Endless (37 page)

Lincoln cried out. Not with pain, but overload.

His hand grabbed the side of my face, pushing my hair back, his eyes blazing green.

‘You’re incredible. I can feel your power and it’s more than anything I … Violet,’ he swallowed, watching me in awe. ‘It’s like … It’s like you’re as powerful as an angel.’

The words
were momentous. But even so, I was restless. His strength was coursing through me, daring to be tested. I smiled and with barely a thought, flipped him over so fast I surprised us both.

He approved.

Then he pulled me down to him, closer and closer until it was impossible to tell where one of us began and the other one ended. And I didn’t want to. For once in my life I was exactly
where
I was supposed to be,
who
I was supposed to be and
with whom
I was supposed to be.

I nestled into the crook of his neck, breathing in everything that was him and found the ability to talk for the first time since he’d pressed his lips to mine.

‘I love you, too.’

He planted kisses on the top of my head. I was in heaven.

Me. Violet Eden. Grigori. Child of man. Child of warrior. Child of angel. Above all else – I was his.

And he was mine.

CHATER TWENTY-NINE

‘I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach …’

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I
lay
on my side, a huge bowl of strawberries and a ripped-open packet of pancakes in front of me and a still-shirtless Lincoln wrapped around me. I wasn’t sure if what I felt was his power, our souls, or just … the afterglow of everything we’d just done.

I popped a strawberry in my mouth then grabbed another, holding it up to Lincoln. His lips closed around my fingers and I felt heat rush through me again. We’d been doing this for a while. In fact, I was full. Not that I was about to stop.

‘Is it clichéd to say we were crazy to have waited this long?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he replied and I back-elbowed him, but he just used the movement to pull me closer. ‘Though I’m starting to think you’re right,’ he added quietly.

I smiled. He kissed my shoulder.

‘How’s this for clichéd: I love you with everything I am,’ he whispered.

I snuggled
into his arms. ‘I love you, too. So much that I’m not even going to ask how much practice it took you to get so very good at …’

He chuckled into my shoulder and I shivered, considering whether I had enough energy to suggest a rematch.

‘No, we are not having that conversation. Nothing I have ever done with any other girl would ever compare to what we are to one another, Vi. And anyway, there’s a big difference between sex and–’

I put my hands over my ears. ‘La, la, la!’

His eyes lit up as he rolled me onto my back. ‘What?’

I lowered one hand. ‘Please don’t say what you were about to, it sounds so …’ I shivered. Daytime soapie, I finished in my head.

He chuckled again. ‘Well, you know what I meant and anyway, there are other things I’d much rather be saying to you right now.’

I wiggled around in his arms to face him, my fingers grazing his cheek. ‘Would it have anything to do with the bruise that was here earlier?’ It must have healed at some point, probably when our powers joined. But I hadn’t forgotten.

‘I’d rather not talk about that either,’ he said, sounding guarded for the first time that evening. I felt it too, through our bond, his contempt towards Phoenix but also something else, some kind of clarity I couldn’t understand.

Is he blocking me?

‘How bad was it?’ I asked. It didn’t take a genius to know he and Phoenix had fought.

He shrugged, refocusing his attention on his hand travelling up and down my arm. I shivered with goosebumps. ‘It was better to get it over and done with. And on this one occasion, it was probably justified.’

Well, that can only mean one thing.

I bit my lip. Phoenix had known what he was leaving Lincoln and me to tonight.

‘Was he okay?’ I asked.

‘Vi,’ he sighed. ‘Phoenix and I will never get along. And if I didn’t have you in my arms right now, I wouldn’t be able to say this but … his love for you is real. I think his desire to be the man he ought to be is what’s driving him now. And I think you’re the person that gave him that desire to begin with. It doesn’t excuse what he’s done. He should be held accountable, but, I do
get
some of the things.’

I did, too. ‘But you guys still had to hit it out?’

‘Just a little venting.’

‘Feel better?’

His eyes travelled down my body and he grinned. ‘Considerably.’

I rolled my eyes, even if my smile did betray me. ‘So, if not that, what did you want to say then?’ I asked, getting back to our previous conversation.

He took a moment, his fingers playing with loose strands of my hair. ‘I want you to know: you’re it, everything I want. I know you think I want to be this warrior, and yeah, it’s important on one level, but what you and I have – what we are …’ He shook his head slowly, holding my gaze. ‘Nothing else comes close.’ He kissed me, and the last part of me that hadn’t
completely
liquefied, melted. When he pulled back, his fingers brushed over my lips. ‘No matter what happens tomorrow – no matter
what
– tonight was exactly what I wanted and for all the right reasons. For you. Because I love you.’ His gaze grew intense as he stared into my eyes. ‘Promise me, Vi. Promise me you will always remember that.’

‘I
promise,’ I vowed, my voice hitching on something – the way he was looking at me.

He smiled, and dropped back onto his pillow stretching out. ‘It’s amazing. Like my whole existence, my body, my soul, everything now finally
gets
it. We’re together and I’m finally alive. I can feel you, reach you, know you in ways I never imagined possible.’ He demonstrated this by opening our connection and as easily as spreading butter on toast moved his powers through me, drawing us together.

‘Scary?’ he asked, watching my reaction.

I moved even closer, hating that I was mere centimetres away. ‘No way. It’s perfect. Beautiful.’

I kissed a line along his jaw and his arms encircled me again.

‘If I ask you to do something for me tomorrow, would you do it?’

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Trust Phoenix. I can’t tell you exactly how I know – I just do.’

‘Did you two discuss anything else I should know about?’ I asked, studying his eyes. He was holding something back.

He put a finger under my chin and gently tilted it up to him. ‘Vi, promise me.’

He poured all of his heart into the request. Whatever this was, it was seriously important to him and I just couldn’t bring myself to deny him anything.

‘You
do realise that’s the second promise you’ve asked for in a very short space of time?’

He smiled. ‘I do. But after this, I can
promise you
there will be no more talking.’

‘I promise.’

When we finally dragged ourselves out of bed, it was mid-morning – even though we’d only had a few hours’ sleep, it seemed pointless to waste any of our time together. I made coffees. Lincoln scrambled eggs and we moved around each other in our familiar pattern that was now so altogether different. And utterly delicious. We were adjusting to our soul bond – the feeling of complete and total connection with each other.

It felt as though we were in a constant dance.

Lincoln was fairly certain he would no longer need his silver wristbands, saying that his senses would now flow from me to him and be stronger than anything he’d experienced before. It was heartbreaking to know we’d never get to spend time testing the theories.

We ate our breakfast outside in our rocking chairs with blankets over our knees.

‘We should probably call Griffin. Steph and the others should be in the country – or at least on their way by now,’ I said, absent-mindedly running through my mental check-list, while my eyes roamed over Lincoln – a different check-list.

He smiled, and not because of what I’d said. I blushed and poked my tongue out at him, which only made him chuckle.

It’s a weird
thing – knowing the end is near. You think it will be all panic stations, but … There’s relief. And a certain quiet. You can finally be yourself.

‘Seriously,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘Okay. Yes, we should call Griffin. But there’s no point doing that yet. We’ll call an hour before we leave.’

At first I didn’t understand, then it dawned on me. ‘You think he’ll try to stop us?’

Lincoln reached over and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind my ear, his hand lingering. ‘Either way – it’s too cruel to put him in the position to choose. If he lets us go, he’ll feel like he’s sending us to our deaths. If he forces us to stay, he’ll blame himself for whatever happens to those kids.’

He was right. Griffin was the master of self-blame. I decided it was Lincoln’s call to make – he knew Griffin the best.

‘I can feel your heart beating,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘I was always aware of you but it was more like instinct, or when you were hurt, a kind of transference. But this … Have you always been able to feel my heart?’ he asked, awe in his eyes.

I nodded. ‘Since Onyx first hurt you. I felt it the morning I embraced. I was listening to your heart when I leaped from the cliff.’

He looked down. ‘Do you regret it?’

‘Not at all.’ Despite what we knew was ahead, I had never been more sure of my answer.

I talked him through my abilities, pausing to take time on a few things – my angelic Sight, for one. I warned him against using it. He totally agreed and even doubted that he’d easily tap into that power anyway. He certainly couldn’t feel it as easily as he could the senses. I told him more about the dreams I’d had with Uri and Nox, and with my angel maker. I fidgeted as I explained how they could come to me and cross the realms.

He saw
that I was nervous, finally explaining everything.

He put a finger over my lips. ‘Slow down. Most of this I already knew. Griffin and I suspected you’d been dream-walking from what you’d told us. We knew you just needed time to work it all out yourself. We think you inherited that particular skill from your mother.’

‘Oh.’ It made sense, Evelyn being a dream-walker herself.

Settling in to the tell-all, I filled him in on my most recent dream, too. ‘Uri and Nox offered to accept Lilith back into the angel realm, where they can deal with her immortal spirit, but we’d still need to end her physical form beforehand … They said I could cross her over. Maybe someone else can after we’re …’ I couldn’t quite finish the sentence. I was damned if I was going to burst my love bubble just yet.

Lincoln’s brow furrowed. ‘What do you mean,
cross
over?’

I polished off the last off my eggs and gave him my most adoring smile.

‘More?’ he asked, seeming to enjoy my response.

‘Please,’ I said. Eggs on toast had never tasted so good. I followed him into the kitchen as he dished out what was left and answered him. ‘If we return her, she’ll go to the pits of Hell and we risk her finding a way out again. The angels can’t take her from the human world. But they said I could bring her over to them and then … I’d need an anchor to get back.’

‘What kind of anchor?’ he asked, and I could almost see the cogs in his mind ticking over.

‘A powerful
person. They said it needed to be someone who was near my body. Someone who shared a bond with me, either blood or through one of the passions.’ Which really, left my options quite broad. The ‘passions’ pretty much covered any intense emotion– fear, hatred, sorrow and, of course, love. ‘You, for example, would be perfect.’

Lincoln swallowed hard and turned away. Of everything I’d said, this seemed to worry him the most. ‘What if I … I mean, could anyone else work?’

I pondered. ‘Maybe Evelyn, or I suppose …’ I hesitated.

‘Phoenix?’ Lincoln guessed.

‘It’s possible,’ I admitted.

I ran my hand down his worried face. ‘It’s not as if we’re actually going to be around to make it happen.’