Free Shapeshifted by Cassie Alexander Page B

and was bleeding at a prodigious rate.
    “I was wounded too, Edie. I had to go … and heal.” We both knew what that meant for him. Killing people. Eating them. Not nice people, but still. “I didn’t leave town, though, until I knew you were going to be okay. I asked around.”
    “You could have asked me.”
    He rubbed his knees with his dark hands. “I should have. But—you know what I am, Edie. What I do. I should have never been with you.”
    “Didn’t I get a vote in that?” I asked, my voice small.
    He slowly shook his head. “No.”
    “Ti—”
    “I tried to tell you. I don’t know why I thought it could be different with you.”
    “Maybe it could have been, if you’d just given things a chance.” I didn’t want to hope that things could change now, did I? I was still mad at him for leaving me, right?
    “When we were in the back of that limo together, when you were bleeding out, and I was falling apart—you smelled like death.” He paused, and I could tell whatever he was going to say next would pain him. “And it smelled good.”
    I started shaking my head. “You never would have, Ti, never ever—”
    He cut me off without meeting my eyes. “No. And yet, I can’t deny what I am. What I’ll always be.”
    “I don’t judge you, Ti—”
    “You did once. And you should.” He shrugged softly. “It’s the right of the living to judge the dead.”
    I bit my lips to keep quiet. Anything I said now would be the wrong thing. And yet— “Why’re you here now, Ti?” If he was back for me, I wanted to hear it. I didn’t know what I’d say at that point, but I wanted to hear him say the words. And if he wasn’t back for me, well, I wanted to know that too.
    “I was out of town for a while. And when I came back, I wanted to check on you.”
    “I’m not the reason you came back, though, am I.” It wasn’t even a question. If he’d wanted to come back for me, he would have done it already.
    “No. There’s a magician here who says he can give me back the rest of my soul.”
    It wasn’t me. It was never me. Ti’d been looking for the rest of his soul ever since he’d been freed as a zombie. He had half of it—enough to keep him him—but whoever had changed him had the other half, and had used it to control him. Getting or growing a whole soul was the only way he could really die. Not just be-dismembered-die, but really die and go to heaven, where he thought he would see all his old friends. His dead wife.
    I crossed my arms again.
    “I don’t know if he really can, but he’s working on it. He has power like I’ve never seen—no, I don’t see it, I feel it. He can do magic, Edie. Like my old master. The real thing.”
    “What’re you trading him?”
    Ti’s lips split into a rueful grin. “Money. Lots of it. But I don’t need it, like I am. And if it doesn’t work, I can always get more.”
    I guessed employability wasn’t a big concern when you were immortal and didn’t always need to eat. I shook my head. “Why are you here here, Ti? Not in the metaphysical sense—why are you in my living room?”
    He wouldn’t meet my gaze. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
    “You didn’t need to talk to me to find that out.”
    “Heh.” He ran a hand through his short hair. “I guess I thought I owed you answers.”
    “You could say that. Seven months ago—you totally could have said that.”
    “I feel really bad for the way things happened, Edie.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I mean it. Not that I can pretend to know if that even helps.”
    It was the only apology I would get from him. Take it or leave it. I stared at my far wall, where a spider emerged from the corner, ran up, and, as if blinded by the lamplight, dove back into a crevice in the hardwood floor again. “I guess I should say that I’m glad for you.”
    “It’s what I want. What I’ve always wanted. I just didn’t mean to hurt you along the way. I feel really bad about