Page 201 of Cherish

“Lorelei,” the Shadow Queen says, and there’s an urgency in her voice that won’t be denied. “There is no antidote, but now that you have reunited with your sister and have your full soul, youcansave him.”

“How?” She blinks up at her mother, her eyes pleading for help.

“Use the bond,” her mother urges. “You are a wraith, which means the shadow poison will not hurt you. Use the mating bond to pull it inside you and free Mekhi from its insidious grip once and for all.”

“How?” she asks again, and I kneel beside her, pulling Hudson with me.

I don’t know how, but I know I’m meant to help her. That I’m the only person whocanhelp her—because I’ve done this before.

113

Way to Break

and Run

“You can do this, Lorelei,” I say, holding her shimmering gaze. “Now close your eyes and look inside your heart, and you’ll see he’salready there. He’s in the pieces of your soul that make your chest tighten every time you think of him. His smile, his laugh, his teasing sense of humor.” I turn to look at Hudson, trying to find the right words to describe a feeling. “Even the way he argues with every single thing you say…he’s there. Right there. Waiting for you to reach out and grab ahold and never let each other go.”

Hudson’s oceanic eyes never leave mine as he says, “Your mate already found you,choseyou, Lorelei. You just have to let them love you…and then follow their love back to you, take it in, let it consume you, until there is no you anymore—there’s just an unending, unbreakableus.”

“I see him,” Lorelei breathes. “I found Mekhi. He’s so incredibly beautiful—” She gasps, reaching to cup the side of his face. “I love you, too. Now will you come back to me? Please don’t leave me, not when I’ve just found you. Do you hear me?” When Mekhi still doesn’t move, she leans forward and presses her lips to his, then whispers, “Will you come home to me, Mekhi?”

His lashes tremble just before they sweep upward, revealing his gorgeous brown eyes. “Hey.” His voice is rough and gravelly but strong.

Lorelei swipes an arm at the tears running down her face before saying, “Hey back.”

“What? How?” Jaxon looks back and forth between Mekhi and the rest of us like he can’t believe his eyes.

I know the feeling. I’ve seen a lot of things since becoming a gargoyle, but never in my wildest dreams did I think Mekhi and Lorelei were going to pull a real-life Sleeping Beauty right here in the remnants of the Shadow Realm.

“What happened?” Lorelei asks, but then she throws herself into Mekhi’s open arms without waiting for an answer.

The Shadow Queen looks on indulgently, and even Liana has a smile on her face.

And while this is the most wonderful thing that could have happened and I’m so, so grateful, I’m also very confused. Because Mekhi was dead. I know he was. I saw him with my own eyes.

“This is real, right?” Hudson asks as he looks between his brother and Mekhi. And I can tell he’s thinking the same thing I am. That this better not be some stress-induced mass hallucination, because losing Mekhi once nearly broke Jaxon. Having it happen twice would utterly destroy him.

“It is,” the Shadow Queen answers as she wraps an arm around Liana’s shoulders. “Mekhi is going to be okay.”

“But how?” Jaxon asks again.

“The mating bond saved him—the way it saves most of us, in one way or another. I had trouble believing it, but I knew they were mates the moment Mekhi told me Lorelei had given him that necklace. Buthedidn’t seem to know it, which could mean only one thing. So much of Lorelei’s soul was trapped here, with Liana, that the mating bond couldn’t function in your world. Once Grace brought the Shadow Realm down and my daughter was able to retrieve her soul—”

She pauses for a second, swallowing hard as if overcome by a thousand years of emotions flooding her system at this very moment, then clears her throat and continues. “Once Lorelei and Liana were able to touch, their souls realigned and Lorelei was able to reclaim all of herself. Which meant the mating bond could finally function the way it’s supposed to. And since Lorelei’s a wraith, immune to shadow poison, the bond automatically filtered the poison from Mekhi to her. And it will continue to do so for all time.”

Jaxon slumps over with relief, and for the first time in months, the brackets of pain around his mouth and eyes are gone. He looks like the weight of a thousand pounds—or at least one two-hundred-and-twenty-pound vampire—has finally been lifted off of him.

Flint notices it, too, and he presses a supportive hand to Jaxon’s shoulder. Jaxon lifts his own hand to cover Flint’s, and when he turns his head to look up at Flint, there’s a moment of understanding—of connection—between them that I haven’t seen in months, if ever. I don’t know what it means for them, but I hope it’s good. They deserve to be happy together.

Hudson catches my eye, and we both kind of smile at each other. It’s good to see Jaxon happy—or at least open to the possibility of happiness. God knows he’s gone through enough to get there, and he deserves every ounce of joy that comes his way.

Mekhi and Lorelei finally break apart, and the vampire springs to his feet with more energy than he’s had since he was bitten. His easygoing grin is back in place, and his warm brown eyes are finally, finally clear.

“Thank you,” he says, looking all of us one by one.

Eden grins. “Pretty sure your mate’s the one you need to be thanking here.”

“It’s all of you,” Lorelei says. “You’ve all fought for him over and over again, and that’s not something we will ever forget.”

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