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Chapter 16

Anaya

“Rise and shine.”

Cash groaned, pushing his face back into the pillow, and I frowned. I was risking a lot being here today. Especially after last night. Cash falling asleep cocooned in my warmth, his hands touching places that hadn’t known another in a thousand years…it had been too much. Too close. But it had helped him. He had actually slept all night. I hoped today would add to that progress as well as give me the answers that Balthazar refused to give.

“Sleeping,” he grumbled into the cool pillowcase.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “You can sleep when you’re dead. Get up.”

“How about you crawl in here with me to keep me warm instead? Fair warning, though, I can’t be held responsible for what happens once you’ve entered my lair.”

I could see half of his grin against the pillow and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling, wondering exactly what he would do if I took him up on his offer. I shouldn’t have been wondering things like that. Not when I would eventually end up trading him in for a ticket back to Tarik. I touched a fingertip to the back of his neck and watched him bow up off the bed as heat singed down his spine.

He inhaled, and stilled as if he expected me to go on. I pulled my hand away.

“Come on.” I sat on the edge of his bed and the sheets began to warm. “I want to show you something. It will make you feel better.”

Cash rolled over and squinted up at me.

“Don’t you have souls to reap?”

“Not at the moment.” I yanked the blankets off him. “But that’s why we should hurry. My time is limited.”

Cash grumbled something under his breath and stumbled off to the shower. When he emerged, his hair was wet and spiky and he was wearing a green T-shirt that said Kiss me. I’m pretending to be

Irish.

He caught me reading it and grinned, scrubbing his fingers through his hair to shake the excess water out. “You wouldn’t be the first girl this shirt has worked on. But you could be the first dead one if you wanted.”

I rolled my eyes. “Let’s go.”

A half hour later, I’d directed him to a small lake on the edge of town. Thankfully, we were alone.

The water looked like a smooth glass mirror, reflecting the bright-green pine trees that bordered the rocky beach. The sky above us was bright blue and perfect, lending just the right amount of heat to the breeze sifting between the trees. Cash climbed out of his Bronco and approached me from behind, hands shoved in his pockets. Probably to keep them warm.

“So, what are we doing out here at the butt-crack of dawn?”

“We’re going to try something to make you feel a little better.”

I rubbed my arms and stuck a toe into the water. After a few moments, steam started to roll off the surface. Cash peeked over my shoulder and blew out a breath. “You’re doing that?”

I nodded and kicked my sandals off, then stepped into the water, wading out until it lapped up around my waist. The bottom of my white dress floated up so that it felt like I was sitting on a cloud.

Little green and orange fish rippled around me, curiously inspecting my fingertips hovering on the surface. I smiled and smoothed my hand in a circle around me and they scattered. When I looked up, Cash was standing on the beach, mouth half-open, looking uncertain. A shadow swirled up the base of a tree behind him, but I don’t think he noticed. He was too focused on me, the look in his eyes tearing down the walls I’d worked decades to build up around my heart.

“Are you coming in?” I waded out a few steps deeper and leaned my head back to dip my braids in the now-warm water. Cash made a stuttering sound that I assumed was supposed to be words, then started yanking at his clothes. First his T-shirt. Then his jeans and shoes. My breath caught in my throat and I looked away, feeling warmer than usual. Once he was down to his boxers, he stepped into the water and swam out to meet me.

He shuddered out a breath. Steam rolled off the water that splashed up against his well-defined chest. He dunked his head under the lake water and popped back up with a laugh. He smoothed his hair back as water streamed down his face. Seeing him like this, laughing and alive, started the unraveling in my stomach all over again. I fisted the sides of my dress in my hands to keep them from doing something I’d just regret later.

“It’s so warm!” He swam close enough so that we were only inches apart. Steam rose up between us.

“How did you do that?”

I shrugged and treaded water. “I thought of it last night. I always wondered how far the heat could go if I let it.”

Cash’s gaze lingered on my face and he swallowed. “Pretty far I guess.”

“I always loved the water when I was alive,” I said, my mind wandering back to dangerous memories of days spent on the edge of the sea.

“Oh yeah?” Cash grinned. “Where did you live?”

I let myself sink a few inches so that the water coated my lips, then pushed myself back up. “Egypt.

Near the sea. Our home was so close, the sound of the waves breaking onto the shore used to put me to sleep at night.”

“Lucky,” Cash said. “The only thing I ever remember putting me to sleep when I was a kid was

Mom and Dad arguing. Then after she was gone it was just quiet all the time. The quiet almost made me miss the arguing.”

My chest ached thinking about him small and alone at night. “I’m sorry.”

Cash floated on his back while his arms made lazy circles in the water as if he hadn’t heard me. “I always wanted to live by the ocean. I’ve never lived anywhere but here, but when I went to the beach with Em a few times, it always felt like home. I never wanted to leave.”

Ignoring the way our legs brushed together, I tipped my head back to stare into the sky, wondering how long it would take for me to get called away from this. I didn’t want it to end. But I knew it had to. Which reminded me that we were here for more than just this.

“Do you feel better?” I asked.

Cash smiled. “Yeah. I finally feel…warm.”

“Good.” I held one of my hands out and he just looked at it, confused. “I want to try something.

Touch my hand.” It was risky giving him free rein over me like this, but if he were really a shadow walker, I had to know. I couldn’t have his fate ending up like the boy on the cliff who saw no other way out. That wouldn’t be Cash.

“Okay…” He reached his hand up and I exhaled, letting go of my skin, embracing my elemental form. My shimmer exploded across the water’s surface so that it looked as if we were surrounded by a thousand floating stars. Cash raised a brow and I nodded for him to go on. Slowly, he placed his hand against mine. Palm to palm. Blue sparks ignited between our wet fingers and a current swept though me with a jolt. In an instant, every part of me was thrust into being whole again. I blinked away the dizzy sensation sweeping over me. I was corporeal. And all from his touch. Cash laced his fingers through mine and squeezed.

“Whoa…what was that?”

I stared at our entwined hands, the blue shimmer keeping them linked. It looked like a ribbon swirling through our fingers, binding us at the wrist. “It was you,” I whispered.

Cash exhaled a shaky breath and pulled me into him by my hand. Inside me, alarms were sounding.

Too close. Don’t let him get too close. With his other hand, his fingers danced down my side before curling around my waist to hold me in place. Before I could stop myself, I arched into his touch and closed my eyes.

“Why do I always feel like I’ve got fireworks going off inside me when I have you this close?” he whispered.

I shook my head. I didn’t trust myself to say anything in that moment. Not when I couldn’t think through the heat and want building up inside me with each careful stroke of his fingers against my hip.

Tilting my mouth up to his was all it would take to give in to what the rest of me wanted. As if he could read my thoughts, Cash pushed the wet braids back off my shoulder and slid his fingers under my chin.

“Anaya…you’re shaking.”

I bit my lip and kept my eyes shut. If I opened them…I’d give in. And then I would never forgive myself. “I know.”

“Look at me,” he whispered. “Please.”

How did he have this power over me? Why did he have to be so wonderful and funny and familiar?

His thumb brushed a droplet of water off of my lower lip and he lowered his face…

“Ouch!” Cash jerked his hand away from my hip as heat bubbled up between us. My scythe. I’d been so caught up I hadn’t even felt it calling. I placed my palm over the blade, attempting to calm the tumultuous emotions tumbling around inside of me. Everything about this was wrong. Tarik was up there waiting for me and I was about to let Cash touch me in ways only Tarik ever had. What was wrong with me? I still intended to turn Cash over at the end of this, so what was I doing with him?

How could I want him like this and still claim to love Tarik? I had to get out of there.

“I have to go.” I took a step back in the water and Cash followed.

“Don’t run away again, Anaya,” he pleaded. “You can’t keep taking off on me every time we’re standing on the edge of something important.”

His gaze clashed with mine and connection blazed between us. He wanted me. It didn’t have anything to do with escape this time, and it was terrifying. It was terrifying because I wanted him, too.

The only way to fight this was to get as far away from Cash as possible.

“I’m not running,” I said. “I just…I have to go.”

“Wait.” His brown eyes got wide as he watched the air ripple around me like a puddle of liquid pearls. I turned away and shut my eyes. Stepped into the warmth. I felt Cash’s fingers close around my wrist, and the feeling of his skin on mine was so shocking and right I couldn’t move. I didn’t even have time to think about what it meant. Not when the light and warmth already had me in its pull like this. Stars winked across my vision. They swirled and spun and shimmered until it was all a blur. A blur that faded into a dark, dank basement that swallowed that perfect glow down its throat.

It took me a moment to sort through the dark to find them, though it shouldn’t have. These girls didn’t belong in a place like this. Dirty and bound. Limp and awaiting salvation. I couldn’t wait to give it to them. I stepped forward and stopped when someone behind me gasped. I turned around expecting to see their captor, or maybe a person who had been minutes too late to help them. What I didn’t expect to see was Cash.