Rachel Vincent - Before I Wake

“I love you, Kaylee. More than I’ve ever loved anyone. More than I will ever love anyone. If I could freeze this moment in time and never have to let you go, I would do it without a second thought.”

“I love you, too.” I pulled him down for a kiss. “But maybe we could freeze the next moment instead,” I whispered against his cheek when he settled over me.

He laughed, and the sound rumbled through me, triggering fiery anticipation all over my body. “Does that mean you’re ready? You really want this?”

“That means I really want you. ”

“I’m yours,” he said, guiding my leg around his hips. I gasped, then bit my lip and stared up at him. “Forever.”

“YOU KNOW, IF we’d done that a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been a very good candidate for a virgin sacrifice.”

Tod rolled onto his side facing me, and that one stubborn curl fell over his forehead. “I always knew my sexual prowess has the power to save lives.”

“You can turn anything into an ego boost, can’t you?”

“I have a healthy sense of my own worth. But I have an even better sense of yours.”

“Aww…” I pulled him down for another kiss and chose to ignore what neither of us was saying. Losing my virginity earlier might have saved me from Mr. Beck, my incubus math teacher, but it wouldn’t have saved me from death. My time was up.

The irony there was that Tod’s wasn’t. Nash was living out his brother’s lifeline, and he had no idea what Tod had given up for him.

“Well, as much as I hate to leave—and I truly hate to leave—I have a fatal aneurism scheduled for 3:14—” He started to sit up, and I pulled him back down.

“No, don’t go… .”

“I’ll be back, I swear. Not even death could keep us apart.” He grinned over his joke and I rolled my eyes.

“Do you take anything seriously?”

“Only you. I take you seriously. Everything else goes down better with a joke—the verbal equivalent of a spoon full of sugar.” He gave me another kiss, then sat up and started pulling his clothes on. “You should get dressed, too. How much longer do you think Madeline’s going to wait for a report?”

Crap. I glanced at the clock to see that it was just past three in the afternoon. School was out, which meant Em would be coming with my books. And Tod was right about Madeline. “Come back when you get a break?” I said, stepping into my underwear.

Tod pulled me up and wrapped his arms around my bare waist. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” His grin faded and the colors in his irises went still. “Kay, you have to tell Madeline what happened at the mall. All of it. There’s no way any of us can fight Avari in the human plane if we don’t all know exactly what we’re up against.”

“But Levi…”

“Things have changed, Kaylee. This isn’t just about reaper-on-reaper violence anymore, and he’ll understand that he can’t afford to lose anyone who’s been up against Avari before.” But the doubt I saw in his eyes worried me. “Call Madeline. And you should spend as much time with Emma as you can. Avari’s gone after her before, so she’ll probably be high on his list this time.”

“So will Nash. Fortunately, he and Sabine made up, so she won’t let him out of her sight.”

“Good. I’ll check on them, too, just in case.” Tod kissed me one last time, then he disappeared and I was alone in my room, in my underwear.

I grabbed my jeans from the floor and dug my phone from the pocket as I sank onto the edge of the bed. Instead of calling Madeline, I texted her, both because I didn’t really want to hear her voice and because if she was going to not-live in the twenty-first century, she might as well learn to use the technology.

I’m fine. Got the soul. We need 2 talk. My house. 1 hr.

After that, I pulled my jeans on, then slid my phone back into my pocket, and I was buttoning a clean shirt when the doorbell rang. Styx followed me to the front of the house, where Em stood on my porch, holding my backpack. I opened the door and she marched inside, then dropped my bag into a chair.

“I was worried about you. Why didn’t you come back to school?” Her eyes narrowed and I could practically hear her focus zoom in on me like a long-range camera. “Why is your hair all tangled? And why is your shirt buttoned wrong?”

Was it? Crap.

I looked down and started fixing the buttons, and when I headed for the kitchen, Em followed me. “ And… now you’re blushing and running away…!” She cornered me next to the fridge, and her grin was huge. “You weren’t working! You skipped school to sleep with Tod!”

“I was working.” I squeezed past her and pulled two bottles of water from the fridge. “I had to stab someone and that really freaked me out, and he was trying to make me feel better, and I wanted to feel something that wasn’t scary, and painful, so…”

Her brows rose in amusement. “And losing your virginity wasn’t scary or painful?”

“Well, there was a little pain, but that’s a whole different—” I stopped and scowled when I realized she was kidding. “Why do they call it losing your virginity, anyway? It’s not like I don’t know where I left it.”

Em’s brows rose. “You’d be surprised how many people don’t. So? Details?” She hopped onto the counter and cracked the lid on her bottle.

I shrugged. “There was a hellion, and a dead woman, and a knife, and a triple helping of trauma.”

Em frowned. “Sex, Kaylee. Details about you and Tod, not the demon slaying.”

“So glad you’re keeping things in perspective.” I leaned against the fridge and sipped from my bottle. It worried me that she didn’t seem surprised or bothered by the hellion part of the story. That was probably a sign she was spending too much time with me.

“You’re gonna be around long enough to slay hundreds of demons—” the thought of which made me sick “—but you only lose your virginity once. So, spill.”

But I didn’t want to. I wasn’t done going over it in my head and I didn’t feel like sharing the memory just yet. Even with my best friend. “It’s kind of private, Em.”

“Bullshit. I told you everything about my first time.”

“Yeah, but you may remember that I didn’t actually ask you to.”

Emma frowned, and I realized I’d hurt her feelings. “Fine. Forget it.” She set her bottle down and hopped off the counter, and I had to chase her across the living room.

“Em, wait. I’m sorry.” I grabbed her arm and she stopped and turned to face me. “I want to tell you. I just… I don’t want to spoil the memory by talking about it. If that makes any sense.”

Her eyes widened and she studied my face. Then she smiled. “Wow. I didn’t think talking about my first time could possibly make it worse than it already was.”

“What do you mean?”

She laughed, but there was a bitter edge to the sound. “There’s not much you can do to further ruin a memory consisting of staticky radio music, the backseat of a Camry, and a three-minute mistake.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, Em… .”

She waved my apology off. “Forget about mine. I want to hear about yours. Whatever you want to tell me.” She reclaimed her water from the kitchen and we sank onto the couch facing each other, and I realized that she’d been waiting for this for more than a year. Since the night of the Camry and the boy who’d barely spoken to her afterward.

I made a mental note to tell Tod how wonderful he was every single time I saw him, for the rest of our afterlives.

“So…?” she prompted, leaving the details up to me.

“So…he’s beautiful.” I couldn’t stop smiling, and my stomach was doing flip-flops over just the memory of the past hour of my life, so blessedly different from the hour before that.