“Will you renounce the Devil?” the man in red questioned loudly. A question for me, but he spoke it to the crowd. This demonstration was for show. My answer mattered not. However, it did a fine job of quieting the lot.
“Easy enough since I have not embraced him,” I replied.
“So quick to spill your lies,” he said, rushing to add, “Let us not allow her tongue to poison our ears. We cannot save her.”
Searching the crowd again, as they yelled in agreement, my gaze caught the small girl from earlier. Her mother was poised behind her, facing her forward, holding her shoulders tight in place.
I mouthed, “Close your eyes,” shutting my own as a demonstration.
She nodded.
I winked at her, bringing a small smile as she squeezed her eyes tight. Hopefully, curiosity wouldn’t get the better of her once she could hear and smell the flame.
Still not finding Jonah or Hunter anywhere in the crowd, I turned back to the man in red and my two rather sweaty guards.
“I suppose it’s too late to request a last cup of tea then?” I asked.
No one ever has a sense of humor in these situations. The guards stared back at my inquiry, my guess warring between the complexity of the situation and if they should comply. It was the polite thing, after all. Yet however would I hold a teacup with my hands tied? It was almost cruel of me to put them through the internal struggle with my question. I watched as they argued amongst themselves, the man in red lecturing them on kindness being a weakness.
The stacks of wood beneath my feet began to shift, but I felt him even before my mind made sense of the movement. Hunter climbed upon the pyre while my captors were distracted. His tall frame blocked the sun and view of the onlookers. Those beautiful blue eyes hollowed and dark and his shirt stained with blood. He had not only been drenched in holy water, but whipped for good measure. He must have given them whatever words they wished for to be standing here before me. They would not have released him otherwise.
“Why are you still about?” I asked. “You should have sought safety with Jonah.”
“I’m not leaving you to this fate alone.”
I felt the panic rise within me as I caught his intentions. “You must get down.”
Hunter shook his head. Then he pressed his forehead to mine, smiling sweetly. “Since the first moment I laid eyes upon you, I had no desire of living another lifetime without you.”
“I would commend your romanticism, but this is a horrible way to forfeit this one. I do not wish to watch you die,” I replied.
“Then keep your eyes shut.”
Noticing I had company, the man in red yelled, “Boy, get down from there!”
Ignoring him, Hunter took my face gently in his hands and bent down to kiss me. His fingers traced down to my neck, delicate as his lips.
The noise around us erupted in calls for him to abandon me. Save himself. His soul.
How little they knew.
Sickened by our display, and likely the delay it had caused my punishment, the man finally shouted, “Let him burn with her! Let him be a lesson to all the dangers of being under the spell of one of her kind.”
There wasn’t much to argue against with that statement. I brought this fate upon us most lifetimes. Or, rather, Jonah did. But it would be a lie to claim I wasn’t front and center as well. It was the very nature of my spirit to lessen the inhibitions of those around me. While Jonah did enjoy the chaos that helped bring, I’d done little to dissuade him of it, as long as the damage was mostly to us in the end.
The guards hesitated. In their minds, Hunter was an innocent. It was one thing to set me alight; it was another entirely to murder a person. No one present had even an inkling that Hunter was a Nephilim. Which meant he must have listened and not used his spirit against them, even amidst everything he endured.
I smiled at him. “You are a good soul, Hunter.”
“Any good I feign is thanks to you. Don’t force me to stay among them. I don’t know what I might do without you.” He kissed me again.
Furious now with his weak stomached companions, the man in red yanked the torch from one, shoving it into the pyre. The sachets helped the flame take hold, filling the air with the sweet scent of roses and blazing hearth. At least they hadn’t chosen to drown me. That was my least favorite death, though this method did not fall far behind.
Trying to distract me, Hunter pressed lips softly against mine at first, then curled his fingers into my hair, pressing himself to me. The electricity of his body bore down the length of mine as he poured his spirit into that kiss. Numbing the surrounding fire, I wrapped us in his energy and mine. So that the pain was but a dull ache behind his passions.
And then I drank him down. The warm heat of his soul coiling inside me and fueling the barrier to protect him. By the time he caught my intention, it was too late. I had swallowed most of his energy—enough to weaken his body but not damage his soul—and he sank. His body tumbling from the stack of branches and out of the fire. As I heard the weight of him hit the dirt, I knew he would not survive this lifetime long, but it would be painless.
Had I let him live, eventually the energy we shared would run out. He would have felt his body waste away in the fire with me. I couldn’t have that.
I looked out, finally spotting Jonah in the alley near the tanner. He had a small smile on his face as he took pleasure in seeing Hunter’s weakness a moment before. He didn’t get to enjoy his triumph, however. Though the heat was burning and wavering my vision, the last thing I witnessed was Everly snatching his ear and yanking him down to her height. His face scrunched in pain as her animated frame lectured him, dragging him back through the darkness of the alley.
Good.
The weasel.
As I closed my eyes, my nostrils filled with smell of my own flesh charring black, laced with the soft scent of pink rose petals. I wouldn’t scream. The pain couldn’t be stopped, but I had enough will. I would not give them my voice.
Though they may have already stolen my love for roses.
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