers. I wanted to. In fact, I’d never wanted anything more. But that inner voice kept stopping me. Whispering all the ways that I was bad for her. With great restraint, I ran a single finger across her cheek, skimming it lightly over her bottom lip.

I ran my finger down her arm, tracing random patterns against her skin just like she had on mine. The soft whimper that escaped her lips and her quickened breath were the only response I got.

My pulse pounded in my ears, so damn loud that I could barely think. The world fell away until all that was left was Sera. Really, she was always what it came down to. Every one of my actions since stepping across that cell threshold had been motivated by her existence. She was the sun in my world, and I was simply a planet caught in her gravitational pull, helpless. Without her light, I would wither and die.

I leaned forward, lips lingering at her ear. “You’re right.” I didn’t dare move an inch closer. “The last thing I want to do is leave you behind.” I knew I had to—that I should—but the actual act of walking away? It was inconceivable. “Hell, I don’t even know if I could.”

“Then the solution is simple.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me to her so that there was nothing separating us. Without hesitation, she kissed me.

Or, she tried. I pulled away.

“Please don’t do this, Sera.” It was two parts begging her to listen, and two parts praying that she wouldn’t.

“You can’t get rid of me. Not that easily.”

My resolve broke. The action terrified me, but I couldn’t deny the hold she had over me. I pressed my lips to hers, hesitant. She pressed back, moving her lips ever so slightly. I responded, unable to resist.

I brought my hands to her face, skimming both cheeks then up to thread my fingers through her long hair. A soft noise escaped her, and she wrapped her arms around my waist, pulling me closer. Nothing. There was nothing on any version of Earth that could compare to this. Nothing would come close to the euphoric feeling.

“While I’m sure this would be entertaining to watch for Cora, I’m not the voyeuristic type…” The door creaked open.

The room came crashing back, the remnants of the adrenaline rush making me twitch. Karl stood in the doorway. He came into the room and closed the door behind him, as Sera stood and pinned him with a glare. Me? I didn’t know whether to kill him—or thank him for the interruption.

“Adrenaline helps with the symptoms of the poison.” She smacked the side of her head. “Oh. Wait. I don’t mean poison. I mean virus.”

Karl snickered. “Oh, yes. Giving in to those teenage hormones was all for the sake of quelling the symptoms, I’m sure.”

Sera said nothing, and I had to remind myself to stay where I was.

“Cora always wondered what you two would do if given the chance. She wanted to conduct an experiment. Stick you both in the same cell for a few days and watch what happened.”

Sera’s face paled. “You’re a sick bastard.”

He lifted his hands and shook his head. “I said Cora, not me. I’m the voice of reason who talked her out of it. She is the one with the weird obsession with the lot of you.” He shrugged out of his jacket and laid it carefully on the bed before bending down to retrieve my shirt. “Moving on—since you’re here, I can assume you’ve found me what I requested?”

“Sort of,” I said.

“It’s more complicated than handing over a piece of tech.” Sera looked from him to me, then back again. “But yes. We found a way to keep you off Cora’s radar.”

He clapped his hands and grinned. “Wonderful.” He waggled greedy fingers. “Let me have it, then.”

“Yeah. Like she said, it’s more complicated than that.” I yanked my shirt from his hands and shrugged it over my shoulders then tugged it into place. I had nothing to be shy about, but a small part of me was too conscious of the assortment of scars that covered my body. I hadn’t given it a second thought when it was Sera’s gaze, but someone else? It made me itch in ways I wasn’t comfortable with.

Sera nodded. She was totally at ease, and I was in awe of her calm. One wrong flinch and we could blow this. “It’s not something that can be given to you. It’s something that has to be done to you.”

“Done to me? Like Cora’s chip?”

“I don’t think it’s a chip,” I said. “I didn’t get the specifics from MaKaden.”

Sera cringed, and I regretted not running it by her first, given their history, but it was the most convincing sell. Karl knew Phil—Rabbit to Cade and Noah. He knew the guy was a genius, and if anyone could perfect the tech he wanted, it would be him.

“So I have to go to him?” Karl’s eyes narrowed. I couldn’t blame the guy for being suspicious. Not with a woman like Cora.

We’d agreed to keep things as close to the truth as possible. Less chance of a mix-up that way, considering all the moving parts in this plan, as well as the fact that we were improvising a large portion of it. “The Phil from Cade’s world has what you need. He can make you virtually invisible to Cora.”

“This is the Cade who freed you, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“And I assume I’m not supposed to be suspicious?”

I shrugged. “You can be whatever the hell you want. You asked for a way to free yourself from Cora, and that’s what I got. Take it or leave it—but hold up your end of the deal and tell me how to fix Sera’s chip.”

Karl thought about it for a minute. His gaze darted between Sera and me. “Cora followed Ashlyn to Cade’s home world. She couldn’t get to her.”

“Their military is protecting her.” Cade had been right about that, at least. Cora couldn’t get to any of them there. “They’ve given me permission to bring you there for the procedure. You’ll be given twenty-four hours to leave. Then if you don’t skip out, you’ll be fair game.”

“Fine,” he said. He grabbed his jacket and shrugged it back on, then gestured toward the door. “Let’s go visit another world.”

Sera let out a breath and pushed past him to open the door. Without waiting, she stepped into the hall—and gasped.

Dylan was standing at the other end.