Read Online Life Cycle by Zoe Winters - Free Book Online

yet understand that
there was no such thing as total safety in a world with so much
magical chaos. The only way she would be safe was if Cain killed
her like he’d promised. She wondered what Anna would think if she
knew he was playing both sides, giving out two contradictory
promises. It was anybody’s guess which, if either, promise he’d
choose to keep in the end.
    “Tam?”
    “Hmmm?”
    “What was it like when you died? I
mean, that period of time before you came back again? Did you go to
heaven?”
    The question made Tam’s skin crawl.
“No. Nothing happens. It’s just a void. I die, and then I wake
up—like a dreamless sleep, except when I wake, for a second I can’t
catch my breath and feel like I’m dying again. It’s creepy.
Sometimes I’m afraid something will go wrong and I won’t wake up.
I’ll just stop existing .” She didn’t want to become nothingness, she just wanted to
break the spell and get out of the endless loop she was
on.
    “Oh.”
    Yeah. Oh.
    “There’s something I should tell you,” Tam said.
    The brunette looked expectant. After a long pause,
she said, “Well?”
    “Okay, don’t hate me but... I pushed you into the
mating with Luc.”
    “That’s not true! You offered to help me get Luc’s
mark removed before I completed the final ritual.”
    Tam peeled the second peach Daria had given her. It
was something to focus on so she didn’t have to look at her friend.
“That was only after I saw how distressed it was making you. For a
while I was intent on you becoming his mate for my own selfish
reasons.”
    Anna looked like she wanted to hug her. It was the
exact opposite reaction Tam had expected. She’d been prepared for
screaming and was thankful things couldn’t be thrown at her.
    “I understand. I mean, you wanted us both to be
immortal so we wouldn’t lose each other, right? Why should I be mad
about that? Besides, I love Luc. We were meant to be together in my
last life, but I was too stupid and stubborn. Anyway, it was Cain
that made me set the house on fire and trapped me inside. At that
point I had to make a decision about where I wanted to spend
eternity. I wanted to spend it with Luc. I don’t regret that
decision. I still could have chosen otherwise. Okay?”
    “I’m still sorry. I wasn’t thinking about you when I
acted like I did.”
    Anna nodded. “It’s okay.”
    “Do you remember Henry?”
    “That bird you had?”
    Tam got up to stretch her legs. “Yeah, only he wasn’t
exactly a bird. He was a therian.”
    “Oh my god! Seriously? I changed clothes in that
room when we were teenagers.”
    Tam chuckled. “Yeah, he thought you were hot.”
    “You better be glad I can’t be solid right now. I’d
throw stuff at your head.”
    Tam grinned. Of all the things for her to get angry
about. It wasn’t being lured into mating with an immortal demon, it
was that a raven therian had seen her in her underwear. Anna was
always obsessed with the wrong things.
    “Wait... how long do they live? How long was he with
you?”
    “Centuries. From the late 1700s on. I’d dispersed
from the rest of the coven and was lonely. The bird came to me. We
were really close.”
    A lightbulb seemed to come on over Anna’s head.
“That’s why you wouldn’t come out of your house for three weeks
after he died. I thought it was a bit much mourning over a bird,
but I didn’t say anything.”
    “Well, now you know. I still see him occasionally in
dreams, but it’s not the same. He was my best friend besides
you.”
    Now she was about to do the same thing to Anna that
Henry had done when he’d died: rip up one of her anchors. But she
had to. Anna would understand in time, and she wasn’t alone. She
was surrounded by others like her, and she had Luc. It was
different.
    Keep telling yourself that.
     
    ***
     
    Cain and Luc moved through the
human dimension just outside the crime scene, invisible and noncorporeal. A s demons,
they could sense each other even if they