With his sluggish mind functioning a little better now, more details stood out. Dark shadows had left their mark beneath her pretty eyes, as if she hadn’t slept in ages. Faint smears of dried blood marred one cheek and her chin…probably his.
He frowned. “How long was I gone?”
“A week.” She set the dagger down on the bedside table. “I need to check on your wounds. Then you must rest. You heard the goddess?—”
“All that can wait.” He grasped her hands, and his gaze searched hers, trying to figure out what was frightening her. “Tell me. What scares you so much?”
A deep inhale had her chest rising, and his attention lowered to her jacket-covered breasts, then back to her eyes when she spoke. “While you were unconscious in the cave, an angel appeared. He tried to kill you.”
He stilled. “What?”
She pulled one hand free and rubbed her shadowed eyes. “I don’t know who he was. He wore a white robe, had short, flaxen hair, and three pairs of wings that glowed like the sun?—”
“Jehoel,” he gritted out. “A seraph. He did not try to kill you, too? It’s what he would do, straight up.”
And that lush mouth he longed to kiss again twisted with a wry grimace. “I wasn’t in the cave when he appeared. I heard a noise outside and wanted to make sure no dangerous creature was looking for a place to hibernate. It was just some kind of mouse.”
“Did Michael deal with Jehoel?”
“No, he’d left to summon Gaia.” She licked her lips. “So, I…I did.”
Chapter
Thirty-Two
Nia wasn’tsure what to expect after her disclosure. She couldn’t blame Lore for his disbelief. After all, Michael had eyed her skeptically, too.
“You?Youkilled the seraph?” he asked, his voice still hoarse.
Remembering how close they’d both come to dying, her anger resurged. “Yes. He tried to kill me. He hurt me—” A low growl erupted. “It’s okay. I’m fine?—”
“Tell me.” An order.
She blew out a rough breath. “When he knelt near you, the blade poised, I think I lost my mind and flashed. I only knew I couldn’t let him kill you.”
He stared at her for several seconds, then nodded, satisfaction gleaming in his weary, red-rimmed eyes. “Good.”
Breathing easier, Nia unzipped her parka and dropped it on the bench at the foot of the bed. Then she knelt in front of him, her gaze trailing over his shirtless torso, smeared with blood. But she didn’t dare touch him. Lore wasn’t himself after that cruel fall. It was reflected in his haggard features, his sweat-dampened, lackluster hair, and his deathly pale face.
She found it hard to hold in her tears. “I thought I would lose you.”
“Then why aren’t you touching me?”
She bit her trembling lip, her throat tight. “It’s all still so fresh in my mind, touching you and watching my hand slide straight through your body…”
“Had I died, I would have found my way back to you, Nia.” He tucked a loosened strand of hair behind her ear. Then his warm palm cradled one side of her face. “I’m here because I chose you. In my endless life, the only thing that had ever mattered was serving the Celestial Realm.”
His throat moved. “Then I met you. It was like being hit by a meteorite. I no longer knew left from right. You took me apart, atom by atom, turning my life inside out, and as everything realigned, I was never the same again. And I knew… I just knew what I feel for you is unstoppable.”
God, yes! The same!Her heart blazed with love for him.
But she had to know. “Then why didn’t you tell me you’d chosen to fall? You even broke our mate bond. I felt it.”
Pain flickered in his eyes and his palm shook against her cheek. “It was the last thing I wanted, and the only thing I could do. I couldn’t take you with me, Nia. As far as I knew, it’s what soul-joined mate bonds do. Gaia suggested otherwise, but nothing in our world is ever given freely. Everything comes with a price. If I didn’t come through it alive, I wanted the guarantee that you’d have a chance at a life.”
Tears dripped, and she sniffed.
He wiped her tears away with his thumb, then pressed his fist to his chest. “This ancient, timeless, and incredible love I feel is for you, and you alone. Now, will you touch me?”
