DARK SOULS (Angels and Demons Book 2) (13 page)

As soon as Stiles left the room, Dylan pressed a hand to Wyatt’s chest, her healing magic looking for the deep source of Wyatt’s pain.

“Don’t,” he groaned, trying to pull her hand away, but too weak to do it.

“I’m not healing you,” she said, “I’m just taking some of the pain.”

He laid his hand on the back of hers, a slow groan slipping from between his lips. “I remember that warmth, the way it felt when I healed you with my touch.”

“Do you?”

“It always reminded me of sitting by a campfire, holding my palms out to the heat.”

Dylan nodded as she, reluctantly, stopped. Her hand slid slowly over his chest to his abdomen.

“I could fix this.”

“And it will come back, even faster.”

“I could keep healing it; I could help you live for decades longer.” She pressed her forehead to his again. “Every day, I could heal you.”

“But that’s not the way it’s supposed to go.”

A sob slipped from Dylan’s lips. Wyatt slid his arm around her waist, pulled her with what little strength he had against him. She laid her head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat as she had millions of times in the past.

“Do you remember when we first met?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“You stood there, stark naked but completely unconcerned. Like it was normal.”

“You didn’t seem to mind.”

“I had seen naked women before. But you…I had never wanted to touch a woman as much as I wanted to touch you. And that never went away.”

Dylan ran her hand slowly over his belly. “I thought you were an ugly woman.”

He made a sound like a chuckle, but it turned into a harsh cough. Dylan sat up and pressed a towel that happened to be sitting close by to his mouth. When the spasm passed, she curled up against him again.

“I told myself the only reason I took you with me was because my dad pounded into me how important it was to keep an eye out for a blond girl wandering outside of Genero. But that wasn’t the real reason. I just wanted to get to know you. Even before we touched the first time, before we kissed, I knew there was some connection between us.”

“I was so jealous when you flirted with Ellie.”

“I was only trying to get your attention.”

“I know.”

She could feel him growing weaker. He was quiet for a few minutes and it was only the sound of his heartbeat that kept her from panicking, from believing he had left her already. She didn’t want this, she wasn’t ready. She wanted another twenty or thirty years. She wanted another lifetime.

“Josephine needs you.”

She felt his guilt as the words left her mouth, felt his grief. She regretted it even as she hoped it would make him want to stay.

“It’s time, Dylan.”

“I can’t—”

“You need to let go of me. I’ve known it for years now. I knew it when the angel disease raged through the communities.” He paused, sucking in breath. “Our connection is broken.”

“Just the angel stuff. We still love each other. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“You,” he touched her face and raised her head so that he could see her eyes, “special, so special. It’s selfish to keep you to myself.”

“This is what I want.”

“But…so much bigger…than just you and me.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

He leaned forward and kissed her lightly. The movement made him cough again, a touch of blood coming away with his sputum. She wiped it away, her heart breaking as she felt the damage the cancer was doing to his body. It was growing so fast, unnaturally fast, as though it were catching up on the time it had lost with each healing.

“I don’t need to be an angel; I don’t need to save the world. We could go somewhere, just the two of us, and live on a beach, or in the middle of some desert. We could go for walks every day and talk about your Western novels and the past and anything else you want.”

“That would…” He sighed. “Perfect.”

“Let’s do it, Wyatt. You promised me.”

“Where you…” He choked again, a little more bile coming up. She wiped it away, tears blurring her sight.

“Where you go, I go.”

A smile twisted the pain-filled grimace on his face into something else—something almost normal. But it disappeared almost as soon as it had come.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “Not this time.”

Tears rolled down Dylan’s face and dripped from her chin to stain the thin t-shirt over his chest. “I love you,” she whispered. “It’s always been you and me; there’s always been a connection.”

“Always will be.” He wiped the tears from her cheek with the back of his hand. “Just…different.”

She shook her head, pressing her lips to his chest to smother a sob. He touched her again, his hand sliding up her back, but so much weaker than before. He was going fast, too fast. She needed to stop it, needed to heal him so desperately she could feel the warmth of the power on her fingertips.

But she didn’t.

“Stiles…”

She sat up, rubbing tears from her face. “Don’t. He’s not important.”

Wyatt nodded his head, weakly, but determined. “Is.”

“Wyatt—”

“He will help.”

The pain was back. She could see it in his eyes, and could feel it radiating from his chest. The cancer had grown, not just the nugget she’d felt in his abdomen weeks ago, but many nuggets, in his chest, lungs, liver, intestines, and even his kidneys and bladder. It was choking him, shutting down his organs and forcing him to drown in his body’s own poisons.

She pressed her hand to his chest, determined to heal him despite his words, despite the fact that she knew he didn’t want it. And he didn’t stop her—he couldn’t stop her. He was so weak that even his thoughts were a jumble she wasn’t coherent enough to unscramble.

But she didn’t.

“I love you.”

He closed his eyes as his body slowly gave up the fight. As it did, his soul grew stronger. And his soul still had so much to say.

I let you down,
he whispered in her mind, his voice was the voice of the young, nineteen-year-old kid she’d met in the desolate desert outside of Genero.
I let them pass that stupid law to kick you and Stiles out of the cities. But I only did it because I thought it would be the push you would need to step up and take the role you were meant to fulfill. I’ve known, Dylan, I’ve known all along that you were meant for so much more. And I never meant to hold you back.

She shook her head, tears again flowing freely. “You never held me back.”

I did. I showed you what it was like to be human, and that was what you needed. Then. But now, now it’s time to be an angel, to watch over humanity and do so much better than Lucifer ever could. It is your time, my love. Yours and Stiles’.

His heart slowed, and then stopped. She lay with her ear pressed to a chest that would no longer offer her the comfort it always had. She watched his soul part from his body, and saw her Wyatt, the Wyatt she’d fallen in love with, the Wyatt she’d raised her child with. He was happy—free of pain and the burdens of day to day life.

I will always love you,
he said.
And we will always be connected. But I’m not your soul mate. Maybe I never was. Stiles is and he will make you stronger. It’s okay, Dylan. You aren’t betraying me; you’re simply being who you were meant to be.

She couldn’t speak. Her heart hurt too much; her throat was swollen with tears. She nodded, and then buried her face in his quiet chest. She didn’t want to see him leave. But she felt it. She felt him move away from the house, the city, and then felt him float high into the sky. She felt the moment he reached the gates of heaven, and the moment he was greeted by all those he loved who had left this world before him. Jimmy was there, Rebecca, old friends from the resistance, and friends he’d made in the forty years they’d lived in this city. And he was happy.

She clung to that. She clung to the idea that he was safe and happy where he was.

The funeral took place the next day.

Stiles stood under the trees and watched as Dylan and Josephine said their goodbyes. Josephine cried on her mother’s shoulder, no longer angry for what Dylan wanted to do and couldn’t. After Wyatt died, Stiles slipped into Josephine’s room and gave her a false memory. He’d made her believe that Wyatt had told her he was ready to go, and that she would be okay without him. It seemed to give her some comfort as she grieved.

He wished he could do the same for Dylan. But there was no easing her pain. She walked around as if she were on autopilot, aware of her surroundings, but not really aware. She didn’t sleep and she refused to eat. She sat with his body for so long that Stiles had to wrap his ethereal form around her and remove her in order for Harry to take Wyatt to the hospital morgue. The moment he released her, she went back to the bed and curled up with his pillow against her face, the scent of him offering her as much pain as it did comfort.

The whole town turned out for the funeral. Stiles saw faces he’d never seen before bathed in grief. And familiar faces. Harry and all of his children were there, their spouses and children too, and the family surrounded him with support and unconditional love. Matthew was there. Members of the council. Everyone respected Wyatt. They understood him in a way they had never understood Dylan. Or Stiles. Wyatt was one of their own.

As the funeral broke up, Dylan stepped to the box that held Wyatt’s remains. For a long minute she just stood there, staring down at the heavy, wooden lid. She didn’t drop the flower she clutched in her hands, she didn’t say anything—she didn’t move. She just stared at the box so quietly it stirred fear in Stiles’ chest.

“Mom.” Josephine walked up behind her and touched her shoulder. “We should go.”

But Dylan just stood there.

No one knew what to do. Other mourners stood there watching her uncomfortably, aware of a new group of men who’d come to the cemetery. Even Stiles didn’t realize at first what this new group of men wanted. He was too lost in Dylan’s pain. But when he did…

“You didn’t.”

Josephine looked over at him. “You have to make her understand. Daddy’s gone now. He knew—”

“Her husband just died. You’re seriously going to banish her at his funeral?”

“Jo,” Matthew said, disbelief on his face, too.

“It’s not up to me.” Josephine touched Dylan’s shoulder. “Really, Mom, if I had an option, I would have made them wait.”

“You can’t do this,” Stiles said, anger so intense that his sword popped into his hand without conscious thought. “This is her home, her family. You’re her family.”

Josephine stepped back. “This is the way it has to be,” she said, false courage in her voice.

“Not today.”

It was turning into something of a standoff. Stiles raised his sword and the new group of men rushed around him, blocking him from Josephine. When he made a threatening gesture toward one of them, another one punched him squarely in the stomach, hard enough to knock the air from his lungs for a second. But he recovered quicker than any human would, slicing downward with his sword. It would have connected with the man’s shoulder, would have sliced him nearly to the sternum. But Dylan was suddenly there, her hand catching the top edge of the sword so that it was deflected.

“Stop. I won’t have you do this here.”

“Dylan, they’re trying—”

“I know.” She turned to face the group of men. “We’ll go. But I’d like a moment with my daughter.”

The men looked at each other, clearly confused. But then they parted and Josephine stepped forward.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” she said, tears sliding slowly down her face.

“I know.” Dylan kissed her face gently. “Take care of yourself. Take care of that baby. I will see you again soon.”

Without waiting for a response, Dylan turned to Stiles and took the sword from his hand with a flick of her fingers. Then she slid her hand into his.

“Let’s go.”

He didn’t even have to think about it. In an instant they were gone, standing in a grove of trees behind an overgrown ruin that had once been an out-of-the-way motel. Dylan knew it; he could see it in her face. But then a stab of pain rushed through her and she disappeared.

Gone. Just like that.

He followed, as he always did. It wasn’t in him to let her be alone in her pain.

She went to a river that he didn’t at first recognize. It had changed over time; the water had eroded more of the shoreline from a little more than forty years ago. But he knew what it was after having seen her memories play over and over again in her head.

This was where they’d met.

Dylan jumped to her feet, searching the ground for her knife, her heart pounding at the sound of another voice—a deep, unfamiliar, human voice. Too far away. Her knife lay shining in the sunlight, close to the branches that still held her drying clothes. And behind that, closer to the weapon than she was, stood an odd-looking stranger.

“Who are you?” she demanded, her eyes flicking once again to the knife.

The stranger followed her gaze, a slow smile slipping over full lips.

“I could ask you the same question.” Blue eyes, as deep and clear as the sky, slipped over the length of her bare body. “Not wise to walk around naked in this place.”

“Why not?”

A dark eyebrow cocked, rising high on a deep bronze forehead. “Because someone like me might come along.”

Dylan shrugged, allowing her eyes to move over the stranger as those blue eyes had moved over her. The first thing she noticed—next to the alluring blue eyes, the strong, heavy jaw, and the long weapon strapped over a breastless chest—was a lack of curves, of the rounded hips that marked most girls of her age. The stranger’s hips were straight, thick, and a belt that held yet another weapon was lying there without the tight cinch of a waist. The stranger had to be her age, or maybe a year or two older, if height told her anything. But there were none of the signs of maturity that marked a high-level adolescent’s body.

“What’s wrong with you?” Dylan asked with real curiosity in her voice.

The stranger stepped forward and reached toward the knife. Dylan stepped back slightly, her heels sinking into the moisture of the sand at the water’s edge. She had nothing with which to defend herself, nothing to keep the stranger from using her own knife to end her life. Her heart began to pound and she felt the odd breeze settle over her again, stirring the heavy, wet strands of her hair. Together, Dylan and her invisible friend waited to see what the stranger would do. Instead of touching her knife, the stranger picked up her clothing and tossed it to her. “Get dressed,” he said as he moved back toward the trees, “and we’ll talk, Genero.”

“How do you know I’m from Genero?” she asked.

“Because…” He turned and gazed at her for a moment longer, his eyes lingering on her hips and her breasts. “You’ve never seen a man before.”

Stiles had lingered around her then. He’d tried to warn her with his presence and his thoughts as she assessed Wyatt…he knew Wyatt was bad news the moment he saw him. Something about him…but now he knew he just sensed that Wyatt was something special for Dylan and that he would change her life. He was afraid of any outside influence back then. But now…he was grateful Wyatt had given Dylan everything he had. She wouldn’t be who she was without him, just as Stiles wouldn’t be who he was without Rebecca. He just wished neither of them had to say goodbye.

He lingered now, too, letting her know he was there with the wind of his movements. But he stayed invisible—off the radar. He didn’t want to interfere. But he had to keep her safe.

She lay curled on the ground, barely moving for hours and hours on end, her skin burning in the heat of the day, healing itself as the cold of the night air brushed over her. Again and again, she healed herself even as the sun and lack of water and food, took its toll on her fragile, human body. He’d done the same thing, he remembered, walking for a decade in the desert after Dillon had died—before Dylan saved him, and before he’d escaped the fate Stiles had watched him suffer all those years ago. And he’d walked after God called the angels home and had forced him to stay; he’d walked until Joanna had found him.

He couldn’t blame Dylan for her pain, for her inability to cope. But the longer she lay there, the more he worried that she would never pull out of it.

He scared wild animals away and kept the area safe for her. He touched her at night to repair the damage that her natural healing powers couldn’t, or wouldn’t, keep up with. And he waited.

He waited. He didn’t know what else to do.

Raphael handled the demons with his legion arriving whenever they received news of them, and fought them the best they could with the tools they had. They weren’t making progress in this war, just keeping it under control. They needed Dylan to come back, to lead this war.

Weeks passed. Then months.

A wild boar came. Stiles lay his ethereal form over her and protected her from its gnashing teeth and stabbing horn. She never moved—never acknowledged any of it.

Her thoughts were so filled with grief that images of Wyatt were all Stiles saw when he tried to hear her thoughts. But, slowly, thoughts began to filter in again. Angry thoughts. Why did he have to die? Why did he leave her? Why didn’t he agree to their plan? Why did he agree to have her banished? Didn’t he love her enough? Did he love her as much as she’d loved him? Did he still love her? Would she see him again?

And then her thoughts began to focus on more than Wyatt.

How was she supposed to stop the demons? Why did God give her these gifts and not teach her how to use them? Why did she have to be the one? Why did she have to be the savior? Why couldn’t she grow old and die with her family like the others who came out of Genero with her? Why couldn’t she be like Donna?

Stiles listened to her hurts, her fears, her anger…and waited.

Then, one day, she sat up. She crawled to the water’s edge, cupped the water and splashed her face with it. Then she lay back down.

The next day, she actually drank some of the water.

And then…

“I know you’re here.”

I’m always here.

“Come sit with me like a normal person.”

“But I’m not normal.”

Stiles settled onto the ground behind her, taking a chance by wrapping his arms around her shoulders. She didn’t pull away. She didn’t object. In fact, she leaned back into him and shuddered, a low sob slipping from between her lips.

“You’re going to survive this.”

“I don’t know. It hurts so much.”

“I know.” He kissed the top of her head. “And it will continue to hurt. But you are strong, Dylan.”

“I wish I believed that.”

“You asked me a question before all of this. You asked me if I loved you.”

“I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything that happened before.”

“You do. You remember the moment you met Wyatt. You remember every minute of the forty-three years you spent together.”

She nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks.

“You remember that he loved you so much that he wanted to let you move on. That he wants you to become what you were meant to be.”

She nodded again, not even angry that he had listened to her final moments with Wyatt. He kissed the top of her head again, wanting so desperately to offer her comfort.

“He gave you something Lucifer never had. He gave you a human existence. He gave you a perspective that you will carry with you for the rest of your existence. He gave you a gift, Dylan. You can’t waste that gift.”

“It hurts.”

“I know.”

They sat quietly for a while, drawing comfort from one another even as they both realized that there was no comfort. How do you find comfort for something that was overwhelming, that was unimaginable?

“How can you love a child you helped raise?”

Stiles ran his hand slowly down her arm. “You were never a child to me. Not really. You were always that calm, confident girl who came to me and begged me not to kill Wyatt’s mother.”

“But you saw me as an infant.”

“I was there when you were born.” He drew her head closer to his chest. “I was there when you took your first steps and when you said your first words. I was there when your abilities began to manifest, and when it was most important to hide you and to protect you.”

“And you were the kind cook who snuck me a glass of milk every once in a while.”

“It’s been sixty years since you were born. I’ve known you longer as a grown woman than as a child.”

“When did you fall in love with me?”

Stiles groaned. “That’s a complicated question.”

“I know.” She sighed, pulling away from him just to turn toward him and to touch his face. “I know this is what is meant to be. I know you are my soul mate.” Her eyes fell to her hands where they rested against his chest. “I know this has been difficult for you.”

“You change the rules, Dylan. I’ve never known of an angel that went more than a few seconds without a soul mate. Once one mate died and another match was identified, the connection was instantaneous. But you…this freewill thing really sucks.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. I wouldn’t change this fate for anything.”

A smile slipped out as she rested her head against his shoulder. “I know I wouldn’t be who I am without you. You have always been just as important to me as Wyatt was.”

“I love you,” he said quietly. “I’ve always loved you. And, yes, it’s like the way I felt for Rebecca, but different—bigger, somehow. We’re connected in a way I could never have been connected to Rebecca. And, as much as I still love her…you…it’s different with you. Not just because of the soul mate connection, but there’s more, something I can’t even begin to describe.”

“I feel it too.”

Stiles nearly gasped, so caught off guard by her statement. He had never been sure how she had felt, had never been able to trust what he thought he heard in her thoughts or felt in her emotions. But now…

“You have to give me time, Stiles. I know this is right, I know this is where I am meant to be. But it still feels like a betrayal.”

“Okay.” He ran his hand over the back of her head, stroking her with the gentlest of movements. “I told you once before. I’m a patient man. I can wait as long as you need me to.”

“Thank you.” She nuzzled against his neck for a second. “I guess we should get back. Work on this demon thing.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

But they didn’t move for a while. They just sat there, holding each other, and finally walking over a line Stiles had never been sure they would cross. It gave him hope and filled a hole that had been sitting in the center of his soul for a long, long time.