“How about you let me worry about that? You might be able to do a lot of extraordinary things. But, baby”—he smiled knowingly—“I was made for you, and I’m about to find all the little pieces. I’m going to search your entire body. Every. Single. Inch.” His smile grew just as my heart started to seize. “And I’m going to build the world a queen.”
And then he set about doing just that.
He kissed me thoroughly, lifting me gently onto his bed. First, he opened his power to me, pushing at me softly and encouraging mine to work with his and heal my external injuries.
“Relax,” he ordered, his lips never leaving my mouth. I pulled him tighter and let my power go.
He took it all, controlling and manipulating it until we were surrounded by our powers misting the room and it felt like floating in a sea of purple rimmed with green.
Gradually, our clothes disappeared, and when Lincoln abruptly stood up, I panicked, but he grabbed my hand, pulling me with him, and walked us into the bathroom, where he proceeded to wash all the blood from me. He took his time, and when he was certain I was blood-free, he dried me off, toweled himself down, and took me back to bed.
Lying on our sides facing each other, he swept the hair off my face and held it back as he pressed his forehead against mine.
“You have to drop your shields. You have to let me in.”
I grinned mischievously. “That was the plan.”
He mirrored my grin, but his eyes remained serious. “Everywhere. You have to drop your walls completely.”
My smile quickly disappeared and I started to shuffle back, but he held me tight. “You don’t understand. I can’t…”
His hand cupped my face. “Trust me.”
Oh, holy crap.
Tentatively, I started to lower my shields.
Lincoln shook his head, his powerful gaze never leaving mine as he said again, with more emphasis, “Trust me.”
I do.
My shields crashed down around me and I cried out in pain, tears pouring from my eyes. My body convulsed and I started to panic, but Lincoln’s hold was firm and he held me down. “Look at me!” he demanded.
My eyes flashed up even as I screamed again, and then he leaned down and he spoke into my ear. “I love you. Hold on.”
And that’s exactly what I did. I screamed as my soul’s damage was finally and fully exposed for the first time since that night two years ago. I felt Lincoln’s agony that this was what I’d become and I wanted to console him, to tell him I understood—that I forgave him. But the pain was so intense, I could only scream.
Piece by piece, he tended to me, his power working its way through me, trying to calm me. Finally, I managed to get enough control that he leaned down and risked a kiss. He must have felt confident I wasn’t going to bite his tongue off, because the kiss deepened and I felt small sparks of fire ignite in my body. Sparks of life.
“More,” I said, gasping.
“More,” he agreed.
When finally we came together, understanding was mine.
There was no fighting it anymore. We were two halves of one whole, each fundamentally incomplete without the other.
It wasn’t like the first time—all new and explorative. This was real. Understood. Fought for. Against. Lost. Now found. And so much more.
We had suffered life without each other and now it was simple: we would never let each other go again. Ever. We held on tight and dropped all the façades. All the smoke and mirrors of strength and perfection, and it was raw and needy and desperate.
At some point, my screams of pain turned into something else altogether as our powers finally merged completely for what we both knew was the beginning of our forever.
His power coursed through me, and I welcomed it as he lay back, his body shaking slightly as my power overwhelmed him. I kissed him lightly, soothing him until it settled.
Then his thumb grazed my cheek, and he murmured, “No more crying.”
I smiled, kissing him quickly before whispering, “The cold has gone. You burned it out of me. They’re tears of joy.”
And then a tear slipped down his face too.
Later, we lay silently in the dark, my head resting on his chest, surrounded by a peace unlike anything I’d ever known.
It wouldn’t be long before morning, and there was much to do with the new day, but it had been the best hours of lost sleep in my life.
Just before we drifted off, I told him, “I know where they are, Linc. I know where they’re going to take Spence.”
His hand continued to slowly stroke my arm, and I felt him nod, unsurprised. I realized that very little I did ever surprised him.
He kissed the top of my head and pulled me closer. “First light?” he asked.
I closed my eyes. Bliss. “First light.”
“Yourself—your soul—in pity give me all,
Withhold no atom’s atom or I die.”
John Keats
Coffee.
Lincoln.
Naked memories.
Paradise.
“It’s like a dream,” I said, stretching out and gratefully accepting the to-go cup.
He smiled as he held up a paper bag. I raised an eyebrow.
“It’s from a little café that opens at the crack of dawn.” He pulled two square pillows of pastry doused in powdered sugar out of the bag, smoothing the bag flat to use as a plate. “They’re famous for their beignets.”
He held one out to me and I took a cautious bite. It was still warm and the dough was more like a doughnut than a pastry and surprisingly savory, but the thick covering of powdered sugar more than made up for it. My eyes rolled back and I took a sip of coffee. “Definitely a dream.”
And I realized, feeling my body and soul in a way I had never imagined would be possible to do again, that it really was. I felt whole, undamaged, warm, content. The pain of the last two years was still sharp and vivid, but with my soul bond with Lincoln back in full effect, it had become secondary. The sensation of rightness bubbled up inside me, making a slight humming sound escape from my lips.
Lincoln chuckled, that low, adoring chuckle.
My chuckle.
I smiled sadly.
His brow furrowed with concern. “What?”
“I’ve just missed that laugh. I’m sorry I left, Linc,” I confessed.
“Shh,” he said. “I’m sorry I was such an ass when you turned up at the Academy. But things happen for a reason sometimes, even the hard stuff. I admit I never want to relive the past two years of my life, but somehow we’ve ended up exactly where we always belonged, so that makes it all worth it.”
I nodded, understanding.
I could hear people starting to move around in the house. It was time to get moving and I still needed to talk to Phoenix. I crinkled my nose, looking at Lincoln. “Do you think we should keep this to ourselves for now? At least until we get Spence back?”
Lincoln laughed so hard, he had to grab his stomach.
“What?” I asked, fighting his contagious bouts of laughter.
He took a deep breath. “Do you have any idea how much noise we, er, you, made last night? Aside from that little issue of the most powerful Grigori known to this world just happening to drop her shields completely. In a city filled with exiles.”
I blushed and bit my lip. “That was where you disappeared to,” I murmured, remembering the way he had left the room.
Lincoln was still smiling widely. “I talked to security and had them put some extra hands on external protections.” He shrugged. “I figured if there was a chance that…I wanted you protected.”
“Oh,” I said, relieved that he had been of sound enough mind to think about such things.
“And…” he added, his smile now dimming a little, “my guess is, the only reason no one beat my door d
own to see who was killing you was…”
My smile dropped away altogether. “Phoenix.”
He was the only explanation. Lincoln was right; with the amount I’d screamed as he’d mended my soul, the whole house would have heard.
But Phoenix would have felt it.
I jumped out of bed looking for my clothes.
Lincoln pointed to the chair. “I stopped by your room and grabbed a few things from Zoe,” he said.
“Thanks. God, we shouldn’t have—”
“Yes, we should have,” Lincoln said adamantly.
I shook my head. “But we should’ve waited.”
“No. We shouldn’t have.”
“But we…and he…It wasn’t fair!”
Lincoln grabbed me by the shoulders. “I’m not going to apologize, Violet. You were hurting. Do you think I was going to let that go on once I knew you were ready? Do you really think Phoenix would’ve wanted you to go on? He more than anyone would know what pain you’ve been living in. Christ, Violet, I felt it in you last night. I have no idea how you survived the past two years.”
His expression was so haunted that all I could do was nod and fall into his arms. “Okay. Okay.”
His shoulders relaxed.
“But the whole house heard us?” I asked in a small voice.
The quiet chuckle returned. “Possibly the whole street.”
I groaned.
He chuckled again.
• • •
I found Phoenix on the roof. It was the first place I looked. Maybe it was because of the shared essence that I could easily sense him—or maybe it was just because it was us, and I knew him.
He was in his usual black pants and had on a lightweight navy sweater that really suited him. His hands were in his pockets and he was looking down toward the now-quiet streets of the French Quarter.
I was sure he knew I was there, but he didn’t turn to face me.
We stood in silence for a minute, and then I said, “I’m sorry.”
I could almost feel the effort he was putting into closing off his emotions from me and it made me sad, though I understood.
“I’m not,” he said.
When I didn’t respond, he went on. “It’s terrible, isn’t it? I’d take so much back if I could. But also, I’m not sorry in so many ways. Do you understand?”
He’d found me. Phoenix had found someone he wanted to love, someone he did love. It had pulled him apart and hurt both of us, just as my love for Lincoln had. It was still there, and its effects had been both terrible and beautiful. But they had been his choices. His will. Griffin had once said it perfectly when I’d faced my choice to embrace, knowing how hard the decision was and that it must be made of my free will: he’d called it a terrible freedom. Phoenix’s love for me had been his own version of this. But he’d found his strength in it as well. His redemption.
I reached out and took his hand, and when he wrapped his fingers around mine, I could feel our connection. More than friends. More than a past relationship. More, even, than a mutual essence. We were a shared story, a history, and still…an unknown. We stood together, holding hands, looking out to the world and not at one another as I promised him, “I understand.”
After a few minutes, he cleared his throat, and I wondered if he’d been crying, but I still didn’t look. It seemed like we’d agreed to not allow our eyes to meet.
“What am I going to do?” he asked, not just me, but the universe.
“What do you want to do?”
“Apart from slaughter Lincoln, you mean?”
I almost smiled, but it was too close to the truth. “Apart from that.”
“I want all I’ve ever wanted: I want to belong.”
My heart clenched to hear the sadness in his voice—and because I didn’t know how to make that dream a reality for him.
Of course, he knew this and didn’t wait for me to come up with some lame response. Instead, he changed the subject. “Sammael wants the ultimate power over life and death. He hates Michael more than any other angel. Michael has thwarted his every plan and Sammael wants his revenge.”
“How, Phoenix?”
“By bringing Michael to battle.”
“But no angel is permitted entry to earth, not in a physical form. There’s no way an angel like Michael would do that.”
“I know,” he said. And in just those words, the way he said them, I understood.
“The link between the realms,” I whispered. Phoenix, still holding my hand, squeezed. “My blood.”
“Your blood.”
• • •
By the time Phoenix and I came downstairs, everyone was assembled in the living area, preparing to move out to the navy vessels that would become our base of operations from here on out. Steph was in the corner looking giddy. I was about to force my expression to neutral, but then I spotted Lincoln standing near the door to the kitchen, his eyes fixed on me, and there was no way to stop the smile.
Screw it! They all heard everything last night anyway.
So, in front of everyone, I strolled toward him, smiling when his eyes widened. By the time I reached him, he was smiling too. And then I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him.
Wrapped in melted honey and sunny days, I laughed at the variations of cheers, whistles, and calls to “Get a room,” but mostly, I just basked in all that was Lincoln and our love.
Finally ours.
When I pulled back and looked over at Steph, she was crying like a baby—with a big smile on her face. I winked at her. “That quiet thing really worked.”
She burst into a snotty laugh and Salvatore put his arm around her, while Gray, standing alongside them, gave them a hopeless look. But when I caught his eye, he gave me a quick wink—his blessing. And it meant a lot. He’d held me together the past year and our friendship had come to mean so much more to me than I had ever before let myself acknowledge.
“Can we please go and kill some exiles now?” Carter called out gruffly. “No wonder I never wanted to work with you people. It’s like a bloody soap opera!”
I looked over at him, smiling, but in full agreement. It was time to go and get Spence.
“They’re out on the river,” I said, surprising everyone in the room except Lincoln.
“That’s impossible,” both Ray and Leila stated.
I shrugged. “You’re just going to have to accept that I’m right. And I am. Once we get down to the river, I’ll see if I can help you see through the glamour they’re using.”
“What exactly do you mean when you say they are on the river?” one of the conductors asked.
“They have a big-ass steamboat.”
Ray shook his head. “There’s only one steamboat left in these parts and that’s a tourist attraction.”
“The red and white one?” I asked.
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Yeah, well, there is another one: it’s gray with blue trim and it’s got all sorts of bad coming off it. There’s also a helipad on the top. My guess is that’s how they’ll bring in Spence.”
I looked at Steph, who had pulled herself together and refocused. “What did you find out?”
She stepped forward. “Dapper was right. It appears New Orleans is Sammael’s city. He made it, and as far as he’s concerned, that makes him God. We believe he’s played many roles in the history of the city. He was one of Marie Laveau’s husbands, and through her, he controlled the focus of religion and worship. But Sammael is Voodoo. He used exiles and Nephilim to create illusion and influence human minds, generating belief in all of his magic. He was behind a number of terrible slaughters and massacres, and we suspect he was even responsible for the many disasters that have touched this land—the floods, the yellow-fever epidemic, the hurricanes…”
“But why would he attack his own
land?” Carter asked.
Steph nodded, happy with the question. She was turning into such a scholar. “Because it’s sinking. Close to seventy percent of the city is already below sea level and only protected by the surrounding levies. In just the past seventy years, more than seven hundred thousand acres of wetlands have disappeared.”
“He’s losing his hold on the land. It’s the natural order,” Phoenix chimed in, causing all eyes to zero in on him. I could see his weariness and understood that those who did not know him found it hard to accept that he wasn’t like all the other exiles. But for now, I was grateful that they seemed willing to listen. “The land was never intended for the air, but for the sea. It will be returned. It must,” he explained.
“But it’s not that simple,” Zoe protested. “People live here. There’s three hundred and fifty thousand in the city alone.”
“It’s the natural order,” Phoenix said again, his tone matter-of-fact.
“And since Sammael knows this too, we fear that he’ll take matters into his own hands. It looks as if he’s trying to write a new history,” Steph added.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Thank Christ,” Carter muttered, while I noted Gray had his eyes cast down contemplatively.
Steph rolled her eyes at Carter. “Sammael sees himself as a god, and history credits a great deal of destruction to God. Biblically speaking, when it comes to entire cities, cities that look like they’ve lost their way, cities like New Orleans…” She shifted uneasily.
“He’s created his own Sodom and Gomorrah,” Lincoln said, and I felt his worry surge through our bond.
Steph nodded.
I wasn’t great with my history, but I knew enough. “But those cities were destroyed.”
Steph struggled to hold my eyes as she responded. “Yes. No one was left alive. And when Sammael has what he wants, he’ll make an example and…”
“He’s going to destroy New Orleans,” Gray finished, finally joining in the conversation and looking up, his face pale, looking much like how I felt.
“Okay,” I said, trying to look for the out clause. “So what does he want?”
Steph shook her head. “I don’t know. But it will be something finite. He wants to change the way of the world. All I know for sure is that we definitely do not want to see that world.”