A knock sounded.
Unable to face anyone, she hurried to the dressing room—and faltered to a stop. She usually avoided this place unless necessary because everything here reminded her of Nik. His smell, his clothes, the swords on the wall near his weapons closet.
The stacks of folded black t-shirts on the shelves drew her focus again. Then her feet were moving, and she picked up his shirt. His scent of stormy nights and cedar flooded her nose as she pressed her face into the fabric, and a harsh, racking sob broke free. She sank to the floor, knees raised, face buried in them.
Someone sat next to her, and arms came around her.
Shadow leaned her head on her friend’s shoulder and wept for a life she’d never have with the man she loved, and for the child she now carried who’d never know its father.
When the tears dried up, and only dry heaves wracked her chest, she met Kira’s wet eyes. “I…I’m pregnant.”
Chapter 34
Pale thread-like filamentswrapped around the body lying in stasis on the stone slab in the gloomy cavern.
Cobwebs? It sure looked like it.
Lit, stumpy white candles set in the wall, on the floor, and in the small alcoves on the rugged walls cast a dim light over the corpse.
Who was that down there? Where the hell was he?
Frowning, Nik coasted closer.
“You know who it is,” a soft, soothing, feminine voice murmured.
Nik hovered above the still form then coasted around the shrouded body. Too large to be a woman…
“Me?” he demanded of the female who spoke in an otherworldly voice. “How can that be? I’m here with you.”
“Your soul is. That’s your corporeal body.”
“Why?”
“You were mortally wounded. I brought you back.”
“You make no sense. I’m immortal. One would need to get hold of one the very few weapons in existence to end me,” he growled then frowned, something nagging at his mind. “Someone did.”
The ghostly form morphed to a tall, willowy female and hovered next to the corpse.
It seemed as if the sun shone from her—no, it was her hair that glowed so brightly. Like sunlight, it framed her dusky face, cascading down to her knees. Eyes like spring buds, soft and green, studied his physical body, the same leaf-green color forming tattooed vines around her brow and down her cheeks.
The ancient goddess.
He’d last seen this Being when he swore his fealty to her eons ago.
“My lady, Gaia.” He would have bowed if he had a body.
She inclined her head at his greeting, her hair flowing like sunbeams.
“How did I end up down here?” he asked.
“You are all tied to me by the very oaths you pledged as my Guardians, as are the weapons I bestowed you. Your corporeal form was in peril. Your sword alerted me. I brought both your soul and your body to me before they could wing their way to the afterlife in Elysium.”
He died?
Try as he might, Nik couldn’t quite grasp what had happened or see his death.
A soft brush against his mind startled him, then pixelated shots drew him into a bloody battle in the rain.Emotions swelled…desperation clawed at him to save someone…pain ripped his chest…an eerie, glowing black-edge silver sword struck him across his neck. Intense pain exploded…a smirking red-haired demon wielding the weapon—
