Chapter 52

Waking up not knowing where I am feels familiar. And irritating as hell. I only know each time involved an impossibly beautiful semi-celestial who has turned my universe inside out.

My eyes are open, but my brain can’t translate what they see. It can’t do anything else.

Good. I can slide back into oblivion…

“White.”

That voice. His.

Godric.

Is he still communicating from the Mindscape?

“Look at me!”

This doesn’t sound like soulspeak, or whatever it is we do on our frequency. It’s his actual voice.

But I’ve fallen from another realm, and was smashed into a million fragments. If only he’d let them drift away in peace…

“Bloody Hell, White. You will look at me.”

It’s no use. This demigod won’t let me rest. He never did, never will. He’s forcing my mind to reconnect with my senses.

I’m flat on my back. It’s dim, or maybe it’s my vision. The world is filled with Godric, hanging over me like a dark fate. The only fate I yearn for.

His face is gripped in such ferociousness, I know something is wrong. Terribly so. Something I did? To Sarah? And the others?

Dread drenches me, dragging me back into darkness…

“Look. At. Me. See me.”

His growl compels me to focus on him again. He’s looking at me as if he’s barely hanging on to his sanity.

A sob chokes on my lips. “Wh-what did I do?”

He goes rock still, feverishly scanning my face, then his chest empties. “You came back to me.”

His ragged words spark a memory. Of the last thing he said to me.

Come back to me.

I could be wrong about how he meant it. I probably am. Even if not, it means nothing now. Memories are seeping back. Of when I took everyone’s Energy, used it to harness the void, what it did…

Tears burn my eyes. “I saw it, Godric, felt it…the void…decimating and consuming—everything…”

He nods, grimness deepening, gaze cooling. “It is a horrific manifestation indeed, and far more dangerous than I even thought.”

More dangerous than having the potential to mess up the balance of existence?

But I can’t dwell on that as more images sear away more cobwebs. Sarah and the others, floating inert, captives of the void…

I heave up to my elbows, panic uprooting my heart. “It has them, Godric. It wants to keep them. Because I fed it their Energy…”

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t have them. You saved them all. And you fed it nothing. You used their Energy as bait to madden it into consuming the black hole. You held its reins all through.”

“H-how do you know that? How did I do that?”

“I don’t have solid answers as to how.”

“What kind do you have then? Liquid ones? Gaseous?” I mumble, vaguely realizing he didn’t answer the first question. “Theorize, then. You’re good at that.”

“Not that it matters now, but fine. I stipulate that our Mindscape sessions, and clashing with my Energy regularly, honed your instincts more than I hoped. I also think it was love…of your Sarah. And determination, to return to…this world.” His eyes grow heavier with unspoken things, before he exhales. “All the void’s unending hunger was clearly no match for that. For you.”

That sounds good. Too good. But there are other memories, flitting just out of range, telling me there’s more to the story. Way more.

“If…if I saved Sarah and the others, where are they?”

His weight shifts, dipping me sideways. I belatedly realize we’re on my bed as he makes a sweeping gesture. “Sleeping peacefully.”

My heart jackknifes as my eyes fall on Sarah, the force spilling me out of bed. My legs buckle, then I’m clinging to the barricade of Godric’s body.

Breath stuttering, I expect him to step back from my touch.

He only stands there, gaze ravaging my face, infusing me with his stability. Like he intended to give me all his power. At the cost of his consciousness, and maybe more.

Unable to withstand the memory, I push away from his support, stagger to Sarah’s side, reach a trembling hand to her face. It’s warm and her breathing is even. She doesn’t have a hair out of place.

I pan my gaze around, find the other girls seemingly as untouched in their beds.

I really did it? I didn’t eat their Energy or souls, or whatever else they willingly offered me?

I stagger around to Godric. “Are you sure they’re okay? I didn’t put them in that hundred-year coma?”

“They actually awakened when you returned.”

“They did? When did we return? Where?”

“Yes. Ten hours ago. And right there.” His eyes crinkle as he answers in order, pointing to the space that acts as a distributing hall to our sections of the room.

“I brought us back here?”

“All cadets exit the Imperium Gate where they entered it, in the Assembly Hall. But, of course, you had to be different.”

Another memory tries to form, fails, but I still know why I brought us here. “The Assembly Hall doesn’t hold emotional resonance for me. Or it holds the negative kind.”

His eyebrows rise. “Emotional resonance, eh? Interesting that you thought of that concept, too. But it stands to reason. Something as powerful as the Gate’s pull had to guide you back. With that detour through the void, I feared you might not be able to…” He stops, jaw muscles bunching. Then he exhales. “If it was emotional resonance that you locked onto, it’s strange you didn’t go back to your apartment.”

“I could have done that?”

“White, you traversed realms without an Imperium Gate, with four passengers. You could have done anything you wanted, gone anywhere.”

Something tells me that’s not an accurate explanation of what happened. But another confusion takes precedence. “Why do you think I would have gone there?”

“Because you consider it home.” I blink at him in surprise. I have considered it home. Because I shared it with Sarah. “But you came here instead.”

So do I now consider this place home? Because Sarah is also here?

But she was with me when I “locked” onto this place. I don’t remember how it happened, but I know one thing. This place has emotional resonance because it’s where I lived two lifetimes’ worth of unimaginable experiences and emotions. With him, because of him.

I came back here for him.

None of that passes my numb lips until he looks away, shaking his head.

The searching intensity is gone from his gaze when it swings back to me. “I expect the Trials’ Committee will question you about the method of your return. I need you to corroborate my explanation. I cited the seven Unitas who didn’t return to make it incontestable.”

Blood stops in my veins. Thirty-five cadets. Lost. Dead. And I know something about them. Something important. The vagueness screams at me to remember. I can’t.

“Wh-what did you tell them?”

“That I sensed you the moment the Gate opened, before it did in this realm. But it started closing prematurely, and wouldn’t have given you a chance to step through. So I cast the leash to guide you back, circumventing its programmed destination, since it has already malfunctioned. I used your quarters, which is full of your collective ‘resonance,’ as a beacon, and a return location.”

My mouth drops open. “And they believed you?”

“I am very convincing.”

“Tell me about it. They must have also preferred to preserve the arrangement of their organs.”

A vicious twist to his lips agrees with my assessment of his reputation. “My bloody history wasn’t a factor in swaying them—this time. Contrary to what happened in the Divining, I was there ‘confessing’ what I did. Suspecting my story was not the issue. Taking matters into my own hands was.”

“So, what did they say about that?”

“They took me to task, said I tampered with the Trials’ results. I maintained that you already finished your tests, and I only guided you back. They still spouted the rules to me, so I counterattacked with a knowledge they thought I wasn’t privy to.”

“What’s that?”

“That throughout history, they would have intervened to save the cadets, if they knew how. But no one who isn’t slotted for the Trials’ can cross the Imperium Gate, so rescue missions have always been out of the question. That’s why they have no knowledge of what happened to the cadets who didn’t return. But I was in the unique position to connect with you across the Gate as my charge. I knew what was happening to you, and how to help you. I took them to task for suggesting I should have let you die to preserve rules that stem from ignorance and helplessness.”

It never ceases to amaze me how he comes up with elaborate yet seamless stories on the fly. “Wow, that sure put them in their place. I just hope I remember all that.”

“I did mix fiction with truth, though, since I did connect with you across the realms. Also, the moment I felt your return, you could have been anywhere on earth. I had to cast the leash to find you.”

I glower at him, feeling its phantom imprint around my neck. “At least it had one good use.”

His lips twitch. “It has nothing but good uses.”

“Sheesh, Godjerk, you missed your calling as a slaver.”

His shrug is virile nonchalance itself. “I wouldn’t want any other slaves.”

The way he said that. The way he’s looking at me. The same way he did when he pretended I was his at the Divining. Multiplied into infinity.

My knees knock and my heart somersaults into my gut.

I’m imagining things. I’m probably outright hallucinating by now.

But he did look at me like that before. Many times.

No, not like this. This is new. This makes me wish he’d take everything his eyes are saying he wants to take, to rip from me. My consent, my virginity, my sanity. I want him to destroy me with pleasure, and enslave me with the need for more. And more.

That’s my insane lust talking, what he’s been stoking since that first day, most of it unintentionally. And he more or less said he considers me his one and only slave, for Kondar’s sake. I shouldn’t be melting at that.

But I am. If he were to push me back on my bed right now, I’d beg him to take me. With the others within sight and earshot.

“Glad to see the world is as I left it,” I croak. “With you as Godawful as always.”

He inclines his head in calm consent.

To escape his inflaming gaze and my runaway reactions, I turn back to Sarah, stroke her cheek.

She stirs. I almost collapse when her eyes slit open and she slurs, “Wen—you’re awake…”

My heart almost ruptures. She’s awake. She knows me. I didn’t put her in a coma—or worse!

“You scared us to death—when you wouldn’t wake up.” A dreamy smile touches her lips. “But you’re awake now.”

Everything in me wobbles and spills over in sheets of tears. “Yeah, I am. How are you feeling?”

“Great. Really great. I just want to sleep for a few weeks. Sleep never felt so goo...” She turns on her side mid-word, and starts snoring softly.

Relief is so acute it hurts. Her mind is intact. She’s still my Sarah.

But I still need reassurance, that the worst I did was knock her out, that the most she needs is a long, recharging sleep.

Wiping at my tears, I turn to Godric. “Tell me everything that happened since we returned.”

“What happened, if you didn’t surmise from your friend’s statements, is that you were the one who wouldn’t wake up.” His eyes darken to a terrifying black-forest storm. “I found your mind inert, floating amidst the void. I kept trying to leash you back, but I couldn’t. It kept disintegrating everything I threw at it, until I feared it would keep you in there forever.”

“You thought I would never wake up?”

He grinds his teeth. That could probably powder steel. “It was a possibility.”

Not knowing how to deal with this new brand of intensity, I resort to teasing. “Of course it wasn’t. Godric the Great ordered me to come back.”

His fierceness only goes supernova. “And you did.”

Before I can recover from this latest heart attack, he looks away to the girls’ sleeping figures. “The others gave the same report. That you amalgamated their Energy to bolster what they think is a gravity Grace, went head to head with that black hole, with them clinging to you—and won. They don’t remember anything after that, before waking up here. I found you all on the floor, with you prostrated in the middle, and them lying on their sides, forming an uninterrupted circle around you. They all seemed asleep, while you had your eyes open, but were unresponsive.”

He stops, his gaze growing vehement. Unable to withstand his focus, I make a hurrying motion.

He sighs, the harsh sound making my unsteady legs tremble. “They woke up shortly, but were so tired, they climbed in bed and went to sleep. And before you ask again, Raphael himself checked them, and there’s nothing wrong with any of them. He checked you, too, but found nothing to heal. I wouldn’t let them take you to his Sanatorium, insisted on keeping you here. I hoped my—their proximity would help bring you back.”

And it probably did. “So I didn’t eat their Energy or Graces or souls or anything else? Not even bits of them?”

His lips tug at my persistence. “They actually feel far stronger than ever.”

“Feel? Your diagnosis is based on ‘feelings’? I’ll need something more ‘solid’ than that.”

“How about this?” He whips out an Angel Amulet from his pocket. “Solid enough for you?”

Jerking in alarm, I shove my hand in my own pocket. Or I try to, before I realize that, like Sarah, I’m in one of our Academy-issue pajamas. Which means they changed us.

I have no idea who did, only hope it wasn’t with Godric around. This sure isn’t how I want him to see me undressed for the first time. And then, even if my “scrawny arse” has been coated in fifteen pounds of muscles and fat, thanks to his physical and dietary torture, what if glimpsing my nakedness still made him want to barf?

But—if they got me out of my uniform, that also means…

“That’s our Amulet!” I exclaim. “You took it!”

“You’re not meant to keep it.”

“You’re not meant to take it! I’m supposed to guard it, and give it back myself!”

“You did bring it back. Consider your mission accomplished.”

For some reason, I feel cheated out of something important. And I’m also afraid. Of what this Amulet will reveal about Sarah. And me.

“Why didn’t the Professors take it? And how exactly is it solid proof that the others are stronger than ever? Did they wear it and it revealed the nature and extent of their Grace powers? What are those? What is Sarah’s? Does she even have any?”

He shakes his head with a mocking huff. “You really are back, aren’t you?”

“I’ll sic the void on you if you don’t answer me!”

His lips spread. In a full-fledged, all-out smile. Full of perfect teeth, laughter lines and dimples. It’s realms-shattering.

And he calls me the most dangerous entity in existence?

“Hold your void, White.” A short, rough chuckle abrades my inflamed nerves and desires wholesale. “The professors think you still have the Amulet. I took it as per the Archangels’ order—after I convinced them it’s prudent to examine its contents before the ceremony.”

“Why? What do you think it contains?”

“A secondary functionality of the Amulets is recording the events in the Imperium Realm. The Trials Committee long vowed not to peruse those records. But with the irregular method of your return, no matter what I told them, I know they will take a look this time.”

“Did you?”

The last trace of his smile disappears. “You didn’t tell me about that first test.”

Goosebumps storm over me as I stare into eyes turning bottomless. “Uh, yeah? I had other pressing issues at the time.”

He suddenly looks drop-to-your-knees-groveling-for-your-life scary. The carnage-hued cracks that shatter across his irises are even worse than those emerald-laced bolts. Because it’s a glimpse into what he’s capable of in full premeditation. Cold-blooded wrath to burn down worlds.

A memory flashes at this thought. It’s gone before I can grasp it.

“You almost died.”

At a loss at how to deal with his new level of blood-curdling, I shrug. “You told me that’s what the Trials are all about. ‘A simulation of a terrible existence without safety nets. Or happy endings.’”

We stare at each other for long, oppressive moments as the storm rages higher in his eyes, and then there’s another first. The blood-tinged lightning crackles around me, cocooning me in a cage of destruction. Of anything that would come near me.

“I should have felt your danger,” he rasps.

That’s what’s bothering him? “How could you? You were in another realm, so cut yourself some slack. And you came to the rescue when it really mattered.”

“I failed to come to your rescue.”

“No you didn’t!” I stumble to grab him by the arms. The feel of his steel flesh beneath my fingers, hot and inexorable even through thick fabric, makes my head spin. Blinking away the swooning sensations, I focus on what he must hear. “You wanted to transfuse me with your Energy…”

“And I couldn’t.”

The gory cage snaps to envelop us both. It’s not hurting me, but it’s hurting him. It’s an extension of his upheaval.

Godric doesn’t understand failure, can’t imagine helplessness. And he suffered both on my account.

I dig my fingers into his muscles, at least try to, needing to snap him out of it. “You knew what to do, knew how to push me to do it, and that’s the only reason we’re back here. No matter what you say you are, you are my mentor. If not for your guidance, and for everything you taught me, we would have all died.”

The storm dies down. The cage dissipates and his eyes glow viridian again. But the room darkens along with his frown. It’s clear he’s not buying it. And that all this rage is directed at himself.

I see a long argument in our future, to disabuse him of his macho misconceptions.

For now, I need to distract him. “So the Amulet recorded everything that happened there?”

I’m wishing he’d tell me whatever it is I can’t remember.

“Yes, both tests.”

“Nothing else?”

“You mean what happened between then and your return? No.”

Damn. Guess I’ll have to remember on my own. Or not.

“I’m working on deleting the black hole incident.”

“What would that serve?” I ask. “If the Committee investigates our ‘irregular return,’ at least two of the girls will report everything that happened.”

His frown deepens as he shakes his head. “I believe they won’t. Then there would be no record in the Amulet either. If I’m wrong about them, and they do, it would only be their report. That will have a far lesser impact than actually witnessing the whole thing.”

“Won’t the Committee be more suspicious if the records are deleted?”

He shrugs. “They can assume it’s another glitch.”

I sigh. “Too many glitches surrounding me.”

“As long as they remain inexplicable, they can think whatever the bloody hell they like. Suspicions are easier to dispute than hard facts. I’ll do whatever it takes so the black hole incident goes undiscovered. But we’ll work with whatever develops.”

“Yeah. What you said.” I stare at the Amulet in his perfect, power-laden hand for a moment, then frown. “That still didn’t answer my question. How did the Amulet tell you the girls are stronger than ever, if they didn’t wear it yet?”

Silently, theatrically, he holds it up.

I almost jump out of my skin when laser-like bolts shoot from every bed, from every girl, to strike the Amulet, setting every rune on celestial fire.

Lowering the Amulet, he engulfs it in his hand again, cutting off the transmission.

He broods down at me as he puts it back in his pocket. “When I got here, the Amulet was on your chest, with your Unitas caught in that energy web. It connected all of them to the Amulet and to each other. But like now, the bolts didn’t hit you, just crisscrossed over you, making you the center of an arcane symbol. One I’ve never seen before.”

My every hair stands on end as a nebulous shape forms in my mind. I’ve never seen it, but I somehow know it. And it fills me with a crazy mixture of anxiety and…elation?

I should be used to these contrary feelings by now. These in specific must be a side-effect of the ordeal. I’ll examine them later. Now I have an archangelspawn to berate.

“Why didn’t you tell me that before? Will I discover more momentous tidbits each time you tell this story? Isn’t it in your best interest not to keep me in the dark this time? So I don’t contradict you, and mess up your elaborate fictionalization of events?”

His lips spread again. I have no idea how I don’t pounce on him and sink my teeth into them. “Amazing. Not even battling a black hole, and a void, slowed down your avalanche of questions.”

“Godawful!” My exasperation is directed at both of us equally.

He quirks a challenging pout, like he’s daring me to do what I’m a hairbreadth from doing.

I manage to hold back, and he exhales, as if in disappointment. “That energy show isn’t supposed to happen. That’s how I know how strong they are now. Probably stronger than anyone who’s ever passed the Trials.”

“Stronger than you?” I gape at him.

“I thought we established I’m in a class of my own.”

And how!

“I could have thought those bolts are an outcome of you connecting their Energy, but the Grace Runes only illuminate once the Amulet is around a cadet’s neck and settled over their heart. That they do remotely is another—glitch I have to deal with before the ceremony. Your situation is already irregular enough.”

I gulp as I stare at the girls. My gaze snags on Jinny’s fiery hair. “How is this happening with Jinny, when she’s a demon?”

“This I have yet to discover.”

My eyes move to Sarah before returning to his. “So Sarah is Angel-Graced?”

He shakes his head. “Sarah is—something else.”

“What? What is she?”

“I’m not at liberty to divulge that.”

I take a threatening step towards him. “May I remind you of my void? Answer me or get swallowed whole!”

His eyes fall to my lips. And if I ever suspected I imagined it before, the blast of hunger that microwaves me to my DNA is unmistakable. Then I realize what I said.

Yeah, I put him and swallowing whole in the same sentence.

Before I burn to ashes of mortification, he tosses his head back and treats me to a sight I never thought I’d witness. His laughter.

Growly, fathomless, ovaries-combusting laughter.

Maybe I should have that void swallow him. He’s too dangerous to exist.

That tormentor actually wipes away tears, rumbling deep in that acres-wide chest. “If you ‘swallow’ me, you’ll never know. So it’s in your best interests to swallow your curiosity instead, and get back into bed.”

I almost thank him for not taking advantage of my unintentional innuendo.

I want to mean it when I say dirty stuff like that to him.

But I need answers, dammit!

Standing my ground, I face off with him, trying to bend him to my will. He only raises an eyebrow that all but says, dream on.

I throw my hands in the air and stalk away. “Fine, you slippery, aggravating, Godawful being.” At my bed, I turn and smirk over my shoulder. “Come tell me when you get Daddy’s permission.”

That hormone-scrambling mirth only flares in his eyes.

What the Hell, Heaven and everything in between happened to him while I was at the Imperium Realm?

Now anything I say seems to tickle him. And to my immense regret, Bedeviling Godric is more irresistible than any other version of him.

As if he heard me, he prowls toward me. His slow approach almost buckles my knees.

I mentally smack myself up the head. I’m not swooning at his feet. Even if I can blame it on the ordeal.

That’s easier said than done when, instead of stopping at his usual arm’s length, he keeps going. Until there’s less than a foot between us and his heat drenches me, inside and out. Then his eyes sober, becoming more distressing for it. Anything he does yanks extremes of reaction from my depths. And now I know these are literally fathomless.

“The window is that way,” I croak, barely breathing. “Flap along before someone catches you in the girls’ dorm, and reports you to your prudish family.”

“In a minute,” he murmurs, deep, deep and devastating.

“Want to hang around longer? What with all those nubile bodies around?”

His expression takes on such feline wickedness, taunting loud and clear: Jealous?

Am I? I haven’t been so far, because the old Godric was so general-like, all scowls and growls, and looking through everybody. Even then, almost every female in the Academy would have prostrated herself for a look from him. If they’re ever exposed to this side of him, they’d hurl themselves against his lightning, even if it zapped them to death. And such a paragon of masculinity must have appetites as powerful as he is. I’ve heard whispers that his sexual exploits are as legendary as he is. No one has any details, though, since it’s said he considers anyone in the Academy off-limits.

But though I’m already at the top of his Will-Never-Touch list, and he’s the last male in existence to ogle sleeping girls, this room is studded with the epitome of femininity, with me nowhere in their leagues. The comparison is just—ugh, painful.

So, jealous? I probably am.

No. I definitely am. Gnawingly, ridiculously, pointlessly jealous.

But since it is pointless, I ignore his unspoken taunt, and say something that needs to be said instead. “Before you take a literal flying leap, I have to tell you something. Actually, elaborate on something I already said.”

He inclines his head. “As long as it’s not in the form of more questions.”

“As if you ever answer me.”

“In the last couple of months, I answered two-centuries’ worth of questions. I should get an award. You should make me a statue.”

Instead of smacking him, then climbing him and losing my mind all over him, I nod. “I’ll see about making you that statue. You deserve it.”

He huffs derisively, before he goes still. “You mean that.”

“When have I ever said anything I don’t mean?”

“Indeed. You’re the only one I can count on to always flay me with the truth of your thoughts and feelings. It makes dealing with others—problematic.”

That sounds…better than anything I hoped I would make him feel.

Better say what I need to, before I show him how he makes me feel.

I clear my throat. “Here are more truths to add to your collection. Your torture bootcamp turned me from a weakling who couldn’t do a single push-up, to a fighter who held her own against a swarm of acid-puking, man-sized nightmares-come-to-life, for hours. And your mental molding in the Mindscape, and everything you told me in the Trials’ Realm—when you were willing to give me all your Energy, at the expense of your consciousness, and maybe your powers and life, you madman—are the only reason I could take on that black hole, keep that void contained, and get everyone back here. As Godawful as you are, I couldn’t have dreamed of a better mentor. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.”

And I don’t want to ever find out what I’d do without you.

I go rigid as the words echo, until I realize I didn’t say them out loud. But did that thought originate from only me? Or him, too?

And is his head getting nearer, or is my vision distorting?

The world does tilt and veer around me as he eliminates the last breath between us, and seals his lips over mine.

Everything stops. Disappears. Not even the void remains. Only his taste and scent and feel. Only the possession of his lips and the necessity of his breath. Only the scorch of his tongue at the seam of my lips, and its brand on mine. Only the sharpness of his teeth sinking in my flesh, hard enough to curb my tremors, and his savagery. Only the inundation of agitation and delight.

This monster capable of leveling cities—worlds—is devouring me. As if he’s been starving for me all his life. As if he’d never have enough. He’s destroying any fantasies I had of my first kiss. Our first kiss. The only kiss I ever craved. The kiss I despaired I’d ever have.

If I could, I would throw my arms around him, drag him down to me, deepen our fusion, devour him back. But I’m paralyzed. With too much emotion, too much hunger. But mainly with fear. That this is my one and only chance, that it’s a mistake he won’t repeat, and I won’t have this again. And with disbelief. That even with such a leashed touch, he ignites me, enslaves me. Nothing should feel this ferocious, this total.

Even though I should be depleted after what I’ve been through, my core is already molten and begging for his invasion. My heart is attempting to ram out of my ribcage, to toss itself at his feet. My paralysis will shatter any moment now, and I’ll…

He tears his lips away. A keen of shock escapes mine. It feels as if he’s torn off a layer of my skin, of my heart. Before I can clutch him back, demand he finish what he’s started, he withdraws.

I keep my eyes closed. If I open them and find his knowing, teasing, I will murder him. I will find out what his kryptonite is, then pluck and boil…

“White.”

His voice is the deepest I’ve ever heard it, a bass thrum that almost shatters me with longing. It forces me to look up at him. He’s at arm’s length, again.

His gaze is not teasing. It’s not smug. It’s not even aroused. It’s solemn. Almost anguished.

Then he says, “Come back to me—always.”

Before another thought fires in my liquified brain, he walks away to the window.

I gape after him as a flash encompasses him, then his wings are out. Did he just make sure I don’t see how it happens?

I hear my voice, barely recognizable in my swollen throat. “You said you’d never touch me, Godawful.”

Turning around as he levitates to the sill, he sweeps me in a glance that scalds me inside and out. “And I didn’t, White. I just kissed you.”

Then with one effortless beat of his great wings, he shoots up into the air.

I stare into the darkness where he disappeared.

I just kissed you.

He just kissed me.

He just kissed me.

And he did more than that. What he said, and the way he said it…

Come back to me—always.

This is more momentous than taking on a black hole.

Collapsing on bed, a heap of hot, wet tremors and gnawing arousal, I touch my stinging, swollen lips, still feeling his there, still unable to believe it.

Godric kissed me. When, not so long ago, he wanted nothing more than to kill me. I am the relentless water drip to his indestructible rock after all. I broke through control and aversion as powerful as he is.

So it was fleeting, and that massive pain still didn’t touch me. But I can build on that. I can wear him down until…

Something bursts inside my head.

The pain is paralyzing, dread even more so. That this might be an aneurysm rupturing. That I would be dead before I could reach out to Godric. When I didn’t tell him how I feel, didn’t even kiss him back. That Sarah will wake up to find me gone, when I promised to always be there for her and…

Another comet of agony crashes in my head. This time I know what it is. An explosion of memories. Searing through the vagueness with the blast of flames that almost consumed me. Those of the burning angel. Samael.

Lucifer.

I remember now. What my mind tried to protect me from, what it tried to erase.

I met the fucking Devil.

I wait for the memory to strike me with terror. It doesn’t. Or it does to the point where it numbs me. I remember the similar reaction when I first saw him. When he was sky-scraper-sized.

According to him, ours was a prophesied reunion. The culmination of a millennia-long search. And he created the Trials and killed thousands of cadets to find me. They were an elimination after all, just not in the way I thought.

I’m still drawing a blank on many details. Like the names he kept calling me, and most of what he said. Not to mention how he helped me get us all home. I only remember that he did, because he needs me here. Needs me, period.

Yeah, him, too.

But how much of my memories can I trust? When I’m certain I’ve forgotten more than I remember? When I’m having fuzzy flashbacks to events I haven’t lived?

This whole Lucifer scenario could have been a hallucination. Like those I’ve been having since Godric leashed me into his world.

Apart from that one where he drove his sword into my heart, I’ve been considering them subconscious coping mechanisms. It stands to reason the Lucifer episode was one.

I had just snatched Sarah and the others from the grasp of the black hole, only for them to fall into the void’s. I must have thought I needed something equal to Godric’s Energy or the others’ to force it to release us. So I conjured up an imaginary, all-powerful ally. I must have picked Lucifer because I’ve been wondering about him a lot, and tied him to the burning angel statue. After all, who better than his diabolical self to help me wrestle that equally malevolent thing inside me?

I like that theory. Even if it means my mind is unreliable, or even disintegrating. The alternative is that Lucifer is real, and he considers me a vital part of his plans. Plans that must be as heinous as he is.

Two problems with that theory, though. It assumes I managed to deal with the void, and returned us here, on my own. I doubt I’m anywhere near that powerful, yet. Even if I am, it discounts my luck. Knowing how terrible it is, Lucifer probably is real, and is after me.

But if he is, how can I tell Godric? That his infamous uncle helped send us home, succeeding where he failed? Compounding his turmoil, and tossing another major conflict and mystery on his plate? He already has enough of both on my account.

No, I don’t need to tell him. Not until I make sure it was real, anyway. Maybe not even then. Even if Lucifer exists, he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. According to what I remember, he might rule the Imperium Realm, but it’s also his exile.

For now, only one thing matters. That we faced unbeatable odds, and returned unharmed. The others seem even more powerful than anyone who ever survived the Trials.

But—what if that’s not a good thing? What if it’s a “glitch” I caused them? And it would have unpredictable, and terrible consequences?

Even if not, what about Sarah? What can be so unsettling about her that Godric can’t reveal it? When he’s already shared world-shaking theories and secrets with me?

My gaze clings to her peacefully sleeping form, and a chill of foreboding tumbles through me like a breaker.

Shuddering uncontrollably, I scramble beneath my magic-imbued comforter. As it wraps its warmth around me, I try to empty my mind of the worst-case-scenarios that come as easily as breathing to me. Instead, everything that happened since that fateful night Godric crash-landed in my path comes back to flood it.

In the violent current, I feel the new memories being swept away. Whether for good, or until I can handle them, I’m thankful for the break. I can use one after everything I’ve been through.

And to think the most I worried about a couple of months ago was my next Angelescence transaction, and our lives.

Then Godric dragged me here, and I thought all I had to contend with was the archangels’ interest in my inexplicable power, Azazel’s threat of dismemberment, my roommates and other undisclosed enemies, and Godric. Then came the Trials and that “horrific manifestation” within me, and I thought things couldn’t get any worse.

I should have known that in my world, worse always comes. And if what I remember is true, it just got infinitely more complicated.

The Devil himself has come into play.

Strangely, I’m not afraid. Okay, so I am, but nothing like when I was facing this Afterworld, and trying to shield Sarah from its brutalities, on my own. Whatever new disasters are heading my way, I feel I will no longer face them alone.

Beyond my wildest expectations, I have Godric, that every-shade-of-grey powerhouse. My enemy and captor, my mentor and protector, and my one overriding desire. I have Sarah, my soul sister, as more than my unwavering emotional support now she’s unearthing her true potential—whatever that is. After these two, the ones my world revolves around, I have Lorcan, that open-hearted enigma. I may have Gideon, Tory and the other archangelspawn, too.

Hell, I may even have my Unitas, that disparate and dangerous trio who hate me. No matter how reluctant we all are in this enforced alliance, I suspect our fates are now entwined forever.

And then, I’m no longer that helpless hustler struggling to survive at the bottom of the Afterworld’s food chain. I still can’t wrap my head around it, but I’m becoming the warrior Godric has pledged to forge, the one who took on a black hole and won. I may even become the weapon he thinks he can wield in a war to end all wars.

According to him, there’s an apocalyptic showdown in the making, maybe the final one this time. With the Devil in the equation, what’s coming may be worse than he thinks, or my worst-case-scenario mind can imagine.

Knowing I can theorize until the celestial cows come home, I close my eyes, and let everything go, one last thought echoing in my drifting mind.

Even if I am in the eye of the impending cosmic storm, I say bring it.

Just not today.