L.J. Kentowski

“Are you okay?”“Well, I’d prefer to be in my own bedroom at home, dreaming of ponies and rainbows, but since I’m stuck here, I guess I’m as good as I can be.”

“He pulled back, but only enough to lock his eyes onto mine as he held my face in his hands. “It will always be you, Cassandra,” he whispered against my lips. Then he kissed me again, much softer this time, as if gently transferring every ounce of love he had for me onto my lips. I didn’t need any words, this was all I ever needed to know that he loved me.Everything around me faded. All my worries, all my fears disappeared when he touched me. We weren’t stuck in this Hell, we weren’t even in its realm. We were in our own world, no one around to save, or to slay. God, if only we could stay here. I didn’t want to face reality, not when I had him here with me now, not after thinking I’d lost him.”

“So… what? You want me to sign my name in blood or something?”“Hmmm,” he said, tapping his finger against his cheek as he looked at the ceiling — the epitome of an overly dramatic thinker.I rolled my eyes.“Why don’t we just seal it with a kiss?” he suggested, as if the thought of it didn’t gnaw at my intestines.“Is there a Door Number Two?”“Well, I could stay at your side every second until Nergal is dead,” he answered. “And before you ask, there is no Door Number Three.”

“The silence seemed to gain weight between us, his face turned hard, and his lips became a thin, grim line. He pushed me away from him. "If I wanted to drain you, Cassandra," he said, his voice deep, "it wouldn't be your blood you should be concerned about.”

“There were no horns sticking out of his head or third eye in between his two gorgeous blue ones. There were only the most kissable lips, set on a perfectly sculpted face, telling me that he would do anything to protect me.”

“And it would be a death of the worst kind; becoming the very thing that I hunted myself, or worse. It was far more terrifying than the end of life completely. I'd rather be gone from this world for all of eternity than become a slave to Hell.”

“The subconscious mind often speaks the truth. You should listen to it once in a while. Maybe then, you would be asking me not to stop for much more pleasant reason.”

“You just happened to have a bottle of wine and two wine glasses here?" I asked skeptically.Hunter smiled conspiratorially and said, "It's a rule of mine to have it available in case of special occasions. You know, like a beautiful woman in my apartment with a desire for... answers.”

“It felt like he'd been pushing himself into my life from the very first time I dreamt of him. Ever since, my life had slowly chipped away into pieces that didn't seem to fit together anymore. I was afraid that if they ever came together, it would be far from the life i hoped it would be.”

“There was no doubt in my mind that the man next to me was the same one who had been in my visions for the last six years. He was real, and he was at Luke's buying a whiskey? I almost felt cheated. For so long, I wondered what this vision was all about, feeling that it held some deeper meaning I would someday grasp. Yet, here I was at some seedy bar and the man in my dreams shows up and orders a whiskey. Now what? Save him from dying of inebriation?”