Initially, Oliver had pretended it was possible Penelope had been the one adopted. He’d never actually thought it was logical considering Penelope resembled their mother the most. But how had he ended up with them? How had he been the one Michael selected, the infant he supposedly stuck the vampire in?
God, even thinking about it was ludicrous. This was not happening.
For a brief moment, he considered making a run for it. He doubted he would make it all that far before they dragged his sorry ass back here and forced …this. Whatever the fuck this was.
No. He couldn’t run. Not when Bijou was with him, looking at him with those lovely green eyes.
A quitter he was not.
Unfortunately, they’d stolen his will with their revelations.
Now, as he stared into Bijou’s beautiful eyes, he prayed that whatever happened in these next few minutes didn’t take her from him. He hadn’t expected her to show up, and when she did … well, some of the chaos had faded. As though her presence was all he needed.
Bijou squeezed his hand, her other brushing his hair back from his forehead.
“Are you ready?”
“No.” He would never be ready, but that was beside the point. “But let’s get this over with.”
“I need your hand.”
Oliver lifted his right hand, the one Bijou wasn’t holding.
“The other one.” Kaj glanced at Bijou. “Trade.”
She did, releasing his hand and taking the other, easily draping it over his chest as she held onto him from where she stood between both gurneys, the same as Kaj.
Not sure what the vampire intended to do, Oliver offered his hand to Kaj, had to wait when Michael instructed the vampire to remove his shirt.
Getting weirder and weirder here.
Once he was shirtless, Kaj took Oliver’s hand, clasped it firmly, a tight squeeze that would ensure he didn’t lose his grip.
Fantastic.
“You might want to close your eyes for this,” Kaj said softly but turned away from him, his gaze landing on Bijou who was standing directly in front of him.
Oliver’s attention shifted back to Bijou. She was still looking at him, as though waiting for his gaze to return to hers.
No, he would not be closing his eyes.
A soft smile pulled at her mouth, but he could see the concern. She knew no more than he did about how this would go, but she was willing to remain with him because she knew he needed it.
“Everyone else needs to move back,” the archangel said as he stepped up behind Kaj.
Oliver blocked them out of his peripheral vision, focusing solely on Bijou. He was vaguely aware of Michael’s wings expanding, stretching out, and curling around all of them, almost touching Bijou but not quite.
“Close your eyes,” Bijou insisted. “And focus on my touch.”
He didn’t want to close his eyes. He wanted her face to be the only thing he saw. If he was going to die right here and now, it was the only thing he wanted to take with him wherever he was going. Heaven would be preferred, but with the life he’d led, it really could go either way. Perhaps his time here, working with the angels in their war against demons, was enough to get his ticket punched. Then again—
Oliver inhaled sharply when warmth traveled up from the hand Kaj was holding. It moved quickly, consuming his entire body until he felt it in every molecule. Warmth turned to heat. Heat morphed into an inferno. He tried to cry out but his voice didn’t work. Bijou was speaking, but he couldn’t hear her. He began to tremble, first his legs, then the rest of his body.
It was the lightning bolt that speared him that had his back bowing, his eyes breaking away from Bijou as a fiery blaze erupted from somewhere within him.
Everything went black and he thought for sure he was dead. No Heaven, no Hell, only darkness.
As he lay there, surrounded by nothingness, he wasn’t sure how much time passed. Minutes, hours? Millenia? Forever, maybe.
