Shadow Kissed 03 - Shadowman

surprised, nodded again. Though he still faced her, his eyes were drawn back to the gate. Abruptly, he rubbed a hand over his face and turned his back on the thing. Still, two angels guarded him as he started his upward climb.
    kat-a-kat-a-kat: Open me!
    Layla felt a compulsive pull, like a lash around her soul, yanking her forcibly toward the nightmare. It turned her blood cold, made her limbs feel rubbery, her mind numb. She glanced to Shadowman, who didn’t seem to have Adam’s trouble.
    kat-a-kat-a-kat: Throw me wide!
    Or hers, since she was shaking.
    â€œIt’s time for you to go, too,” Shadowman said. “This business is for me and The Order.”
    Not likely. She looked at the gate again. Its bars seethed, constrained only by the vines that wrapped around them, an occasional wicked flower here, there. That gate was made for her.
    kat-a-kat-a-kat: But it is no longer you who will die with me. Open me, save him.
    She swung her gaze back up to her black-eyed lover. No wonder he was so calm. He’d bartered his life in his deal with the devil.
    â€œBut Rose is dead,” she argued, horrified. “You won the fight.” She whirled back to the gate. “He won the fight.”
    kat-a-kat-a-kat: He won the right to die in your place. Will you let him?
    No, no, no. She’d thought this through carefully. Had it all worked out.
    â€œYou’ve got to think bigger,” Layla said, grabbing Shadowman by the front of his shirt. “I can come back again.” She hoped, upon her second death, that she could sign up to be an angel. She’d beg to return to Earth, like Custo, and work with her family against the wraiths. “And you can help Adam with the wights, while I can’t.”
    His arms came around her. “But I made the gate.”
    â€œYou made it for me!” She gestured wildly toward it. “Even prettied it up.”
    He shook his head, expression going painfully serious. “The flowers were my hope that you’d endure in that hot place, but you didn’t need them. Never needed them. You won your life on your own. You should live it. ”
    kat-a-kat-a-kat: You’ll be alone again.
    â€œShut up!” she yelled at the gate. She was finished with the alone crap. She had what she wanted, and damn it, she was holding on.
    kat-a-kat-a-kat: Throw me wide. You can have the ones you love forever.
    â€œNo, thanks,” she said. “I got a glimpse of Hell yesterday. It’s not for me.”
    Custo emerged from the gathered angels. Approached. “Going or staying, kiss him now. We’d better get started before someone cracks.” He flared his nostrils with a hard breath. “I’m halfway there myself.”
    Custo walked to the cold, dead forge off to one side. On the anvil lay a hammer and another of the black metal flowers. Probably the one she’d found in the warehouse. Shadowman’s hope that she’d endure.
    kat-a-kat-a-kat: Will you witness his destruction? Will you watch his body break and bleed for love of you?
    No. She didn’t think she could. But she still wasn’t leaving.
    Shadowman lowered his head to her ear. His breath caressed her skin. That one spot warmed the rest of her. “Layla, it is done. I beg you to go now. I want you to remember last night, not this.”
    Custo lifted the hammer. The violence of his motion sent the black flower to the cave floor.
    Layla shook her head. She couldn’t leave him. Couldn’t endure this either. That was Kathleen’s thing, endurance. Not hers. She’d been broken from the beginning. All her life. Set apart. Yes, alone. And why? So she could betray the only one who’d ever loved her.
    And he wanted her to remember last night?
    kat-a-kat-a-kat: I’ve got all your memories right here.
    â€œHelp me,” Shadowman said.
    Took a second for her to realize he wasn’t talking to her. Then she was surrounded by angels, ready to forcibly restrain her.
    â€œI’ll make it quick,” Custo promised, his voice a rasp of soul-deep reluctance.
    But Layla looked at the gate. All her memories? The temptation grew silky, twining around her soul. What she wouldn’t give for Kathleen’s memories. . . .
    â€œThe gate has her,” someone said.
    Years of happy childhood. Family. Her sister. How she and her Shadowman had first fallen in love. The birth of Talia, which now, a lifetime away, still made her heart thump