Page 220 of Crimson Promises
The room seemed to close in, and a sense of helplessness washed over me like a suffocating wave.
I opened my eyes, staring down at Ben's still face, his closed eyelids hiding the familiar warmth of his gaze. His life depended on me, and I was failing him. Frustration and despair welled within me, and I couldn't understand why my magic had forsaken me in this moment of dire need.
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I continued to pour my energy into him, my hands trembling with the effort. I refused to give up, refused to accept that I couldn't save him. But the silence that greeted my pleas was deafening.
In one heart-wrenching moment, I held Ben's lifeless body in my arms, his form cold and unmoving. Desperation clawed at my chest as I whispered his name over and over, my tears falling onto his still face. I refused to accept he was gone. In the next, the world around me blurred the Observatory, Lucifer, everything fading away into obscurity.
And then, in the blink of an eye, darkness enveloped me. I felt a disorienting prickling spread over my body.
When the world solidified again, I found myself in an achingly familiar place. I was in my bedroom in Arch Cape, surrounded by the soft glow of moonlight filtering through the curtains.
My room was still messy, clothes strewn everywhere from the night I had been getting ready to meet Ben.
I didn’t get to finish saving him. My thoughts swirled full of bitterness and anger at whatever had ripped me away from Ben.
I crawled onto the bed. One of his rumpled black henleys was stuffed under the pillow he had been using. I shoved my nose into the fabric, and it smelled like him, of rain and evergreen.
I curled myself up into a fetal position and clung to the fabric.
Convincing myself that it had all been a dream.
ChapterTwenty-Eight
Bennett
Horror, unlike anything I had ever known, pierced through my chest.
I opened my mouth to protest or yell, but nothing came out. Not. One. Sound.
Voice something. Chance something. Decide something.
And just like when Jos died, I stood there and did nothing.
I was losing her.
She was going to becomehis.
The words of the prophecy flowed from her lips like music: a delicate caress of notes and melodies.
My body shook with tremors as a sliver of relief flooded to the surface. I wasn’t going to die right when I had finally found that there was something worth living for. Something I had lost all the same.
And then the most unbelievable thing happened.
I watched it happen through a mesh net.
Wings as bright as an archangel’s unwound from the space between her shoulder blades.
Rumors constantly swirled about the existence ofdimidiums. As humans had legends of the Lochness Monster and some odd hairy creature called Big Foot, the existence of a being that was half-angel and half-mortal was often a fable used to intimidate children into listening to their parents.
It was myth or legend. No one ever considered the possibility that it was a reality. Life as an Ordinary was too busy trying to survive. We never had the time to contemplate the existence of such creatures.
Everything had still been a theory until Lucifer confirmed it himself. Then, I knew I would do anything to keep her away from him, including sacrificing myself for her.
We’d been through a lot recently—her and I.
A relationship that was never meant to be but blossomed despite everything.
But seeing those wings, knowing she took Lucifer’s bargain to save me, made me realize how much of an idiot I had been.
