Blurred

Chapter 35

Cash

The whir of the heating and air unit and the cool gust from the ceiling fan brought me back to life. I didn’t open my eyes right away. Still hovering in that place between nightmare and reality, I was sort of afraid to. I opened my hand and let my fingers explore the expanse of cotton sheets and rumpled comforter. The cotton disappeared and they slid over smooth warm skin. I stopped, praying it wasn’t a dream, and allowed my eyelids to peel open. Anaya sat on the edge of my bed, smiling down at me.

Early-morning sunlight came pouring over her in slices through the blinds. All at once everything came rushing back. The heat of the shadow land, the cold pain crackling like electricity through my body, me being…dead. I shot up, breathing hard, and patted myself down. I didn’t feel dead. I didn’t quite feel like myself but… I shoved back the sheets and peeked in my boxers.

“Thank God,” I breathed.

Anaya laughed from beside me. “Of all the things to thank God for.”

I scooted back and combed my fingers through my hair, feeling the reliably messy spikes stand right back up like they always did. “Hey, after everything that’s happened, it wouldn’t have surprised me if the little guy hadn’t made the journey. And we’re a team. We stick together.”

My gaze wandered down the length of Anaya and I couldn’t go another minute without touching her.

Yeah, I needed answers. But at the moment, she was all that mattered. I reached out and snaked my arm around her waist to pull her close, but my arm passed right through her. My brows pulled together and I reached for her knee, but my fingers swirled into smoke the instant our skin touched.

“What the hell?” Shaking, I pulled my hand up and stared at the back of my wrist. My skin had a slight shimmer to it, nothing like Anaya’s but it was there. Sort of a silvery blue embedded beneath my tan skin. “What’s going on, Anaya?”

“You are going to have to concentrate to regain corporeality,” she said. “Balthazar says it won’t take long before you’ll be able to stay solid without even thinking about it.”

I narrowed my gaze on my fingers and felt a little zing of electricity rush through to the tips. When I reached out this time, they closed over Anaya’s perfect satin skin. I didn’t move. Just stared at the way a swarm of blue sparks ignited where our skin collided.

“Son of a bitch…I really am dead.”

Anaya reached out and tipped my chin up with her fingers. “Not completely. You’re somewhere in between.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? What did he do to me?”

“He reanimated you,” she said. “Once you learn to control your abilities, you’ll be able to walk among the living fully corporeal, heartbeat and all. But you also have the ability to lose that for easier passage between worlds. Balthazar says you’ll have a better chance at nabbing escaped souls if they are under the impression you’re just another oblivious human.”

I sighed, trying to wrap my mind around it all. “Why can’t you do that?”

“You’re a very powerful soul. Most of us don’t have even an ounce of the power it takes to pull something like this off.”

I nodded. “So…I’m still sort of alive. But if I want I can do stuff like walk through walls.”

“Yes.”

Okay. This was freaky as hell, but I could live with it. It’s more than I’d hoped for. I could still have a life. See Emma again and tell her I was okay. That everything had worked out. She might not look at it that way, but I’d seen the other side. I’d seen how this could have turned out. Sitting here in my bed, with a heartbeat in my chest, and the hottest girl in the universe at my side…yeah, it definitely could have been worse. Suddenly, I felt lucky. I felt…good. I took a deep breath and my lungs swelled without hurting. They just tingled and hummed with artificial life. I wrapped my arm around Anaya’s waist and pulled her close enough so that our thighs touched. My other hand rose and she touched her palm to mine, lacing our fingers together in a perfect weave. I had to focus to keep it that way, but it didn’t take much.

“Look at that.” She smiled. “Already getting the hang of it.”

I glanced down at her hip, looking for her blade…it was gone. So was the brown leather belt that usually held it in place for her. My eyes connected with hers and I realized they were different too. A rich deep brown with flecks of gold swirling in the depths. A smile lit up her face.

“Where’s your scythe?” I touched her face, her lips. “What happened to your eyes?”

She placed her hand over mine and pulled it away. “I got a promotion.”

“What kind of promotion?”

“I’m your guardian,” she said. “The shadows aren’t going to forget about you. Especially since you’re one of the only two shadow walkers left in existence now. And while this body and these abilities may seem like a gift now, they are only going to make you more vulnerable to those of the underworld. Balthazar said you were much too valuable to be on your own. So I signed a contract to be your personal guardian.”

“And he let you do that?”

She shrugged and snuggled in close to me. “He didn’t think he’d be able to keep us separated anyway, and there is no rule saying we can’t be together now that you’re technically not one of the living.”

I started to smile but stopped. “I thought you were going to get Heaven for turning me in.”

Anaya’s hand slid up my chest, over my collarbone, and into the hair at the nape of my neck. I shut my eyes, burning for her by the time her lips touched my ear.

“Heaven isn’t the forever I was working for, Cash,” she whispered. “You are.”

I pulled back to see her face, and the energy between us felt raw and electric. I wanted her more than anything. And there wasn’t anything stopping me from having exactly what I wanted. Not anymore.

My lips didn’t need any help finding hers. They knew the way there, as if it was a well-worn path to home. Alive, dead, in Heaven or Hell, Anaya was home. She was everything. I wrapped my arms around her tighter, my palm finding the small of her back. She opened her mouth under mine and I groaned, pushing her back onto the bed. Anaya’s arms wrapped around my bare back and my hands slid up her sides, wanting to feel something other than the cotton dress covering her.

“Please tell me this comes off,” I said against her lips.

Anaya laughed. “If I want it to, it does.”

I kissed my way down her neck to her shoulder and nudged the white strap over with my thumb. She arched underneath me and I just about lost it. “Please, tell me you want it to.”

Anaya hesitated for a second, long enough for me to wonder if I’d gone too far, and then the sensation of her skin against mine sent all my rational thoughts out the window. My hands itched for a paintbrush, or maybe that was just an itch to touch her. Anywhere. Everywhere.

I leaned back a little to look at her and my heart pounded out a frantic rhythm in my chest. It may have been new, but it was getting a workout. I touched a fingertip to her chin and let it slide down the smooth, tan column of her throat.

“I want to paint you someday,” I breathed against her neck. “Just like this.”

Anaya wriggled under me. Her lips found my jaw. And that was it. I was a puddle of worthless goo in her hands. I probably wouldn’t have been capable of holding a paintbrush in my hand by that point.

“We have at least a thousand years to work on that. But how about this time, you kiss me instead.”

My stomach fluttered and I smiled against her mouth. “Now that I can do.”