Keeper of Crows (Keeper of Crows #1)(27)

“How did he sneak up on you?” he asked gently.

“I was looking for a knife or something, and I guess with all the commotion outside, I didn’t hear him. The carpet must have muffled his feet, or maybe I was deafened by the blood pulsing through my ears. It was terrifying, watching you jump up on the rail and face them all. I didn’t want you to do it alone.”

His hands found my waist and I gasped.

“I’ve never had a soul defend me,” he admitted, his voice laced with a mixture of confusion and awe. I mewled when his fingers slid under the cotton hem of my shirt and grazed my sides. Every time he touched me, an arc of electricity sparked between us, not simply attraction or even lust. And it hurt a little, to be honest.

“It does. It’s like a sting for me too,” he said softly. “But it’s not unpleasant, just strange.”

I nodded, pinching my bottom lip.

I’d never felt love from anyone. Not even my mother or father. And with men, I’d felt frantic hands and teeth tugging at my lips, been groped and fucked against walls, but whatever this was…it was new.

“Seeing your thoughts is torture,” he said, pulling away from me.

“Well then stop invading my mind,” I retorted. My arms fell uselessly to my thighs.

His jaw worked back and forth angrily. “I don’t like that men have touched you that way, that harshly.”

“It’s how things are now, and I didn’t expect tenderness from any of them. I’m the girl who uses sex to get what she wants. I don’t fuck just to make a man happy, and I’m definitely not the type a man brings home to meet his mother. I’m not marriage material, and I never will be. I’m not built for that,” I breathed against the skin of his jaw. He wouldn’t look me in the eye, wouldn’t turn his head toward me despite the lack of space between us. “But tenderness sounds beautiful coming from your lips. If you turn your head, you can show me how nice you would be.” And I wished he would, with everything in me. I wished he would place his lips on mine. Would the spark ignite us both?

He didn’t turn his head. Despite every cell in my body willing him to, he refused. Keeper blew out a tense breath and I stepped back, allowing him to breathe.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. What was holding him back?

He cleared his throat, lacing his fingers behind his head. “I don’t understand you.”

“That makes two of us.”

“I also don’t understand what happened here tonight. The Lessons have never attacked. They’ve never been coordinated before. This is a big problem.”

“Why are they attacking you now? Power in numbers or something?”

When Keeper looked up, I knew what he was going to say before his mouth opened. His eyes swirled a rich, clover green. “They weren’t attacking me. They were coming for you.”

“Why? What could they possibly want with me? I’m screwed,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’m going to be dragged to Hell one way or another, aren’t I?”

Keeper pursed his lips, his features hardening. “I won’t let them have you.”

He called one of his crows and it landed on his extended finger. Holding it close, whispering in his secret language, he gave it a message. The crow cawed once and flew behind his brothers, but instead of landing on the yard below in the gray grass, or on the branches of the dead tree, he climbed into the cloudy gray sky and his dark beak punched through the veil, like pulling panty hose too tight and having it spring back to its original form, the crow escaping through the tiny puncture.

Would I ever get used to seeing that?

“I don’t know,” Keeper answered.

I might never get used to him being in my head. At least I wasn’t shy or embarrassed. For the most part, I was an open book. It was actually freeing. He knew the real me; not the version of me I occasionally projected to civilized society.

“It’s refreshing,” he admitted. “All the other souls try to hide their inner thoughts. You don’t even try to block them.”

“Why bother? Can’t you hear them anyway?”

“I can. Souls can’t shield their thoughts. They don’t have that ability while they are healing or learning. Too much going on in their minds.”

A bubbling sound came from across the room where the Lesson fell. The feathers had begun to soften into a tar-like substance. They bubbled and boiled, reducing his body to nothing more than a slick, black puddle. Why didn’t he turn to dust like the others Keeper killed?

“Lessons are different. The demons who make them use a substance found only in Hell. It’s not tar, like on Earth. It’s a mixture of dark, tormented souls.”

Dark souls. In one’s ears, eyes, or mouth. I wasn’t sure which was worse: this ending, or one like Gus and Chester’s where a simple puff was all that remained until a bird gobbled it up.

“Neither is preferable.”

“Is there another way, Keeper?”

“There is. Souls who rest, or who learn from the mistakes made in their earthly life, have a much simpler and beautiful transition. I hope you get to see that one day.”

Pursing my lips, I stared at the puddle. “I hope so, too.”

I doubted beauty or hope could exist in this place, but at the same time desperately wanted to be proven wrong.