Rain (Into the Storm, #1)

by A.L. Woods

Get ready to show me your fire, Hellraiser. The devil’s coming home to play. And he won’t be so nice this time.

“Anything you do to me, is because I want you to,” she offered. “That is control. Whether it’s giving or receiving, it’s happening because I want it to, Nate. As long as I’m aware of that, the power is always mine—even if it’s yours temporarily.”

“It’s not too late to fix it. Don’t wait for someone else to sweep in and fix her first. Don’t let her figure out she doesn’t need you anymore, show her how much you need her because in doing so, you’ll remember to need yourself, too.”

My obstinate wife who saw the world in a color. Whose love seeped into the poison in my veins, whose presence drove the demons away. She was my light. She exuded energy and life and I wanted to get lost in that even though I knew I shouldn’t have. If I was the fire, she was the rain that tempered me. She was magnetic, a force that drew me nearer, willing to endure the consequences.

“Do you know what makes a good puppet master, Nate?” What the fuck kind of question was that? Terry ran his free hand over his cropped sandy-colored hair, took another long pull on his cigarette, the lit end glowing. Then he blew the smoke from the corner of his mouth, his eyes unyielding, yet thoughtful. “No one ever knows you’re pulling the strings. They’re made of invisible fibers that become an extension of you. One small flit of your fingers, everything changes and no one is ever the wiser that it was you.”

I had a purpose greater than me. And now I understood what it was. Someday, I would grow up to be a broken man’s reason for being. Someday, I would meet a stranger whose pain lived behind his eyes. Someday, I would realize I loved them both. And one day, I would have to choose whose heart to destroy.

“I’m jealous,” I snarled, fastening my hands to her small biceps, dragging her to me roughly. I was the fucking green-eyed monster Shakespeare wrote about in Othello, just as volatile, just as vicious.

“When we love someone, we’re willing to endure hell for them, even at the expense of our own sanity.”

Fear did irrational things to a person, it made you believe in things that weren’t real until they manifested into something bigger, something beyond your control.

I wasn’t going anywhere. No, as long as she’d have me, I’d stay with her. I’d give her everything that I had, everything that I was. And whatever she wanted? I’d figure out how to get it. I’d better myself for her because that’s what she made me want to be—better.

I wasn’t a hero. I wasn’t even the villain—I was the lesson. The final one she had to learn. You can love someone so much, and it still might not be enough. Sometimes, the truest form of love was forcing them to let you go.

That was all life was about, wasn’t it? Searching for happiness, falling in love, and building a life that you could be proud of.