Babes. I totally forgot to tell you that this book got 1st place in the Supernatrual category of Sunny Seas Contest! Im very proud and happy about this and wanna thank the judge of the category for chosing Deadly Sins as a winner!
I tried to answer your comments but Wattpad has so many bugs lately, so it won't let me 🫠 but I need you to know that I love every single comment I read!
After this we only have one chapter and the epilogue left... 🥲
Deep breaths, babes, I love you 🖤
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Part 61: Reminiscence
Time seems to stand still as Anya tries to process Magnus' words. With parted lips, she stares at the warlock
"I... I don't understand..." she whispers, unable to put the pieces together, unable to think.
Magnus looks at her, exasperated. "God, which part of this don't you understand—" he begins to rant but his husband interrupts him.
"Darling, please! You're not the only one who lost him..."
These words seem to be the hit Anya needs to understand what's going on. Her head snaps over her shoulder and Alec looks at her with a compassionate gaze. Wide-eyed, she looks back at Magnus whose features look a little softer, but not less crushed.
"I'm so sorry, sweetie!" he whispers. "He wanted you to be safe... they will keep him down there. Forever!"
"What... what are you talking about!"
Angry, she walks up to him and slaps the glass out of his hand. Magnus watches the glass crashing to the ground before he looks up at her.
"Kyun told me to come here. He said, he said you'd have... he... he said that..."
Her breath shakes and she realizes he never said that Magnus had a plan, he never said Magnus would know what to do. Kyun only made it sound like that... so it would be easier for her to... let him go?
"Magnus!" she yells hysterically as she realizes, with a wave of horrible sickness, that five minutes ago was the last time she would ever see Kyun. "No! No, Magnus, please! You have to... I didn't mean to...!"
"I know you didn't..." he says over her hysterical cries but she can barely hear him. It's almost as if she can feel her own heart crushing into pieces and the force of it is so strong that she stumbles a few steps back, clasping her hand on her chest, screaming as the pain overwhelms her.
Why did he do this?
Fully covered in pain, in anger, in sorrow, she collects her strength and inflates her lungs.
"Chang—" Before she can finish her desperate call, Alec snatches her waist from behind and presses his hand on her mouth.
"Sweetie, don't!" Magnus storms over to her, panic in his eyes, as her scream dies down, muffled in Alec's palm. Anya struggles to get out of his grip, kicks her legs, bends and twists her body while throwing unintelligible curses at both of them.
"Damn, she's strong!" Alec gasps and his husband calls her name multiple times.
She doesn't care, she doesn't listen. She can't live like this, she can't keep on living knowing she's the reason the demon she loves more than herself is getting tortured.
"Sweetie, listen to me!"
It's only when Magnus grabs her wrists that she stops moving, her mouth still covered by Alec's hand. "You and Kyun have a connection and when he comes, he won't come alone. From now on Kyun is under constant watch. If he shows up it won't take long before other demons follow. And they won't hesitate to kill you. Is that what you want? Kyun being trapped in hell forever after watching you getting killed?"
Of course, this isn't what she wants. She tries so hard to keep her body upright but right now it's only Alec's hold on her waist that keeps her from slumping to the ground.
Tears run down her burning cheeks as she looks at the warlock and Alec's hand slips off her mouth.
"Why did he do this?" she whimpers.
Magnus' features turn soft again.
"Because he loves you!" he whispers and lets his fingertips glide over her cheek. "That's what you do for love... that's what you were willing to do for love..."
Alec's grip around her loosens and she feels the weight of herself settling on her shaky legs. Her eyes are still locked on the warlock, pleading
"You have to do something...anything!"
Magnus and his husband exchange glances over her head and tears build up in the warlock's eyes.
"I can't, sweetie!" he replies. "There are things not even I can change..."
Till this moment she had somehow clung to hope. A small hope that they already had a plan. But Magnus' bleak face shatters all those hopes into pieces. Again, she crumples with pain and this time it's Magnus who supports her. "Listen, sweetie. He made me swear to keep you safe! And from now on you're under my protection 'cause I'm a hundred percent sure this little bastard will find a way to haunt me forever if something happens to you!"
His words sound muffled, almost as if he were standing behind a wall, as the panic attack crushes over her like a steamroller.
"Magnus I... can't...I can't breathe!"
The feeling of losing someone she loves is nothing new to Anya. On the contrary, the fear of experiencing the intensity of this pain again is what kept her from falling in love again for so long.
But the injustice Henry left her with made it manageable. In the end, it's easier to let someone go who never truly loved you.
With Kyun it's different. He's gone because he loves her. He's gone because of her.
He's gone because she sacrificed her soul for a scumbag of a man—only for Kyun to take her place. If Henry weren't six feet under already, she'd kill that son of a bitch with her bare hands.
Not a moment passes when she doesn't think about his crimson eyes, his laughter, and the way he touched her. And every single one of these moments feels like a knife thrusting through her chest, leaving bleeding gashes as deep as Kyun's were when Alistair's hellhounds attacked him.
Anya hates herself more than she thought she was capable of. Without her, without her reckless behavior, without her stupidity, he'd still be here.
With her.
He would hold her in his arms and tell her that she's safe with him. And she would do anything to bring out that little bit of happiness he was able to feel. The thing she hates the most is that she doesn't even have the chance to say goodbye properly. He left her before she was able to tell him how much he means to her. And that she's sorry. And that she hates him for making this decision for the both of them.
Magnus drugs her. They didn't have another choice when Anya started to feel the dreadful pain caused by her connection to a demon getting tortured in hell. And every time the warlock asks her if the pain is gone she lies to him. She can still feel it—indistinct. Like a thunder growling in the distance that makes her wince every other minute.
But she needs to feel his pain. Not only because it's her fault Kyun is facing it but to remind herself that all of this was real. That their love was real.
Anya tries to reach out to him by mentally tugging on the mating bond that connects them, that bond that shone so golden between them only a few days ago. And sometimes—even if she's sure she's just imagining it—she can feel him tugging back. Like a silent answer to her desperate calls.
Magnus wants to keep her here in New York for a while. For the first few nights, he and Alec had to wake her up several times because she was dreaming. Kyun told her she has a habit of calling his name in her dreams. The danger now connected to this is something neither of them can risk. So they decided to give her a potion that silences her at night. This potion is great. Because it lets her cry and scream her soul out without disturbing anyone with her agonized calls.
So focused on feeling every bit of Kyun's pain, Anya's own intense pain slowly ices over into numbness. She assumes this is her body's coping mechanism to make sure she wouldn't break under the weight of losing the man she loves so deeply. The tears that used to be as essential to her as her voice when she's on stage are gone now.
She feels nothing.
Feels dead.
And oh, how easy it would be for her to just end her life. So damn easy. But this would also mean Kyun sacrificed himself in vain. He told her to live and she promised him she would.
However, he never specified how fast he wanted her to live again. As long as she keeps herself alive, even if she doesn't live at all, she'll be fulfilling his wish...
Lost in her thoughts, she sits on a little armchair by the window and looks down at New York's busy streets. All of these people are in such a rush, so eager to get to their jobs, get things done, be busy. If Kyun were here, he would make her slow down. Would make her take deep breaths and probably dance with her on the dirty streets, make her laugh, make her feel alive.
"Sweetie?"
Her head snaps over her shoulder so fast that Magnus' hand, which he was just about to touch her with, flinches back abruptly.
"Sorry!" he says and looks down at her, his brows furrowed, sorrow in his eyes.
He misses Kyun as much as Anya does. She knows that. But she's incapable of giving him comfort. She can't even comfort herself. Luckily, Alec never leaves his husband's side.
"How are you feeling?" he asks, crouches down in front of her, and takes her hands. For a long moment, she stares into his cat-like eyes, wondering if they've grown a shade paler in the past days. Then she shrugs and stares out of the window again.
"I need you to eat—"
"I don't wanna eat, Magnus" Her voice is low and raspy.
"I know you don't!" He sighs. "My potions are good but they can't give you the nutrition you need! You—"
"I wanna go to his apartment!"
The thought crossed her mind and slipped past her lips so fast, that she didn't even take a second to reconsider how smart her idea is. Her eyes meet the warlock's again and he tilts his head, his brows pulled down flat.
"Sweetie... I don't know if—"
He stops when her cold hand squeezes his. "Please, Magnus! Please!"
She has no idea where the urge to visit that cold place again is coming from. After all, she knows there's nothing in there that could remind her of him. Magnus looks at her for a long moment until his eyes fall on the necklace Kyun gave her. Anya has no idea what's going on inside his head and she doesn't care when he nods and puts on a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.
"Okay!"
Traveling through the portal doesn't feel as hard and sickening as it did two weeks ago. Maybe it's because Alec and Magnus give Anya the shelter Kyun used to give her on their supernatural travels. Or maybe it's because the numbness has completely overtaken her body. Who knows.
In the end, it doesn't matter. Only seconds after she leaves the warlock's apartment, she finds herself in darkness. Only the huge floor-to-ceiling windows and Seoul's skyline illuminate this place.
Without paying attention to the couple, she turns on the lights and walks around the huge apartment. With Kyun gone this place looks even colder, even less like a home than it did the first time the demon took her here.
Her body feels as heavy as a stone as her eyes fall on the couch. They sat here when Kyun told her about his past, when she saw his black eyes for the first time, his vulnerability.
Wandering through the apartment, determined to discover everything she wasn't able to last time she opens a door to her right.
His bedroom.
It's just as classy as the living room. A king-size bed, dark furniture...
Her fingertips glide over the gray sheets and she restrains the urge to wrap herself up in them, desperate to get a hit of his scent. She knows the sheets will smell like nothing but softener. He probably never touched them unless he fucked someone on them. Sighing, she walks through the room to another door and opens it without hesitation.
A wave of comfort rushes through her body. Finally, something that actually feels like his apartment: His scent that lingers on all the suits that hanging here. With a shaky breath, she touches the soft fabrics. It's not the same when he's not wearing them, but they bring back so many memories. Her hand glides over the black one he wore that night they met for the first time. The red one from when they crashed the booze section in the grocery store. The blue one from when they went to that charity event. The purple one from when he got attacked by Alistair's hellhounds...
When she got in here she was determined to take some of his clothes with her for sentimental reasons. But now it feels wrong. She'd rather remember those suits on his body than laying around in her apartment and underscoring what a pathetic mess she is...
With heavy steps and a burning heart, she walks back into the living room. Magnus and Alec stand by the huge windows, the warlock's head resting on his husband's shoulder as they both stare at Seoul's skyline.
"Are you okay?" the demon hunter asks when they hear her coming. She shakes her head. She's just about to walk over to them when that framed, yellowing black-and-white picture on one of the fancy drawers catches her attention.
His mother.
Anya bites her lip as the aching pain in her chest returns. There are a million things she wants to say to this woman. That she's sorry! That she failed her son, that she never meant any of this to happen. But also what a wonderful, lovable man her son is, despite being a demon. But she resists. Not only because talking to a picture is peak-insanity, but before the words can slip past her lips, her eyes spot something. Gasping, she grabs the frame and leans closer.
This can't be.
Her shaky fingers wrap around her necklace as she stares at the same one on his mother's neck.Why would he give her his mother's necklace That was in December! Long before he was aware of his feelings.
Or was he?
"Another time I didn't see the signs!" Magnus' soft voice behind her makes her flinch. When she turns her head, he smiles softly at her. "When I saw his mother's necklace on you, I should've known..." A beat of silence. "He loved you very much..."
Five months. The feelings were already slumbering in Kyun five months ago. All the time they could've had if...
"Loves!" Anya says when the warlock's words sink in. "He's still alive! He's down there, getting tortured in a way I can't even imagine..."
She puts the photograph back in its place and silence fills the apartment. Anya is just about to ask Magnus to take her home when her eyes fall on something else. With furrowed brows, she walks over to the dining room table.
It's the book. The book she gave him as a gift.
For the first time in a few days, the immense pain creeps through her body, and her vision blurs. Big tears splash onto the cover and she immediately rubs it dry before lifting it. Crying, she looks at the damaged cover, lets her thumbs glide over the embossed title as tears run down her burning cheeks. He carried this book with him all those months. Why did he leave it behind this time?
When she opens it, a scrap of paper falls to the table. Confused, she lifts and turns it. The moment she realizes what she's holding in her hand, a loud sob escapes her throat.
"Fuck..." she cries in pain and leans against the table to prevent herself from collapsing right on the spot. This is a cutout of some kind of yellow-press-magazine. It shows him and her. At the benefit gala. On his birthday. He looks so damn good in his fancy suit. And by the way they look at each other, the deep, unconditional love they share burns between them like wildfire.
"You're so dumb!" She sobs and mentally tugs on the mating bond again. "The signs were so clear, why were you so blind, baby!"
As she stares at the picture, absorbed by her grief, the letters on the page behind it suddenly become clearer and she lowers the picture to read.
"The Tyger." His favorite poem. The one he read to her after they shared that incredible night.
Lost in her thoughts she stares at single words, unable to read full sentences, or even register the meaning behind them as the memory of them in this huge bed in paradise floats over her, pulls her under, drowns her. They were so happy only two weeks ago. Now it's all gone and he's trapped in hell and there's absolutely nothing she can do about it. She puts down the book, supports her hands on the table, and cries her heart out. Every fiber in her wants to scream until there's nothing left. All she can think of is Kyun and what they're doing to him down there and that she—
She lifts her head and freezes when a thought crosses her mind. An idea. Anya turns around to Magnus and Alec who seem a little shocked by her sudden mood change.
"I have a plan!" she gasps and the couple exchanges glances. "To save him!"
"Sweetie—" Magnus sighs but she interrupts him.
"No! No, I get that you wanna respect his wish!" Desperation fills her voice. "But this can't possibly be what you want for him. Do you really want this? Do you really want him to get tortured for the rest of his eternity?"
Magnus gulps heavily and she can see it in his face that of course, this isn't what he wants.
"I have a plan!" she repeats more forcefully. "But I need your help!"
Both of them look at her, surprised, when her eyes don't fix on Magnus, but on Alec.
The demon hunter tilts his head. "My help?"
~*~
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