Page 225 of Gift from the Source
Tears well and spill out of my eyes faster than I can stop them. I try as hard as I can to choke the heart-wrenching sound from falling out of my mouth, but I can’t.
Why is there only three of them?
“Core,” I cry as I clutch my chest.
I’m seconds from ripping my heart out just to stop the pain.
“Eyes on me, princess.”
Twenty-Five
Corentin
The shattered look in her silver eyes hurts almost as much as what it felt like to have her soul rip from mine.
In two strides, I’m nearly at the edge of the bed when she throws herself at me.
My fingers tangle in the wild, messy curls that hang from her bun. My other hand wraps around her lower back as her arms and legs wrap tightly around me.
I pull her even closer.
Her trembling body shakes me to my core.
All I can do is hold her, breathe her in, and let her break in my arms.
I savor the tear-drenched kisses she lays to my heart, and I close my eyes, fighting back my own tears as she whispers her unyielding love for me.
“Everything’s okay, princess. I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere.”
“You weren’t here, Core. You were gone. You were in the beyond. I lost you. We lost you,” she sobs and my brothers circle in around us.
With one of their hands on her, the other on me, I can’t hold back the tears I’ve been fighting since I woke up squinting at a clear sky.
Its beauty took me by surprise for a fleeting second. Then I ran.
I swear I ran into the sun.
It was jarring coming out of a light so bright, to a realm full of screaming.
Tillman was leaning over me with tears dripping from his eyes. He was bellowing to take him too, not make him wait and suffer.
Draken was on his knees, rocking back and forth as he prayed to give us back to him.
Cas sat silently. Unmoving.
My squinted gaze followed his line of sight beside me.
That’s where they laid her.
She was so still you couldn’t see her chest rise and fall.
Whatever she did, they thought she died doing it. You couldn’t feel a pulse in her wrist or air coming from her nose.
I knew she was alive, though.
My soul was wrapped around hers.
My movement caused chaos.
