Before I Wake

You are important to me.”

He stared into my eyes for another moment, searching. Reading. Then his irises burst with colors so bright they hurt to see, blues jumping and flickering like the flames at the center of a fire. And that’s what it felt like. Like his eyes reflected the blaze burning deep inside him, and I could feel the heat within me answering in return. That heat built, spiraling tighter and hotter in the narrow inches of space separating us until I knew that if I touched him, I might actually see the spark jump from my skin to his.

Then, suddenly, the anticipation was too much.

Tod lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. My mouth found his, and I couldn’t taste enough of him. He was warm, when everything else was cold. He was sweet, when the world tasted bitter. He was mine, and I wanted to be his, in every sense possible.

I’m not sure how we wound up on the bed, but suddenly my pillow was beneath my head, and Tod was over me, and I could touch him without having to hang on for balance. His mouth fed from mine, desperately, hungrily, then suddenly his lips were gone, and mine were left open. Empty and lonely.

But then he kissed my neck, and I gasped as he worked his way lower, my fingers tangled in his hair, my body alive with possibility, on fire from every touch.

My jeans came off slowly, his fingers trailing over my hips, then down my legs along with the material.

His jeans came off in an instant, and briefly I wondered if there was some kind of quick-release trigger built into his zipper.

Then my underwear was gone, and his was gone, and he settled onto the bed next to me on his side, one hand at my hip, splayed out like he couldn’t touch enough of me with only the two hands he was born with.

“I love you, Kaylee. More than I’ve ever loved anyone. More than I will ever love anyone. If I could freeze this moment in time and never have to let you go, I would do it without a second thought.”

“I love you, too.” I pulled him down for a kiss. “But maybe we could freeze the next moment instead,” I whispered against his cheek when he settled over me.

He laughed, and the sound rumbled through me, triggering fiery anticipation all over my body. “Does that mean you’re ready? You really want this?”

“That means I really want you.”

“I’m yours,” he said, guiding my leg around his hips. I gasped, then bit my lip and stared up at him. “Forever.”

12

“YOU KNOW, IF we’d done that a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been a very good candidate for a virgin sacrifice.”

Tod rolled onto his side facing me, and that one stubborn curl fell over his forehead. “I always knew my sexual prowess has the power to save lives.”

“You can turn anything into an ego boost, can’t you?”

“I have a healthy sense of my own worth. But I have an even better sense of yours.”

“Aww…” I pulled him down for another kiss and chose to ignore what neither of us was saying. Losing my virginity earlier might have saved me from Mr. Beck, my incubus math teacher, but it wouldn’t have saved me from death. My time was up.

The irony there was that Tod’s wasn’t. Nash was living out his brother’s lifeline, and he had no idea what Tod had given up for him.

“Well, as much as I hate to leave—and I truly hate to leave—I have a fatal aneurism scheduled for 3:14—” He started to sit up, and I pulled him back down.

“No, don’t go… .”

“I’ll be back, I swear. Not even death could keep us apart.” He grinned over his joke and I rolled my eyes.

“Do you take anything seriously?”

“Only you. I take you seriously. Everything else goes down better with a joke—the verbal equivalent of a spoon full of sugar.” He gave me another kiss, then sat up and started pulling his clothes on. “You should get dressed, too. How much longer do you think Madeline’s going to wait for a report?”

Crap. I glanced at the clock to see that it was just past three in the afternoon. School was out, which meant Em would be coming with my books. And Tod was right about Madeline. “Come back when you get a break?” I said, stepping into my underwear.

Tod pulled me up and wrapped his arms around my bare waist. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” His grin faded and the colors in his irises went still. “Kay, you have to tell Madeline what happened at the mall. All of it. There’s no way any of us can fight Avari in the human plane if we don’t all know exactly what we’re up against.”

“But Levi…”

“Things have changed, Kaylee. This isn’t just about reaper-on-reaper violence anymore, and he’ll understand that he can’t afford to lose anyone who’s been up against Avari before.” But the doubt I saw in his eyes worried me. “Call Madeline. And you should spend as much time with Emma as you can. Avari’s gone after her before, so she’ll probably be high on his list this time.”

“So will Nash. Fortunately, he and Sabine made up, so she won’t let him out of her sight.”

“Good. I’ll check on them, too, just in case.” Tod kissed me one last time, then he disappeared and I was alone in my room, in my underwear.

I grabbed my jeans from the floor and dug my phone from the pocket as I sank onto the edge of the bed. Instead of calling Madeline, I texted her, both because I didn’t really want to hear her voice and because if she was going to not-live in the twenty-first century, she might as well learn to use the technology.

I’m fine. Got the soul. We need 2 talk. My house. 1 hr.

After that, I pulled my jeans on, then slid my phone back into my pocket, and I was buttoning a clean shirt when the doorbell rang. Styx followed me to the front of the house, where Em stood on my porch, holding my backpack. I opened the door and she marched inside, then dropped my bag into a chair.

“I was worried about you. Why didn’t you come back to school?” Her eyes narrowed and I could practically hear her focus zoom in on me like a long-range camera. “Why is your hair all tangled? And why is your shirt buttoned wrong?”

Was it? Crap.

I looked down and started fixing the buttons, and when I headed for the kitchen, Em followed me. “And…now you’re blushing and running away…!” She cornered me next to the fridge, and her grin was huge. “You weren’t working! You skipped school to sleep with Tod!”

“I was working.” I squeezed past her and pulled two bottles of water from the fridge. “I had to stab someone and that really freaked me out, and he was trying to make me feel better, and I wanted to feel something that wasn’t scary, and painful, so…”

Her brows rose in amusement. “And losing your virginity wasn’t scary or painful?”

“Well, there was a little pain, but that’s a whole different—” I stopped and scowled when I realized she was kidding. “Why do they call it losing your virginity, anyway? It’s not like I don’t know where I left it.”

Em’s brows rose. “You’d be surprised how many people don’t. So? Details?” She hopped onto the counter and cracked the lid on her bottle.

I shrugged. “There was a hellion, and a dead woman, and a knife, and a triple helping of trauma.”

Em frowned. “Sex, Kaylee. Details about you and Tod, not the demon slaying.”

“So glad you’re keeping things in perspective.” I leaned against the fridge and sipped from my bottle. It worried me that she didn’t seem surprised or bothered by the hellion part of the story. That was probably a sign she was spending too much time with me.

“You’re gonna be around long enough to slay hundreds of demons—” the thought of which made me sick “— but you only lose your virginity once. So, spill.”