I tried another way.
The preferred way because it meant I could speak to her veryheart.
Rook?Cupping her cheeks, I pushed the silent word into her mind.Wake up.
It took an age. Time stretched forever—
I waited and waited and finally...
She opened her eyes.
Chapter Forty-Eight
COMING BACK TO LIFE DIDN’T FEEL LIKE I’d imagined.
Not that I’d ever imagined such a thing because it was impossible and crazy and yet...I’d come back to life.
Lucien had come back to life.
And as the fog receded and the flood of memories gave me back my past, I tried to understand how this had happened.
Had we ascended?
Were we no longer mortal?
I had so many, many questions, but as my eyes locked with Lucien’s, nothing else mattered buthim.
He caressed my cheek with trembling fingers as if he didn’t trust I was real. My hand shook as I captured his, pressing his palm against my face, proving to him that I was.
Touching him...God, nothing could’ve prepared me.
He was so warm and perfect andmine.
My heart grew wings, my soul sang, and the power that’d killed me shockwaved free, ricocheting around the valley and frosting everything.
Golden light seeped from his skin as he gathered me in his arms and folded over me.
His lips pressed to mine, and the second we kissed, the bond ignited with a million stars. Silver and gold exploded with a rush of power, braiding and binding. The dreamscape where we’d gone to heal while fighting the ascension settled around us, but instead oftaking us away from reality, it hovered like an illusion over it.
The valley shimmered with dreamy mist. The blossom tree sprouted in the middle of this barren land, its petals scattering over black stone.
Somehow, we existed in both places at once. And as our tongues touched and we lost ourselves to the kiss, we became each other’s beginning and endingforever.
Lucien groaned as he deepened the kiss.
It blended sensuality with viciousness, affection with desperation. Centuries of grief and longing poured through both of us, fed and feasted on with every clash of our lips and teeth.
I kissed him back just as fiercely, burying my fingers in his thick black hair, pulling him closer so I never had to let go again.
His hands roamed my bare skin with possessive hunger, sliding down my back, gripping my hips, and pulling me deeper onto his naked lap. I gasped into his mouth as fire and frost collided, twisting together in perfect, aching harmony.
The dreamscape responded to our need, painting over the real world with blinding auroras.
Wrapping my legs around his waist, I rocked against his hardness. He grunted as I took him inside me—connecting physically for the first time since we’d started to die and couldn’t survive without feeding off each other in the dreamscape.
I gasped as he clutched me close, driving hard, filling me.
The feel of him inside—the sensation of returning home...it was too much.
