Hearing his name, the air in her lungs escaped in a harsh breath, so sure an invisible fist was squeezing her chest?—
“What is it?” Echo asked as if sensing her pain. Nia just shook her head, her throat tight.
Frowning, her twin continued, “During one of those lessons about a year and a half ago, this rune lifted from the angelic scroll I was going through. I nearly had a heart attack when it settled on my palm?—”
“What?” Nia gasped. She grasped Echo’s wrist. “Look.” She put her hand next to her twin’s, revealing the curved mark. “I accidentally broke a glass, probably around the same time, too—my hand suddenly stung so bad that the piece I held dug into my palm, and this scar remained.
It looks more like half an eye…”
Echo stared at Nia’s palm, then at her own. “Even apart, you felt me…” She blinked several times, tears wetting her eyes. “I’m not surprised. It hurt like nails were hammered into mypalm at the time. At least the others weren’t painful when they appeared.”
“You have more runes?”
“Yep, I’ll show you later.”
“So…” Nia clenched her fingers and finally asked the question burning a hole in her mind. “Lore’s your tutor?”
Echo drew her sleeves over her fingertips again, her attention on the glassy surface of the gray lake. “He was, then just before Christmas, Michael okayed me not continuing. It seems I know all I should for now.”
So, she would never see Lore again? Her belly dipped.
A sudden sense of awareness took hold of her as if he were close, and warmth swept through her. She glanced over her shoulder, her heart tripping anxiously as she searched for him. No one was there. Only the snow-covered plants and shrubs witnessed the hope fading from her eyes.
“I’m glad to ditch the studies.” Echo laughed, shoving back her overlong bangs, revealing a star-shaped scar near her hairline. “And I won’t miss my pain-in-the-ass tutor.”
“What do you mean?”
“Surely Lore must have driven you batshit crazy with his ‘I’m an angel, therefore superior’attitude? I mean, you told him off before you rushed outside. Can’t blame you…”
Nia bit her lip and stared at her hands on her lap. No matter what had happened between them, the bottom line was she’d fallen for her angelic assassin-slash-protector so damn hard.
“Oh, shit!” Echo gasped. “You and Lore?” A grin started. “Man, I was so caught up in my discovery of you that I missed the dynamics between you two. Wow! That’s wonderful!”
“No, it’s not.”
“Wait. You and Lore are together, right?” she asked, her brow furrowing.
Nia sighed deeply. “No.”
“Why not? From your expression, I can see… Hell, Ifeelthere is more.”
God, she wished it was so, wished there wasn’t such a great divide between them, namely the Celestial Realm. How did one even fight something like that, fight Heaven?
“Are you telling me he never kissed you?” Echo asked.
Heat swept through Nia’s cold cheeks at the memory of Lore asking her to kiss him. She had to force the words out through a throat swelling with emotions. “Regardless, there is no him and me, Echo.”
“I don’t believe that. Now, when I think back, the tension between you two clogged the room, and even when you railed at him, it was like he couldn’t stop watching you.”
Nia fingered the slash on her sweater where the throne had made her stab herself. Tears blurred her eyes, remembering Lore’s cold fury as he healed her…and her remaining anger faded because none of it mattered anymore, not when his actions revealed the truth.
He always came out saving her, protecting her.
Pain shimmered. “I-I can’t talk about it, not right now.”
“It’s all right.” Echo patted her arm.
“So…” She swallowed past the lump in her throat, trying not to be a dark cloud when she’d just met her twin. “You’re with the blue-haired guy who thought I was you, huh?”
