Gods & Monsters

I knew what it looked like now—both love and grief. Two sides of the same wretched coin. “I only wanted you.”

I’d recognized theirs was a love that would change everything. A love that would break the world. A love that would make it new.

Their love had been the cure.

He knew how love could twist even the most beautiful of people, of places, into cruel and dark things.

It wasn’t poetic. It wasn’t grand or heroic or momentous, like one might’ve expected. The heavens didn’t part, and the earth
didn’t swallow them whole. These three women—the oldest and most powerful in the world—died just like anyone would: with their eyes open and their limbs cold.

But I wasn’t alone. Not truly. In life or in death, I’d have someone to meet me. Someone to love me.

“For too long, you have spoken of right and wrong, of good and evil, of facile concepts that do not exist. Not truly.” She prowled around Angelica, who waved her hand to still Elvire’s approach. “There is only pursuit, dear sister. Of knowledge. Of power. Of life

“I loved you then, I love you now, and I’ll love you after.”

Because the fire stemmed from my grief. And there is no solution for grief. Only time.

How could I have ever thought this emotion between us wasn’t sacred? This connection. What I felt for Lou was visceral and raw and pure. It would consume me, if I let it. Consume us both.

I stared at her tearstained face, chest aching. She didn’t need to convince me. I’d do anything she asked. If kissing her would stop another tear from falling, I’d kiss her a thousand times. If we survived the night, I’d kiss away every tear for the rest of her life.

Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay.

She’d whispered the words to me like a prayer. And I still felt them. I felt each one