When I pulled back, I took him in wearing a pair of neon-pink zebra-print tight-as-sin jeans, and a metallic black long-sleeve tee that basically emphasized every hard ridge of muscle. “You wore that to battle, huh?”
His eyes sparkled with mischief. “Well, I knew I was gonna see you again after a long while apart. Wanted to look my best, didn’t I?”
I chuckled. “Of course. What was I thinking?”
That revelry slipped away all too soon—well, was jolted away—when debris started raining down from the ceiling, crashing down just a few feet from us.
The floor reverberated beneath us.
I looked to see the walls were cracked at the foundations, more fissures spidering out, too.
“Vax,” I breathed.
“Yeah, he’s here bringing this fucking hellhole down with all that vibrational resonance he got from his people.”
“Fuck, Z, you coming down here through all of that… I mean, Vax is protected from this sort of mass destruction—the debris, the impacts—with his Basilisk nature… but you—”
“Somebody had to‘wake you’, Win.”
“I know, but the danger of—”
“Well, I love you, don’t I? I fucking love you, all right? Is that clear enough for you?”
I jolted.
His words burned into me.
And it felt incredible.
It was also surreal, given a whole realm was collapsing around us, he’d just had to shock me awake, and… and everything.
“Really? Now is the time for that?”
“You mean like you telling Evira you loved her on that battlefield on Loxley grounds?”
“Yeah, that was… point made.”
“Damn straight it is.”
I grasped his jaw and dragged him closer to me, so close that I was speaking right at his lips as I said, “For the record, I love you, too. Really truly love you, Z.”
His eyes sparkled at me, his lip wobbling. “Winter,” he breathed against me.
The emotion, the love… it consumed me… and then I was brushing my lips over his, about to fist my hand in his shirt—
A giant slab of stone broke from the ceiling and hurtled down toward us.
I jerked back and thrust my palms up, my amber magic shooting out, catching the slab just in time. I grunted as the weight of it rattled my bones.
Growling, I pushed to my feet, holding it steady with my power.
“Holy shit,” I heard Zayn gasping.
My magic flamed all around it, then I tossed it across the room and it crushed to pieces against the opposite wall.
I spun and grabbed Zayn’s hand, tugging him up beside me.
“Yeah,” he breathed. “Best get the hell out of here, grab Vax, then leave this nightmare realm.”
