"Light dragon has a nice ring to it," he says, tilting his head, and winking.
I swallow and just stare, amazed.
"Chrysalis phase complete?" I finally ask, because I have no idea what else to say. I’m too awed.
"Looks that way," he replies softly, glancing back toward his massive wings.
"We really are alien, aren’t we? And… kind of alike. But I’m made of matter, and you’re made of energy."
"The line’s a lot blurrier now," he whispers, and reaches out, intertwining his fingers with mine. We hover like that, our fingers barely touching, spinning slowly in the air, sort of… dancing. The light radiating from his body illuminates the clouds around us.
"We belong to each other," slips out of me, quiet but bursting with joy so huge it almost tears through my chest. "There’s nobody like us."
"Yes. We belong to each other, Summer," he answers, and then our lips meet in a weightless kiss.
"Let’s fly, Snow. Let’s fly together through the skies… something that’s only ours."
"Let’s fly," he says with a wide smile. "Our own thing."
???
When we finally land on the Nolans’ rooftop, I’m so exhausted I could fall asleep standing. Snow is in much better shape, both physically and mentally, and he helps me climb down the stairs through the roof hatch into my room. My body still hasn’t recovered fully from what happened in the Ferro hangar, and now I’ve added such an intense physical strain on top of that.
I drop onto the bed, too tired to shower, and Snow covers me with a blanket. Only then do I remember that being True Mates gives us powerful regenerative abilities, but I guess my mind hasn’t switched to that mode yet. I don’t have the strength to say a single word anyway.
I fall asleep so quickly it almost feels as if I’ve sunk into a black well.
Despite such deep exhaustion, I wake up a few hours later.
It’s the middle of the night, and there’s something new in my body, an unusual unease.
It feels like a strange, unfamiliar kind of longing, as if something is pulling me out of bed, urging me to run somewhere, to search and find, and I know exactly what I need.
Snow.
Now we’re one soul, that need to be close, which used to stay somewhat under control and let us spend our days apart as Twin Souls, has exploded into something impossible to ignore.
Is this what I’ve read about?
TherealPull? Our souls became one just a few dozen hours ago. Is everything typical for a normal True Mates couple unfolding all over again?
I rush to the shower, rinse off the last bit of sleep, then throw on a long T-shirt and jump out through the balcony.
I run toward the basement where Snow lives, a grin stretching across my face as I realize we’ll finally understand what True Mates feel when they’re apart. It fills me to the brim. I just have to be near him. Something inside me twists, restless and hungry, in a way I’ve never felt before.
Unbelievable, if this is what they feel all the time… That tearing inside, that demand for closeness.
I didn’t think it would be this strong.
Before I can turn toward Snow’s stairs, something catches my attention, a faint current of energy that pulls me in the opposite direction and makes me look left.
Can I locate him now, just like that?
Under the tree where Snow usually sat and played, he’s sitting there again, but this time the harmonica lies on the ground beside him, as if for some reason its music could no longer bring him any peace.
And maybe it just can’t anymore?
Apparently he woke up too.
