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The trembling started at her legs and worked its way up to her chest and throat. Rahvyn was gone. Who was this.
And yet, as she stared into those pale green eyes with their pinpoint pupils, she knew.
“Wrath?” she choked out.
“Leelan.”
He charged forward, and lucky for that. She couldn’t feel her body anymore, and she was falling.
Her hellren’s strong arms wrapped around her, and though her mind was paralyzed, some kind of muscle memory snapped back and she fitted herself to him as she always had… and had known she never would again.
Except he was here.
She pushed back and touched his face, running her shaking hands over his features. “Where have you been.”
“I don’t know,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t know.”
He kissed her, then. Kissed her like he once had. Kissed her like she had ached for him to do, just one more time.
An eternity, a bottomless pit of time, suddenly opened up in the little kitchen, the love between two true hearts an immortality that could not be touched by any force in the universe, even the dark void of death.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered against his mouth.
Do I have to? she wondered. Did I ever?
A half-bred human who didn’t know her other side, being found by the last purebred vampire on earth, because the father who had always protected her from afar sent her a savior so she could live… and love.
And be loved.
As she blinked her eyes clear, she saw her son—their son—looming in the periphery, and as L.W. stared back at her, she thought… at least he was still alive, although a quick catalogue of his bandages made her stomach roll—
A scratching and whimpering drew her attention over her own shoulder, but before she could react, Lassiter opened the cellar door from the far side and let George, who was known for liking a cuddle with the fallen angel, bound forward.
The golden’s paws paddled on the tile for purchase, and then he shot himself toward his master in a scramble of blond fur and whimpering.
“George!” Wrath crouched down and opened his arms. “My boy!”
Wrath’s blind eyes stared straight ahead as he waited in the unfamiliar environment for his dog to come to him—and George tackled him and then went shimmy-all-over as he cried and yodeled his joy, the contortions of his body a physical release of his devotion and his own mourning because he had no words.
Beth looked up at her son. L.W.’s face was showing a rare moment of emotion, the hard features as soft as she had ever seen them, the vulnerability showing and making him appear far younger.
Maybe things would be better now.
Wrath rose back up to his full height and took George with him. Then again, it wasn’t like he had a choice. The golden had curled both front paws around his master’s shoulders like he was afraid another separation was coming and was holding on for dear life.
She knew how that felt.
What the hell is going on? she thought as she glanced back at Lassiter. Given the shock on his face, the angel wasn’t going to be much help with that. He looked like someone had just pummeled him over the head with a bag of bricks.
As Wrath extended his free arm, Beth went to him and wrapped herself around his chest and hips. Closing her eyes, she breathed in. And breathed in. And… breathed in.
The scent of him had been torture in the beginning. On the pillow beside her. On the sheets. On his clothes in their closet, the last towel he’d used in the bathroom, the rocker he’d sat in as he eased L.W. off to sleep.
Now it was back, and she squeezed him harder.
Like he would go away again, like this was a dream.
“I love you, leelan,” he said against her hair.
The tears that fell from her eyes soaked his black muscle shirt, and the source of them was not complex. Gratitude overwhelmed her. That and the confusion as to why was she so lucky? What had she done to deserve this? So many females of worth had lost their mates in the last thirty years.
Had it only been that long? It felt like eternity.
“I love you, too,” she croaked to her husband. “There has never been anyone but you for me… ever.”
III.
As Lassiter stood in the open doorway at the top of the basement stairs, his hand stayed locked on the handle he’d turned to let George out.
He’d been lying on the sofa in the common area, the dog snoozing on his chest as he often did, the last episode of the first season of The Golden Girls playing in the background, when he’d heard the footsteps overhead. And it was weird. The sounds that were transmitted down to him had seemed like what he’d been waiting for: For the previous three days, he’d been unsettled and twitchy, especially when Rahvyn had gone in to be Wrath for the civilians.
