Page 29 of Light

Outside her bubble in time, a chill settled on the air, hinting at winter’s impending arrival. Soon, the bubble would burst, and one way or the other, time would be up.

A noise at the door had him dissolving from her room to appear in Adalaide’s foyer. The noise came again.

Shrugging his shoulders, he draped his wings into an overcoat and slid the door open just enough to peer out.

“Evn’in sir,” a man said, dipping his head. His hair was neatly combed, but his shoes were scuffed, and the light odor of metalwork spoke of his profession. Instantly, Gabriel’s hackles rose. The man had some nerve calling on an unwed woman at this hour.

“Good evening,” he said, raising one brow.

The man swallowed audibly, taking a step back. “I came a call on Miss Graves. Haven’t seen her in town o’late, and it’s not like the lady. My wife sent me by with a basket. We hope all’s well?”

Gabriel’s gaze dropped to the proffered basket in the man’s hand and the dull band encircling a finger. His anger banked.

“You’re too kind. Miss Graves is not receiving visitors presently.”

Taking the basket from the man’s outstretched hand, he gave a nod and closed the door. He noted with some satisfaction that the man’s mouth had dropped open to say more—or perhaps in awe of his grand stature.

In the foyer, he double-checked the wards around the entrance and moved back up the stairs to Adalaide’s room, finding her unchanged. He sighed, dropping on the edge of the bed.

Waiting for some change was a torture all its own, but the fear lodged in his chest over what would happen when the bubble burst had his soul pulsing rapidly.

Perhaps he should let it run its course. Wait for the events of her life to play out naturally. If she woke, she would be free to make up her own mind. If she did not, the decision would be made for him. But the pattern dusted over her face was too great a coincidence to ignore.

He longed for Dina’s counsel on the matter, but her insistence they bond would only grow exponentially if she believed Adalaide was somehow tied to the sign all beings awaited to usher in the end times.

How could the Naphil lying just beside him, housing half of his soul, be the catalyst that would spark the war at the end of the world as they knew it? He was reading into things. Giving himself excuses to justify his desires.

Another noise at the door drew his focus. The man was relentless. What did he want now?

Gabriel moved to the door once more, flinging it wide.

Eyes in shades of gold narrowed as Sanura hissed and threw up her blood-red nails.

He was frozen in the door, momentarily caught off guard, and it was the moment she needed to dart away. When he’d recovered, he went after her, dissolving into nothing and following her trail.

She was fast, so fast, but he pulled himself along in her wake, letting it lead him back through Cheapside, down the Thames, straight to the estuary and into the North Sea.

He stopped, hovering over the dark body of water as he searched for any sign of her. As it had many times before, her soft blue trail vaporized into mist and was lost to the wind. She must be using the water as her escape route.

When he’d scanned the distance, seeing nothing that gave her away, he turned back, choosing speed, and materialized in Adalaide’s room, letting loose a sigh of relief as the pain in his chest receded at her nearness.

Shaking off his disappointment, he crawled onto the bed beside Adalaide in corporeal form and wrapped one arm over her chest. The contact was cathartic, easing some of the tension from his most recent contact with Sanura and further solidifying his resolve.

If a demon had come while he was away or another of Sanura’s creatures, they would have slit her throat where she lay, and he would be bereft of his other half until the end times. He’d resolved himself to that fact only weeks ago. Why, then, did the idea spear pain through his chest now?

He rested his cheek against hers, a warm buzz rolling through him. Her soul stretched toward him, begging to be one. Had she been given the choice, she may not have chosen him; after the way he’d behaved, he would have understood if she hadn’t. But her soul was of a different mind. It was wholeheartedly committed to the idea.

And why wouldn’t it be? It was, after all, his soul. Strange that he hadn’t considered it his from the moment they’d met. He closed his eyes, letting his half of their soul stretch tentatively toward hers. The two halves brushed against some invisible barrier—the lack of claiming.

His half smarted at the rebuff, curling back only to reach out once more.

Mine. The single thought reverberated through her mind.

It wasn’t soft or tentative. It was loud and commanding. The voice was nothing like Adalaide’s. It was their soul speaking through, demanding to be reunited. Every fiber of his being rejoiced, his half pleading for the same.

He pressed his skin against hers more firmly, nestling close, touching in all the ways their souls couldn’t.

“Gabriel.”

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