Masquerade (Heven and Hell #1)(72)
Author: Cambria Hebert

Her eyes weren’t open, and she was so pale and lifeless looking. I felt tears gather in my eyes.

“No!” I cried, hoarse. Gently, so gently, I grabbed her. “Heven. Can you hear me? Open your eyes.”

She gave no response as I slid the bracelet in the pocket of her shorts. “I found your bracelet, honey. It’s in your pocket.” I thought the news of her treasure would make her open her eyes. It didn’t. “Please, baby. Wake up.”

Just when I was about to break down, her eyes fluttered and she stared, without really seeing.

“Heven, thank God.” I sucked in a deep breath, trying to ease the pain in my chest. Please don’t die.

“Sam,” she whispered then began coughed, and blood leaked from between her lips.

I hugged her a little bit tighter, and I stared at the trail of blood slowly running down her face. I couldn’t face this. I couldn’t sit here and watch the only thing I loved die.

“Hang on, baby. We’re going to the hospital right now.”

“Too late,” she rasped.

“No.” I grabbed at her hand. She was ice cold. “You’re going to be okay, we’ll get through this.”

“I love you, Sam.”

Words I’d longed to hear. They pierced me to my very soul. I had been desperate to hear those words. But not like this. Never like this. She coughed some more, then gurgled. Blood filled her mouth, choking her. I turned her head to the side so that the blood could come out and she could breathe. It didn’t help.

“I love you,” I groaned, clutching her tight. A sob built up in my throat and ripped from my throat.

Her body jerked and she stared up at me. I cut off my emotion and focused on her, brushing her hair away from her face. “Easy, honey. It’s okay.”

Then she was still.

It took me a moment to understand, to realize that her eyes would never open again.

Heven was dead. She died in my arms.

Had she even heard me tell her I loved her?

A tear slid from my eye and trailed down my face. Heven was dead, and it was my fault. I would never see her smile again, never hear her laugh.

“No!” I yelled and shook her. Her head lolled around unnaturally. A sob escaped me, and I clutched her harder against my chest. The scent of death filled my nostrils. It made me sick. I turned my head to the side and retched.

Just then the car went up in flames. A deafening explosion at my back. I hunched around her broken body, trying to protect her from the heat and flying debris.

A loud clap sounded above and the sky opened up, rain pounding down around us. I let it slap against my back, each icy drop feeling like a knife.

“Heven, please,” I moaned, rocking her back and forth. “Please don’t leave me here.”

I sat there for long moments, rocking her, buffering the rain and watching the car burn, the rain doing nothing to extinguish the flames. I looked back down at her – the sight of her in my arms caused grief so deep that I knew I would never be the same again. I wanted to die right along with her.

The blood on her face was rinsing away with the heavy rain. Even in death, she was so beautiful, even her scars glistened beautifully in the downpour.

I did this to her.

If I had just stayed away from her, if only I hadn’t let myself fall in love with her that day, China would never have become obsessed. Maybe she was right after all…maybe hellhounds weren’t capable of love…maybe my kind of love was twisted and unclean just like my soul. How could I live the rest of my days knowing that because of me this beautiful, innocent girl was dead? How could I wake up in the mornings and not feel her body against mine, not hear the lazy, peaceful beating of her heart?

Before I kill China, I will make her suffer. Even a slow painful death is too good for her.

The thought snapped my head up, and I peered through the night to where I left her laying. I would just go finish her right now. The things I would do to her…

China was gone.

I should have known that she would drag her beaten, broken body away when she had the chance. I looked back down at Heven. Her lips were blue. Filled with so much grief and sorrow I did the one thing that I hadn’t done since I became a hellhound. The one thing I thought I might never do again. I prayed. I begged God to listen, not for me but for her. I prayed that she was at peace.

I prayed that loving me didn’t give her a one-way ticket to Hell.

Something hot and heavy hit my back, something from the fiery wreckage, but I paid it no attention, my concern wasn’t for me but for her. I wondered what I was going to do. Should I take her to the hospital? To her mother? I snorted at the thought. Her mother would say she got what she deserved because she was evil. I looked down. Heven wasn’t evil. She was the opposite. I brushed the blond hair away from her face. She was an angel, my angel.

“How will I live without you?” I whispered. Another tear escaped me; it dripped off my chin and onto her cheek. I brushed it away with my thumb. I paused. Something wasn’t right…

There was an intense heat at my back, almost uncomfortable. I figured that it was from the blazing fire, but now I realized that I no longer heard the angry flames. It was quiet, too quiet.

And I sensed that I was no longer alone.

I clutched Heven tightly against me and sprung up and around. I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.

There was a woman, a beautiful woman, standing in front of the wreckage, which was no longer on fire. She was dressed in an elaborate white robe, and I swear the very air around her shimmered. She looked so out of place, here, in this place of destruction and death.

“Who are you?” I asked, instinctively curling around Heven’s body.

The woman smiled. Peace wrapped around me. “My name is Airis. I am here for the girl.”

“You can’t have her!” I all but snarled, half-turning away.

“I am here for you, too.”

“What do you mean?” I asked suspicious, turning back.

“Will you come with me?” Her voice was as kind as her face. She made no move to come at us, nor did she try and lure me closer.

“Who are you?”

“Someone you can trust.”

“Not likely.”

“I can help her, but you must come with me.”

“You can’t help her. She’s dead.”

“Is she?”

“Yes,” I said, hoarse. I smelled the death on her skin; I’d felt the life leave her body.

“It is not her path.”

“Why are you doing this?” My head was swimming. I didn’t understand what she was saying, and she talked like there was hope. Hope that Heven might live. Why would she be torturing me this way?