Ravenswood. The crypts. The entire Redthorne clan gathered before them, along with Charley, Sasha, Cole, and Isabelle.
“Deep breaths,” Colin was saying. “Can you hear me, Mr. Colburn?”
Jaci barely had enough time to get her bearings—to take in the welcoming, familiar faces, to see her father and Aiden sitting upright against the far wall as Colin checked their vitals—when she realized something was wrong.
Verywrong.
A sharp tug on her hand. A pained cry.
And Gabriel collapsed to the ground.
“Gabriel!” She fell to her knees, gathering him close. Holding him as he gasped for air, reaching for her face with a trembling hand.
Seven years vanished in a blink, and once again, Jaci was back in that alley in Little Italy, watching the light leave her father’s eyes.
But this time, it wasn’t her father. This time, the man taking his dying breath in her arms wasn’t a man at all.
It was her vampire prince.
“No,” she gasped, panic damn near choking her. “No, no, no… Gabriel! Wake up. Sevenhells, please wake up!”
“What’s wrong?” Isabelle knelt beside them, taking one of Gabriel’s hands in hers. “Gabriel. What is it?”
Gabriel tried to smile. Blood leaked from his mouth. “Only way to save the… damsel.”
“Shh. Don’t talk.” Jaci forced a smile, her mind racing. Had he been poisoned? Had something happened on their way back through the portal?
Gabriel touched her face. “I’m… sorry. I was wrong. I said death… but it’s… you… Love. Moonflower.”
He was fading. Babbling. Dying. They’d fought their way through hell and back, and now he was fuckingdying.
“Gabriel, wait!” she cried, tears spilling as he stiffened in her arms. “Don’t go. I can’t do this without you. I can’t… Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.Please…”
“Colin,” Isabelle shouted. “Come quickly.”
But Jaci knew it was too late.
She pressed her hand to Gabriel’s heart. Felt the emptiness there. Felt the tug of his soul tearing free from his body, and knew in a matter of seconds he’d turn into ash.
Her tears splashed onto his face, but she knew he couldn’t feel them.
Gabriel Redthorne, the vampire prince, the man she loved with her entire being, the man who’d followed her to hell and back, was already gone.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Emptiness.
It stretched on in all directions—a black void with neither end nor beginning. Gabriel had no idea whether he was outside or in, dead or alive, forgotten in one of hell’s lost, inaccessible realms or trapped in between hell and… somewhere else.
Purgatory?
He shook his head and sighed. Perhaps the answers existed only in the fine print on the demon deal he’d signed in haste—a mystery never to be solved.
The ground felt solid beneath his feet, though it looked no different than the space above him. Around him.
So, absent a better option, Gabriel did the only thing he could.
Walked.
