Powerful (The Powerless Trilogy, #1.5)

by Lauren Roberts

If there is a God, this man is certainly proof that He has His favorites.

She smells of honey, of happiness incarnate. And it’s entirely too distracting.

She is an intoxicating sort of exhausting, like running until you’ve lost your breath but enjoying the feeling all the while. And I feel as though I’ve been sprinting for days. Even worse, I fear that I am, in fact, beginning to enjoy her. What a terrifying realization, to admit one’s admiration for another.

“Shh.” I run a hand down the length of her curls, feeling a hiccup jostle her body. “You did the right thing. Run to me. Always run to me.”

“Well, it sure as hell doesn’t benefit me financially,” he grumbles. “You’re getting to be expensive.”

I had never known happiness before her. But if there is to be an after in which she doesn’t exist, I know I never will again.

“But you… you’re the embodiment of everything I am not. And yet, here I am, crawling back to you as though I’ve left a piece of myself behind.”

“You make even the stars envious,” I repeat softly, leaning toward her. “Because one day—far from now—you will be up there beside them, outshining every single one.”

“You are the sweetest thing I have never tasted.” Another brush of his knuckles. “And I doubt I’ve craved anything more.”

I’ve never gotten a gift for someone. Not like this, anyway. Not something that is filled with affection, given out of wanting rather than necessity. And that’s the terrible truth of it. I want her.

Death is gentle in a way life never was.

I pray to whatever will listen. Beg with every ounce of earnestness. Offer my life for hers. And yet, it appears that nothing was listening. Nothing even cared enough to hear me out, consider my pleas. Because a branch plunges into her back.

In the end, it was all light and dark, loud and soft. I knew nothing but the memory of those I loved. One, a friend. The other, unfinished. And that alone is what I took with me into the next life. But I watched, warm and bright and high above. Just as he promised.