Sweat dripped into my eyes and the friction of her hot, slick channel became more than I could bear. I threw my head back, hurtling over the edge of orgasm as I shot into her.
Reluctantly coming back to my senses, I murmured into her ear, “Why do you want the bird?”
“It’s the last piece,” she whispered back. Kissing my neck she said, “Everything is coming together my love.”
It wasn’t long before Emma slipped away, melting back into the night. I was left standing among the wreckage of the apartment. But thinking more clearly than I had in a while.
There was something I was missing, something I could almost wrap my brain around but stayed just out of reach.
Walking over to our sturdy wood coffee table, I swept off the pieces of ceramic from the shattered lamp and sat on it, folding my legs under me. Relaxing my muscles, I breathed deeply attempting to clear my mind. Entering a meditative state, time became liquid.
Every time I was pulled into the dark stream of thoughts, I would gently take a step back and watch them go by.
Try again,I heard Emma whisper to me just as she had the day I fought the soul eater and thought it was too strong. I had found an underlying strength inside me inspired by my love for her.
A memory surfaced. We were in the harsh unforgiving red sun of the Stygian, and the dark ones were approaching. They were coming for us. Emma was struck by a vision and asked my mother how to go through the Reckoning. It was our only chance of getting out alive.
“I’m about to do something that will very much seem like suicidal martyrdom. She swallowed hard. But I need you to trust me. More importantly, I need you to trust everything is going to be okay.”
“What’s going to happen?”
She swallowed, her eyes falling to the ground.
“You know more than you are telling me again.”
She nodded solemnly. “I saw what was going to happen if I don’t do this. I saw several more potential outcomes, all of them ended with us dying… or worse.” She looked up at me through her lashes. “I can’t tell you what’s going to happen. I want to, so desperately, but I can’t. As much as I need you to trust me, I’m learning to trust myself and this is it. This is the big one. I’m surrendering to all this bullshit we call prophecy and destiny, all the things that are supposed to serve the greater good. I think all we’ve been through has prepared me for this moment.”
She laughed slightly, and I saw a tear drip from her eye. She quickly wiped it away. I wanted to fold her into my arms and never let her go, but I needed to see her face. I clung to her words like water in a desert.
“I don’t know what I’ll do,” I said. Thoughts and fears raced through me in a stream.
“Screw that,” Emma said, shocking me out of the pit I was falling into. Then her face broke into a big beautiful smile. “I know you haven’t realized this yet, but you have become a leader. You are going to have to step into that and own the hell out of it. You are going to have to trust yourself as much as you trust me. The power you accessed when you fell in love with me is going to be nothing compared to what happens when you believe in yourself.” Her fingers touched my heart.
Like a bell being rung, her words struck me and echoed.
“I need you to promise me something.”
I nodded, trying to focus instead of burying myself into her sweet touch.
“Don’t give up on me. No matter what happens.”
My eyebrows crinkled as my stomach dropped. “How could you possibly think I would—”
She cut me off. “Just promise me. I need to hear you say it out loud before I do this.”
I held her hands tightly where they were on my face, and stared so intensely into her eyes I imagined seeing to the depths of her soul. “I promise. There is nothing in this world or any other more powerful than my love for you.”
The side of her lips quirked up in a smile as her eyes glassed over with more tears. “I’m counting on that.”
My whole life, I had relied on the Luxis to tell me what to do and then when Emma came along, I relied on her sight as though she were my seeing-eye dog. But she was gone, and it was time to do what she had been helping prepare me to do. Trust myself.
Pieces clicked together in my mind like a puzzle. I knew what Emma wanted. Snarp. Jumping up, I slid on the debris as I ran to grab my phone. It was late but Krystan answered.
“What did you mean Snarp choked down a piece of the book of Luxis?”
“Well I don’t want to tattle, but Emma told me the dumb bird brain swallowed a gemstone or something like that off the book of Luxis. He never passed it either.” She laughed. “Emma was worried Ylang would show up and try to gut her bird to get it back and hot glue it on the book again.”
“That’s what she wants,” I said.
