My swords dangled limply at my sides. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. I knew that. But his eyes were so lifeless and cold that I needed to remind myself of that, on a loop that ran constantly in my head.

Trying to play the wounded girlfriend card I said, “I was just trying to get your attention.”

“You have it.” He stepped forward and let his sword fall to my waist. The point dragged across my t-shirt, snagging it before jumping down to the next catch in the fabric.

“We could get out of here?” I smirked at him. I had no idea what I was doing, but he seemed to respond to physical touch last time we were together.

“Are you trying to seduce me?” He laughed, but he sounded gentler.

“Is it working?” I deflected because it was kind of depressing that Seth found my efforts humorous.

“More than you realize.” He took another step forward and this time his sword dropped to his side too. We were close again, his chest heaving against mine. “I don’t know how to control this,” he whispered.

My battered heart plummeted to my stomach and I forgot how to breathe for a moment. “Why did you do this?”

Something like pain flashed in those dead eyes and his jaw ticked before he answered me, “So we could be together.”

“But will you come back to me?”

He was silent for so long, while a battle raged around us, and Shadows slithered along the wall near my head, that I thought I had lost him to the hundreds of distractions that called for his attention. Finally, he growled in a voice so low and hoarse I could barely understand him, “Hold on to me, Stella, so that I don’t have to come back to you. Hold on to me so that I never leave you.”

My soul splintered into a million pieces and tears pricked at my eyes. He displayed a dichotomy of extremes- on one side he was this vulnerable, broken man that I loved, and on the other he was quickly becoming a ruthless killer that wouldn’t recognize me anymore.

I felt myself nodding and all I wanted to do was finally confess how much I loved him, how desperately I was in love with him.

How I chose him.

But it was too late. I had chosen too late.

“Seth!” Seven called out. “We’re done here.”

Seth’s eyes took on more emotion than I had seen since before he joined the dark side and he let his free hand trail a line up my forearm. I shivered under the tenderness of his touch before he leaned in and pressed the briefest kiss to my lips. My eyes fluttered closed on instinct. Our contact was short and feather light but I breathed in the hot warmth of his soft lips for as long as I could. After only a second I opened my eyes but he was gone.

He had disappeared back into the night that he’d come out of.

I looked over at Serena and Nate who were standing there a little battered and a lot bloody. Jupiter was leaning over the dead body of the only Fallen I hadn’t dealt with tonight. His body lay at an awkward angle and his head had rolled a little ways off to the side.

It was pretty gross. But it made me breathe a little easier knowing at least one of them died tonight.

Serena looked at me and let out a whoosh of disbelief. Finally she said, “Out of everything that happened tonight, that wins the award for Most Tense Moment.” She shot me a sympathetic smile and I realized that she was referring to Seth and me.

“Is that why they left?” I ignored her insinuation and nodded at the dead body.

“No,” Nate shook his head. “You’re why they left. I don’t know how you’re going to manage it, Stella. But if anyone can bring Seth back, it’s you.”

If only I could be that confident.

Chapter Fourteen

A week later I was still reeling from my confrontation with Seth. I hadn’t seen him since, but I definitely had not stopped thinking about him. I couldn’t get the desperation of his words out of my head or the isolated indifference of his eyes flashing at me every time I closed mine.

It was like he was this shell of a being and I didn’t know which side of him to accept. Trust the words that I wanted to believe? Or the eyes that told me everything he uttered was a complete lie.

But always I would go back to those moments before he disappeared, to when he asked me, made me promise, not to give up on him.

He knew what he was doing then and how it would change him. But he had believed that whatever we had was stronger than all that.

And I hadn’t even told him I loved him.

But even without saying the words out loud, they were true.

Tristan and I had been spending a large amount of time together, just like we used to. I had scaled back with him when Seth started having such a huge issue with him. But we didn’t have that barrier anymore.

Except it wasn’t like it was before. I wondered if Tristan really had only been infatuated with me because of Seth, like his turf was being threatened or something. Now that I was technically a free, er, free-ish woman, I wasn’t as exciting anymore?

I didn’t know.

But with all my recent developments in the feelings department for Seth I had to assume this was a good thing. Life seemed less complicated at the same time it was infinitely more so.

And then there was Jude. The bane of my existence. He was miserable and intrusive. And always there.

Always.

Like right now, while I was trying to eat lunch, he was hovering. “What?” I finally shrieked in irritation.

“Just making sure you don’t choke,” he smirked. “You’re taking really big bites. Are you starving? Do you have a tape worm? Why are you eating like that?”

“Oh, my gosh,” I hissed. I felt my face start to glow from embarrassment and I stamped the instinct down- way down. “I’m hungry, geez.”

“No, I’m hungry,” Jude commented dramatically. “You’re trying to gain ten pounds before the bell rings.”

“I’m going to kill you,” I growled. My face was getting harder to control. We were surrounded by a lunch room so full that I would not be able to explain my glow worm talents to. Why was he egging me on?

“You don’t mean that,” he grinned.

“I do,” I assured him. “I mean that. Just wait until I’m eighteen.”

“Stella, if we both make it until you’re eighteen, I’ll hand you the sword.”

He said it so candidly, so loudly that I snapped my head around and gave him my full attention, quietly asking him to explain. “Why do you say that?”

Jude finally gained some sense, and looked around at the table of my friends pretending not to listen to us. He leaned in to me with his minty-cigarette scent and asked in a quiet voice, “Want to go outside with me?” He pulled out his pack of cigarettes and tapped them against the heel of his hand.

I sighed. “I guess.” He did seem to be the chattiest while he was smoking. I didn’t understand it, but I put up with it for my occasional answers.

I avoided the questioning stares from Piper and Tristan and silently got up and followed Jude out the door, tossing my trash on the way. I slipped out of the cafeteria hopefully unseen, as I didn’t really want to be connected with Jude. The entire student body knew why he was leaving early and I had a feeling the teachers were starting to catch on.

Sure, kids smoked at parties and on the weekends. But this was a school filled mostly with athletes. Jude’s chain-smoking habit was literally unheard of in this environment.

He pushed the outside door open; we stepped into a beautiful spring day. The wind was strong and cool, but the sun was brazen and hot, standing unapologetically in the sky. I tilted my head up, basking in the warmth on my face, after enduring the chill that came with our nearly windowless school building. I wondered how Jude felt about the sun. Jupiter’s stories about Jude’s youth came back to me and I suddenly couldn’t get them out of my head. What kind of kid could survive a lifetime of Darkness?

What kind of child could live without ever knowing the Light?

Jude leaned back against his favorite oak tree, in full view of the school building and anyone walking by and pulled out a cigarette.

“Got a light?” He teased, waggling his eyebrows at me.

“I’m not supporting that habit,” I replied primly. I felt like a prude. And then I hated that I was embarrassed by that. What was wrong with following rules and having a quality of conduct standard? Nothing. And I had never felt bad about it until Jude showed up.

“Why?” he chuckled. “Afraid it will kill me?”

I rolled my eyes. No, it wouldn’t kill him. It probably wouldn’t even seriously bother him before his supernatural internal organs already started to heal from it.

So I crossed my arms showing off how uncomfortable I was to be around him alone and nodded. “Yes,” I agreed just to be contrary.

“You’re worried about me?” he asked again, only this time there was actual curiosity in his voice.

In response I let out an exasperated sigh and rolled my eyes. “Why do you think we’re both going to die before I’m eighteen?’ My voice was quiet and broken, completely giving away my fear. It was frustrating, but the questions were necessary.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” he shrugged and inhaled deeply. The smoke escaped his mouth in a long stream of white. He seemed casual, but his tone was callous.

“Then why did I come out here with you?” I demanded.

“To keep me company?”

I laughed before I could stop myself. “Who are you, Jude Michaels? How did you, of all people, get roped into this contract?”

He looked at me through the haze of smoke and let out a slow breath. “Obviously, I’m the right age for high school.” There were such strong tones of bitterness in his voice, I actually took a step back.

“Is that the only reason?”

He let out a dark chuckle, “You’re not seriously trying to psycho-analyze me are you?”

“Don’t be a bastard,” I shot back quickly. I was really annoyed by his deflection, more so than usual.

“Such a mouth,” he tsked. His eyes invariably fell to the subject in question, and lingered there. I shuddered from the vulnerable nakedness I felt when he looked at me like that. My stomach was queasy; I didn’t know whether to run away or slap him.

“You don’t know me, Jude,” I reminded him.

“And you don’t know me, Stella,” he countered with his cold eyes meeting mine again.

With that lovely conversation finisher, I turned around and stomped back inside. He was infuriating. He was constantly crowding me, but the minute I tried to make our situation anything but wretched, he turned into the evil overlord I knew he was.

Tristan was on the other side of the door, waiting for me. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I sighed.

“Everything alright?” His bright green eyes were pinched with concern.

“Yeah, it’s fine. Jude was just…. I don’t know, I thought he was going to give me some answers about Seth, but he was just playing games, I guess.”

“He’s kind of an asshole, right?”

I laughed. “Right.”

Tristan’s expression became more serious and I thought he was going to warn me about Jude- again; but he had something else entirely on his mind. “Hey, so I know we have practice after school, but I was wondering, if maybe, you wanted to have dinner with my family tonight? They haven’t seen you in a while.”