Page 203 of Dark Romeo

“What will change from this minute to the next?” I cried, letting out an angry growl. “Julianna is gone and?—”

“Roman?” a soft girlish voice called, heavy with sleep.

I turned my face towards the voice, my breath a solid ball in my throat. Julianna was lying in the coffin, in the same position as before. But her eyes were fluttering.

I couldn’t speak. I tried.

I felt Father Laurence pulling the gun from my hand. I let him.

Those perfect whiskey irises looked right at me, right into me. I wanted her to be alive so much I was hallucinating.

“Roman?” she said, her voice cracking as if her throat was too thick. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.

Speak again, bright angel.

My heart began to rattle in my chest like a cage. My body coursed with fire. But my feet had turned to sand, my body to wood. I just stared at her. Looking at her. Trying to understand. What was happening. To fit these missing pieces together. Two seconds ago, she was dead. My life was over. Now…she was blinking. Speaking.

Could it be that there was a God? Could it be that there were such things as second chances? Had He decided I was to deserve one?

Julianna tried to sit up, her movements weak. She fell back down on her pillow.

“Help me get her out,” Father Laurence said.

On autopilot, I stepped up to the side of the coffin and reached in for her. My arms went around her tiny waist. Her arms flung around my neck.

She felt so real.

“Father,” I said, “it’s the strangest thing. She feels alive to me.”

“I’m alive, Roman,” the ghost of Julianna said into my ear.

“I’m dreaming, then.” I inhaled deeply, taking in her smell of clean skin and the hint of her sweet perfume. I pulled her out of her death-box and placed her on her feet. I didn’t let go. I couldn’t. She’d disappear if I let her go.

I was losing my mind. Or maybe I was actually dead. I had pulled the trigger and shot myself and this was heaven. Julianna’s arms were heaven. So in heaven I must be.

“I’ll just leave you two,” the Father said quietly. The door clicked shut behind him.

“You’re not dreaming,” she whispered. “I’m here.”

My head spun with all of my wildest hopes and dreams. The relief was so palpable it hurt. Like boiling water over icy glass, cracking my grief to pieces. I just kept whispering her name and rocking her in my arms, holding her so tight I was sure I was hurting her. She didn’t complain. She clung to me with her own delicate fierceness.

I pulled back and touched her face. I brushed her hair. I ran my fingertips across her cheekbones and jaw. My eyes sought every freckle, ran over every crease in her bottom lip. Everything was in place.

This was real. She was alive.

I shook my head. “How?” I asked. She began to speak. I shushed her. “I don’t care how. Just that you’re here and alive. Jules, I couldn’t live without you.”

“You don’t have to.”

Our mouths closed against each other’s, my tongue swiping across her lips before she let me in. My arms wrapped so tightly around her, pulling her soft, warm body flush against mine. She moaned into my mouth and fisted her hands into my hair, telling me she wanted more.

It was a kiss made of stars and light. Of gunpowder and sparks. A kiss that stirred up a lost hope as fragile as snowflakes. We kissed for what had ended and for what was only just beginning.

JULIANNA

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My head spun with lightheadedness. From the toxin’s effects. From his kiss.

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