“Do you have family?” she asked.
“No.”
He paused a moment—long enough to warn her, but not enough time for her to prepare.
“Why don’t you have a mate?” he asked.
The question froze her and pricked at her already jumbled emotions. It was cruel and honest and too painful to answer. She looked away, hurt. Angry that she was hurt.
“Not every woman wants a mate,” she said with a cool toss of her head.
He wasn’t fooled. She could feel that searching stare tracking her movements, seeing beneath the surface.
The eggs were done. Glad for the distraction, Lilly added toast to the plates and handed one to Alex, taking the other for herself. He gave her a quizzical glance, but didn’t repeat his question. Somehow, she managed to hide her relief.
They sat at the small table in the kitchen and ate in silence, avoiding each other’s eyes. There’d been no dinner the night before and they were both hungry. Lilly caught herself wolfing her eggs and made an effort to slow down, but Alex shoveled it in at the same pace, unaware of her inner etiquette lecture, so she just let herself eat.
Her anger drained as she filled her stomach and by the time they’d both finished, she was ready to move away from the emotional volcano and tread on safer ground.
“Why can’t humans know about the Beyond, Alex?” she asked as he pushed away from the table. “Why is it so important to keep us in the dark?”
He shook his head, eyes at half-mast. But she felt the tension running through him. It ignited a fuse inside Lilly that was already too short. He’d either deflect or evade. He didn’t trust her. He didn’t know her. She didn’t know him either, regardless of the fact that her body craved his like it did air and water.
“Never mind,” she said. “Forget I—”
“The walls are coming down, Lilly.”
The darkly murmured statement made her mind stutter to a halt. “The walls between heaven and hell?”
“The walls between heaven, hell, and earth. The walls that separate the hallowed from the cursed. The walls that keep all the monsters in hell’s bowels contained.” He stood and moved to the fireplace. For a moment, he stared at the glowing embers before he bent to add more wood.
“They’re finding ways out of the Beyond even now. Slipping through cracks, easing through doors that shouldn’t even exist. You want to know how hellhounds made it to your backyard? That’s how. If humans were to find out, there’d be chaos.”
“There’s already chaos, Alex. Maybe you can’t see it from up there—,” she waved her hand in the air, “—wherever the Beyond is, but there’s plenty of chaos. Humans are a mess.”
“Not like this. My world is about to implode, and when it does… I fear for you. I fear for all of God’s creations.”
“Why is it going to implode? What’s wrong with it?”
“You mean aside from the demons?”
“Well, haven’t they always been there? What’s changed?”
He thought before answering. Alex wasn’t a man who spoke without thoughtful consideration. Sometimes she could almost see him censoring his words, omitting and revising as he went. But right now he just seemed to be searching for the right words, not the safe ones.
“The Beyond has become a dumping ground. Your filth. Our filth. So many condemned and unredeemable souls. There’s no safety valve. No way to release the pressure or dispose of the overflow. There’s not room for anything else. Not anymore.”
“What about God?” she asked.
“God has you. Why would he care about the trash?”
She swallowed hard, hating the pain she heard in those words, pain that echoed in her soul. That’s how she’d felt when she’d learned that her own mother had abandoned her—discarded her like trash when she was too young to fend for herself.
He seemed to realize how much he’d revealed. Frowning, he turned away. “All I know,” he said abruptly, “is that something happened in the Beyond and now there are hellhounds on earth. Who knows what else is here that shouldn’t be?”
Questions filled Lilly about what he’d said, about what it meant to humans and the world she lived in. But the question that rose to the surface, the one demanding an immediate answer, was much smaller and, at the same time, so much larger. This was Alex’s world he spoke of. The place he called home.
“And for you?” she asked softly. “What’s it like for you, Alex?”
He heard the tremble in her voice. The sympathy. The hurt. She knew it by the way he stiffened, the way his fingers curled into his palms and his muscles tightened—all defensive reactions. But he couldn’t defend himself against the feelings she’d stirred.