Page 113 of The Evernight Court

Grey was alive, and by some miracle I’d found him, just so he could fucking die right there in my arms?

No.It couldn’t be. I refused to believe it, so I held his head down against my neck and I begged him to bite me until I had no more voice left in me.

He did.

His fangs slipped into the side of my neck all of a sudden. I gasped in surprise and my body became perfectly still, and I didn’t even breathe as he took my blood.

Over.

It was as good as over. Everything else be damned, Grey was drinking from me.

God, it felt so good to let go. I no longer tried to hold myself upright or to carry his weight. If we fell to the ground, so be it. He was drinking from me, so hewasn’tgoing to die.

I didn’t fall, though. Strong arms were wrapped around me, and now Grey held me up to his chest as I cried happy tears and smiled at myself, and he drank and drank and drank…

Until I was fucking empty. Until I felt like he was pulling my whole life out of me with those fangs, and it was okay. It was perfectly fine as long as he didn’t die.

I would be happy for the rest of eternity, even if I never woke up again.

The soundof water trickling down and dripping all over the floor somewhere close to me woke me up. My eyes opened to the shadows on the ceiling caused by the dancing flames burning not too far away. I was wearingonly a shirt and my pants, and my boots were next to the cardigan and the jacket to my left, and the leather bag I’d had with me when Storm grabbed me from that mountaintop and brought me to…

Grey.

I sat up with my heart in my throat and looked behind me to where the sound of that water was coming from.

Grey was standing there with his hands against the rocky walls while water poured from the ceiling and fell on his naked back, washing away the dirt and blood from his skin.

Tears in my eyes. I brought my hands to my mouth as my shoulders shook, but I had no idea whether I was laughing or crying. Maybe both.

Grey was right there. I’d know his back and his hair and his arms anywhere.

And when I pushed myself to my feet, he finally turned to look at me, eyes wide and mouth open like I’d caught him by surprise.

“Fall—”

I ran the ten steps it took to get to him and jumped in his arms without making a single sound. He was wet and his skin slippery, but he caught me with ease, pulling me up until my feet no longer touched the floor—and he was alive.

I couldn’t stop crying or laughing or whatever the hell I was doing because who cared? Grey was here and he was holding me to his chest like he used to, and all was right with the world again. All that fear and that misery and that hopelessness was perfectly irrelevant now. Absolutely insignificant when his laughter slipped into my ears and warmed me down to my toes.

I didn’t let go for a long time. The water trickling from several small holes in the ceiling had me wet as well, but I held onto his neck until I’d felt every inch of him in every inch of me—but even then, I only leaned my head back to look into his eyes.

His perfect grey storms of eyes that saw all the way into my soul that was finally at ease again.

“You’re here,” I whispered, more to myself than him.

Fuck, he’d looked so, so awful out there in the darkness, torn and bloody and dirty, but now all of it was gone. His skin was clean, his hair and beard so much longer than the last time I saw him, and he was smiling.

He was genuinely smiling, and his eyes were bright, like sources of light on their own.

“So are you,” he said, like the fact fascinated him more than it did me.

Then he crashed his lips to mine, and the world around me was entirely lost within the second. The million questions that had been buzzing in the back of my mind faded away completely. They could wait. The whole world could wait because I needed him more than I needed any answer.

“I missed you so much,” I said, kissing his entire face again and again. He growled deep in his throat, crushing me against his chest.

“You’ve kept me alive, baby,” Grey whispered against my lips—and I wanted to know all about that, just as soon as I was full of him.

Grey must have read my mind because the next second, he pried my lips open with his tongue and devoured my mouth completely, holding me like a man desperate, and I had no complaints. We kissed like we were savages, mad with need for one another, tongues clashing and teeth biting and sucking and pouring ourselves into each other’s mouths. It was perfect, just as perfect as every other kiss I’d ever shared with Grey Evernight—and the best part was that we were only just beginning.

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