Page 83 of Vanish Into Light

His head tilted. “Well, I’m certainly not good.”

“You’re goodto me,” she countered, frustration bleeding into her voice – and more than a little desperation.

He turned to face her fully, and closed the distance between them. Touched her face, his own shining with affection. “Oh, Rosie.” His thumb swept her cheek; pressed at the corner of her eye where dampness gathered. “Evil things can love – they can love viciously. Completely. I think – we might even lovemore.”

She blinked, and leaned into the heat of his palm. “How can any kind of love be bad?”

“What if the whole world falls apart because of love?” he asked, softly, his expression laid bare. He looked frightened.

“Then it falls,” she said. “It was always going to, anyway.”

He blinked. And smiled. And leaned down to kiss her.

It was sweet. It wasgood. And far, far too careful. It tasted like goodbye – and Rose wanted it to taste like a reason to stay. Fuck the world – it had always sucked anyway. But she didn’t know how to make her way in it without Beck. She’d tried that once already, and failed spectacularly.

She gripped his hair, and arched against him. Opened her mouth and invited him deeper with a flick of her tongue against his teeth.

He stilled a moment, and then he chuckled against her mouth. His hands found her waist, and slid down to cup her ass; squeezed.

She drew back long enough to say, “I’ve never wanted or needed you to be anyone other thanyou. I don’t care what anybody thinks – you’re my whole world. Everything else is just killing time.”

His eyes flashed, and she glimpsed his fangs, as he grinned, right before he swept down and kissed her again – properly this time, hauling her hips in snug to his, tongue hot and deep in her mouth. He purred, and the vibration moved through every inch where they touched.

Heat flooded her, a flash-fire rush of want so acute it hurt.

Stay, she thought, as he lifted her, and pressed her back against the wall.Stay, as his nimble fingers made quick work of her belt, her pants, and he pressed hot, wet, sucking kisses down her throat.

Stay with me, she thought, as thunder rattled the windows, and sent tremors through the wall.

Stay with me, let me be enough, as his wings folded in around them, sheltering them, and he pushed inside her, slow, and big, and relentless.

It stormed, inside and out, and Rose hadn’t been exaggerating: the whole world could go to hell for all she cared, so long as Beck was here with her.

~*~

Lightning chased across the sky in jagged fractals, leaping and bridging; in the distance, Gallo saw the vivid spark of a rooftop being struck, and the thunder that followed reverberated through the window, the floor; echoed in his chest.

He turned his back on the scene with dread heavy in the pit of his stomach. “The weather’s getting worse.” It had been since that freaky moment in the dining room, when Morgan had forged a sword out of silver trinkets and stabbed Raphael right in the chest. The lightning had been intensifying ever since; the thunder rattled the house, and the wind gusted rain against the windows. It had been raining and storming his whole life – but rarely with this sort of intensity.

Tris had his tablet out, and turned its screen toward her: the precipitation on the radar app he’d pulled up was peppered heavily with red and orange. “There’s a severe thunderstorm warning in effect for the whole county. More than a hundred lightning strikes a minute.”

“Shit,” Gallo murmured, as another brilliant flash lit up the library like daytime – like pre-Rift daytime, of the sort he’d only ever seen in old photos and videos.

Gavin sat bent double, all buy lying across the table, head resting on his folded arms. He was sulking like a child, and it would have been humorous, if the situation wasn’t so dire. It was wild to think that he’d ever been intimidated by this man.

As if sensing Gallo’s attention, he tipped his head and glanced up at him, voice muffled against his own sleeve when he said, “Now what?”

“I don’t know.” Gallo swallowed down a wave of nerves. “But I’m pretty sure Morgan – Michael,” he stumbled over the conduit’s new name,truename, “is gonna put that sword through Becket.”

Gavin’s eyes popped wide. “Shit,” he said. Then, expression firming, “Good.”

Gallo sighed. “You know, I can’t even pretend you’re worried about the bigger picture right now when you’ve been such a damn brat about Becket from the start.”

Gavin’s expression went indignant. “Hey–”

A crash of thunder so loud and close it rocked the mansion cut him off.

“Shit,” Tris said, when it had passed, and Gallo picked up on the note of real tension in his normally toneless voice. “This place has a basement, right?”

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