Catherine Wiltcher

“You’re the light to my darkness, Eve. You’re the one good, true thing in my life that hasn’t been broken or corrupted by this whole fucking business.”

Exhaling loudly, I lean over and trail a final line of kisses from one corner of her mouth to the other and then I force myself to pull away. I’m hollow with grief when I do, though. I’ll be a husk of a man without her. Eve Miller, with all her angelic light and strength, has gone and staked a claim over whatever blackened ashes were left of my heart.

“If anyone can save me, you can, Eve,” he murmurs, nuzzling upwards and into my neck.

“Look at me,” he gasps and I do just that, gazing up at those dark irises with their seldom-seen flecks of gold, so evocative of this man’s soul. Like guiding lights in a sea of darkness. “You are my everything, Eve Miller,” he declares. “If I thought myself capable of those three words I’d give them back to you, I swear it.”

I can’t resist sinking my face into her neck and filling my lungs with her. I don’t believe in heaven but if I did then it would smell like this. Traces of citrus, red wine and the unique scent of Eve Miller… All that is good and true in this messed-up existence of mine.