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“A fuckton.”
I laugh. Several others laugh in the crowd. Vi tries, but the hole in his left leg makes it hard. He wheezes. Actually, most people are caught somewhere between pained groans and laughter. Adam’s barely standing.
I’m barely standing.
My stomach hurts. My head hurts. My arms and legs are shaking. Going up against the Omega whose powers matched my own — as well as all the rest — was agonizing. But I’d do it again. Iwilldo it again.
“And Fallen Omega Echo, do you take Berserker Adam for your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, to protect and to cherish…”
“To hate and to love?” Adam finishes for him.
I smile cautiously up at the Berserker I love most in this world, the one I’d fight for against Omegas and Alphas and gangs and trolls and legions of zombies and Fear and Pain. “I do. And I vow that I’ll never hate anybody like I hate you.”
He gulps and ducks his head to meet mine. He slips a single finger beneath my chin and tips my head back and up. “Not what I wanna hear, Omega.”
I watch the hope and fear dance in his eyes while a mirrored hope and fear dance in my chest. No longer Fear, but fear. She is faceless in the presence of something greater than herself, greater than Pain, and more magnificent than love…no. Just as magnificent.
Courage.
I smile more fully while the breeze carries scents of death and peaches to my nose and I exhale. I exhale it all. All the pain and rage and fear and hate that I’ve held onto for so long. “It’s time,” I whisper. I reach up to the vines around his neck and, with my fingers alone, I break them. “I trust you, Adam.” I let the collar of vines fall to the ground, lost. “Please don’t break my heart.”
Adam’s expression changes so quickly, I don’t manage to catch every nuance. Only the elation shines through, the laughter, the awe. He grabs me around the waist and slams his chest to mine in something too brutal to call a hug. He sways side to side and buries his face in my hair. Against my neck, against the scars that still linger there from the bite marks that brought us together, he says, “I will never try to possess you, ‘cuz you are your own. I will never try to own you ‘cuz you are free. When you brought me back to life I understood that better’n I ever have. I also learned that if you’re willin’ to fight death for me, I gotta be worthy a’ somethin’. And if I’m worthy a’ somethin’, why can’t it be you?” He kisses my neck tenderly and softens his touch in a way that brings tears to my eyes. “I love you, wife, and I vow to protect and cherish the trust you have in me.”
I squeeze his neck hard. And then harder. “I love you, husband.”
The Beta awkwardly clears his throat. “So, I guess, you may now kiss your…”
“Out! All of you out!” Adam roars at the impromptu officiant and the forty or so half-wounded attendees who came out to witness our weird, wounded love heal.
“All of you, get the fuck away from here unless you wanna watch a fuckin’ show.” Groans rise up as the crowd attempts to disperse, though they move so incredibly slowly. Far too slowly. I’m hurt, but not hurt enough to stop this. “Had a dream last night I fucked my wife under a peach tree.”
“Aren’t you a little too injured to be fucking your wife anywhere?” I laugh.
“Hurt, not dead. But if this kills me, so be it. Know a couple a’ Omegas who can bring me back.”
“Not funny,” I deadpan.
“It’s kinda funny…” He sweeps his hand through my hair and leans down, presses his lips tenderly to mine. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere you aren’t.” The taste of him runs through me like a current that I feel to the tips of my toes as he lowers me down to a bed of flowers, beneath which I can feel the tendrils of the earth moving, so connected to me now.
A shard of sunlight peeks in through the grey clouds over his shoulder and birds chirp from the tops of funeral pyres and peach trees as we come together, his lips worshipping my scars, my hand pressed to the X across his heart.
A Thanks from the Author |
Thank you for joining Echo and Adam in Dark City!
Order Book 2 in the series,Shadowlands Omega, today.
For early access to teasers and trailers of the four books to come in the Beasts of Gatamora series, as well as any special editions and SFW/NSFW artwork that may crop up, sign up to my reader list at www.booksbyelizabeth.com.
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And keep reading for an exclusive sneak peek of Shadowlands Omega to meet the Omega who will bring Lord Yaron to his knees…
He’s such a good boy.
