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Dante was waiting for me when I emerged from the house with a duffel on my back. I didn’t bother walking around each room, being wistful, mopey. Though my duffel was a little heavier with the framed photos of my parents, and me, Colton and myself. I didn’t know why I took them, but I did.

I didn’t bother locking the door, didn’t look back as I descended the steps, coming to stand in front of Dante.

He was wearing his leather jacket, boots, hair tied at the nape of his neck. In the afternoon sun, he was the one who looked like some kind of fallen angel. I had not yet figured out how I was going to resist my baser instincts when it came to him. White-knuckling it was as good of an option as any.

“You can’t ride like that.” I nodded to his hands, avoiding his eyes.

He winced, though he wasn’t looking at his hands. He was looking at his bike. Apparently, the thought of not riding it physically pained him. I might’ve written that off as being overly dramatic except I understood it. In this world, in this life, there wasn’t much that was ours. There wasn’t much that was constant. We had the clothes on our backs, our weapons, and whatever we rode around the country. That was our home. If I couldn’t drive my car… I shuddered to even think about it.

So even though I was supremely pissed off with Dante right then, I found myself empathizing with him.

Which was why I said what I said next. And I was obviously having some post-divine overflow departure from sanity.

“You can ride with me.”

Dante’s eyes quickly swiveled toward me. Just like I understood his pain at not being able to ride, he understood the gesture I was making.

But I did not like, not even a little bit, the intensity glimmering in his eyes. The fucking longing.

No. Ew. No thanks.

“It doesn’t mean anything beyond you’re currently my only option to not explode or whatever it is that happens to me when I can’t control my power.” I jiggled my car keys. “It means nothing.”

You mean nothing, was what I intended to say, but even I wasn’t able to utter that lie convincingly. I was still trying to convince myself of that.

“Nothing with you means nothing, Hadley.” Dante’s voice, low and rumbly, hitting me below the navel.

That comment almost made me call the whole thing off.

Then a cruiser pulled into the driveway, a tortured man climbing out of it. My heart skipped a beat, reminding me why, somehow, Dante was the lesser evil.

Dante watched Colton approach, not moving back from me, keeping our intimate stance.

Colton glowered at him.

“Good to see you, Officer.” Dante flicked two fingers from his brow. “You look well.”

It was a lie. Colton looked like shit. His hair was a mess, eyes rimmed in red, and his shirt was wrinkled. Dark circles were smudged under his eyes, and his jaw was dark with stubble. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him so disheveled. I would’ve been surprised if he’d managed any sleep by the look of him. Then again, he had a lot of ghosts to haunt him. It would probably be a long time before Colton got a good night’s sleep.

“I’ll leave you to your goodbyes,” Dante murmured to me when Colton didn’t say a word to him.

When Dante clapped Colton on the shoulder, it was like he’d hit a statue. Colton didn’t move, except for the hardening of his jaw.

“Good to see that Hadley saved you,” Dante told him. “Sure would’ve been a shame to have to kill a mighty fine officer of the law.”

I might’ve punched Dante for being so nasty, except underneath the sardonic tone, I knew he wasn’t being entirely cruel. He generally thought, like me, that Colton was a good man. A dying breed, to be sure. Hopefully, that part of him hadn’t died the night the curse was broken.

“I’ll put my stuff in the car.” He winked at me, pulling my duffel off my shoulder to take it from me.

“You so much as scratch anything, I’ll cut off your balls,” I promised.

“I’d enjoy you trying,” he sniggered.

I flipped him the bird.

“You’re leaving.” Colton’s comment drew my attention back to him. It was an accusation. His eyes were hard as they raked over Dante, who was transferring his belongings into my trunk.

I could not watch that; it felt like I was being violated. And not in a good way.