WILLOW
Willow
I strode through the hallway to the room where I knew the
legacies were suffering through their channeling class. It should have been the most entertaining of classes. It was an opportunity to embrace the magic in our veins, but the professor who taught it had lost his way.
It was hard to channel when your magic didn’t answer your call because of your neglect.
I waited outside for the bell to ring, leaning against the wall. My body ached with each step, but I was determined not to let it deter me from what needed to be done. All last night had done was prove that I needed to do whatever it took to rid this world of Lucifer.
I needed to do whatever it took to get him out of my life, and my body, as soon as possible.
Iban walked out of the class with a group of male friends at his side, and I looked over his shoulder to find Della’s stare. I nodded to her without a word, watching as she flattened her mouth and nodded. I hated what my actions would do to her relationship, except the alternative was unthinkable. If Gray had already affected me so profoundly in such a limited time, what would he do if he had years to manipulate me? How long until he had me so deeply entrenched in him that I believed he loved me? Even worse,
that I loved him enough to forgive his faults?
“Willow,” Iban said, his voice hesitant. His friends glanced at him in question, but he just waved them on and took me by the hand, guiding me toward a secluded alcove. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ll do it,” I said, my voice firmer than it had been yesterday. “Can you gather the people we’ll need for the spell?”
He canted his head to the side, releasing my arm and keeping his distance. His proximity to death seemed to work wonders for making him respect my personal space. “What made you change your mind? I know you weren’t fully on board yesterday. Did he do something to you?”
I flushed, my cheeks heating at the reminder of all the things he’d done to me the night before. It had felt like both a punishment and a reward, as if he couldn’t decide if he was furious with me or relieved that I had been honest about not feeling anything from Iban’s kiss.
“He tried to kill you,” I said, the lie sitting heavy in my throat. What kind of person had I become that that wasn’t the driving force behind my decision to get rid of Gray?
Iban looked as if he didn’t believe me, his wariness sitting heavy on his boyishly handsome features. He didn’t call me out on the lie, nodding and glancing over my shoulder. “I’ll have them meet us in the library in an hour. Can you make that work?”
I glanced toward the hall leading to Gray’s classroom, indecision warring within me. The cage around my heart had cracked for him, leaving me restless and on edge. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this would be the greatest mistake of my life, but I’d only be able to rebuild that shelter if he was gone.
I may not have been born without a heart like his Vessel had, but that didn’t mean I didn’t prefer the numbness from a thousand jagged cuts against my soul.
Life had broken me. My father had broken me. But Gray had shattered me.
I wouldn’t give him the time and opportunity to do it again, even if it meant condemning myself back to that place where nothing really mattered. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
Gray hadn’t had a heart to love me with, but he’d been willing to do anything to get it back.
Only for me to be willing to throw mine away.
“I’ll be there,” I said, smiling softly at Iban’s back as he turned from me without a word. I left it to him to gather those we needed, knowing that Della and Nova at least would stand at my side and be a quiet support until I had to leave to do the one thing I wanted to avoid more than anything.
“Are you alright?” Nova asked, coming up beside me. Della avoided my gaze, hurrying to find Juliet. I could only hope she wouldn’t confess anything to her, though I wouldn’t have been able to fault her even if she did. Just because I was willing to sacrifice my heart, didn’t mean I would have expected the same from her.
Not everyone had to choose between love and duty, between doing what they wanted and what was right. Some loves just made sense. They fell into what was realistic and expected of a relationship, feeling more like the slow growth of roots beneath the surface than lightning striking the branches. Gray and I would burn the world to the ground if I allowed our love to grow, accepting it as part of me when it was unnatural.
“No,” I admitted, staring into my friend’s gray eyes.
Nova smiled sadly, nodding as though she understood. But she didn’t. None of them did.
“You know, it’s okay to not be okay. You don’t always have to be strong for us,” she said, resting her head on top of mine.
I fought back the sting of tears, nodding my head. “I might need you to be strong for a while, but for now, I have to keep fighting,” I admitted, refusing to look at her. “Because that’s who I am.”
The echo of Gray’s words struck deep in my chest, and it wasn’t lost on me that those were the ones I turned to for comfort. It wasn’t the memory of my mother’s hug or her encouragement, but of the very man I planned to kill that night.
I moved away from Nova slowly, making my way toward Gray’s classroom. He stood at the front, seemingly unbothered by his lack of sleep the night before. I felt damn near dead on my feet as I approached him, forcing myself to ignore those who watched us through the open door.
He spun, raising his brow when he found me standing there. “Witchling?” he asked, setting his chalk on the metal tray at the bottom of the board and brushing his hands together.
“I hate you,” I said, the words quiet. He tensed, preparing for the argument I knew he expected. We’d done this song and dance far too many times for him to expect anything else, and I wrung my hands together, picking at my nails as I searched for the words to give him.
If I was going to strip him from my life, if I was going to say goodbye, then I at least wanted to admit my truth just once.
“Willow…” His frustration leaked into his voice, forcing me to take another step toward him. He met me at the side of the desk, his face softening as he read the uneasiness. He knew what I was trying to say. He knew that I wasn’t really telling him I hated him. “I know,” he added softly.
“Do you?” I asked, tilting my head to the side. “Do you know what it’s like to want nothing more than to carve you out of my fucking heart? Do you know how much I hate that the person who has shown me the most kindness is the one person I’m supposed to despise?”
“I knew you were mine the moment I saw you, and then I spent the next fifty years waiting for you. I hated you for a long time, Witchling. You threatened everything I’d been planning and building for centuries. So yes, I understand,” he said, running the back of his knuckles over my cheek. “The difference between you and I is that I do not care about what is morally right. I take what I want without shame. You would rather make a martyr of yourself to feel better about your feelings for me.”
“That’s not fair,” I said, recoiling back from the frustration in his voice. “Isn’t it? What do you owe to these people that you would fight so hard
to defend? A few weeks ago, you would have laughed if I’d said you were one of them,” Gray said, and I hated that I couldn’t deny the truth to that statement.
I’d wanted nothing more than to go and live out my life with Ash, leaving the Coven to their own problems.
“They’re my kind. Without the Covenant in the way—”
“You can only use them as a shield for so long, Witchling,” he said, picking up a book from his desk. “I need to prepare for my next class, so if you’ve just come to argue, then I suggest you see yourself out.”
I sighed, touching my fingers to the top of his book and pushing it down. He glowered at me over the surface of the page, forcing me to swallow back my frustration with him. “I’m not using them as a shield.”
“Aren’t you?” he asked, flicking my fingers off his book.
“Why do you have to be so difficult?” I asked, turning my back on him. I made my way for the door, determined to give him the privacy he’d so desperately wanted only a moment before.
“Me?” he asked, snorting with laughter. “You came here just to pick a fight, and then have the nerve to get angry with me when I ask you the questions you aren’t ready to ask yourself.”
I sighed, letting my arms drop at my sides as the fight left me. “I didn’t come here to pick a fight,” I admitted.
“I’m not sure you know how to not pick a fight,” he said, but there was a smile spreading on his face. “What do you need, my love?”
“I wanted to say I was sorry. I was wrong yesterday, when I let Iban kiss me. It won’t happen again,” I said, watching as Gray’s head tipped to the side. He set his book back down carefully, closing the distance between us. When he tipped his head to the side, there were only two thoughts on his mind.
Either he was about to be cruel, or he thought I was about to break.
I didn’t know which reaction from him would hurt worse in that moment, knowing what I was about to do. His cruelty would hurt now but make it easier later, his kindness would be the opposite.
His steps were slow as he approached me, pausing just in front of me to lift my mother’s necklace from where it hung around my neck. He toyed with it, holding my gaze. “I know it won’t, and I appreciate your apology,” he said, letting the necklace drop against my neck again. “But that’s not what you came here to tell me, and it’s certainly not what I want to fucking hear.”
I swallowed, regretting the choice I’d made in coming to him. I couldn’t find the words that had seemed so easy when I didn’t have his golden stare regarding me.
A golden stare that I would probably only see one more time, when the life faded from him completely.
“This was a mistake,” I said, shaking my head and retreating.
Gray caught me by the back of the neck, using his grip to turn me back to face him. His mouth came down on mine roughly, his tongue forcing me to open. He pulled away just as suddenly, leaving me following after him. “Say it.”
“I hate that you made me love you,” I said, the desperate words coming out as the barest of whispers. I couldn’t deny the need that pulsed in my heart, the way that every sweet and thoughtful act of his had wormed his way beneath my skin. He might have been the devil and capable of great evil, but he also took care of me in ways I’d never had.
He showed me what I meant to him anytime he had the chance, and those moments more than anything, wore away at me until only that truth remained.
“I know you do, Witchling,” he said, his mouth spreading into a dazzling smile. His eyes lit as if I’d given him more magic than he knew how to contain, the sun reflecting off him and making him appear like the angel he had once been.
“I’m pretty sure that’s the part where you’re supposed to say it back,” I said, pouting up at him.
His grin widened as he leaned down, touching his mouth to mine far more gently. He lingered there, sharing breath with me and holding my stare. “I love you, Witchling. For everything you are and for everything you are not.”
I sighed in relief, smiling through the bittersweet pain.
A single moment of happiness to call my own before the memory became agonizing.
I pressed onto my toes, kissing him as I wrapped my arms around his neck. Lucifer wrapped his arms around my waist, lifting me from my feet and holding me tight.
I hoped he didn’t see the knife coming later. I hoped he felt no pain.
