Fallen University: Year Three

“No.”

The word fell from my lips on a breath, inaudible over the sounds of battle that raged around me.

No. Fuck, no!

Vee was powerful. I had seen her work first-hand. And she’d had some of the best underworld fallen Michael had been able to recruit on her side. That should’ve worked.

But Gavriel was just too powerful. Nothing would hold him.

And now we’d lost the element of surprise.

Vee and the others were on their feet in an instant, lobbing more spells at Gavriel. But he moved in a whirlwind, blocking them all.

I couldn’t let this happen. Maybe I wouldn’t survive the fight, but I couldn’t let them face him alone.

Without even realizing what I was doing, I began to move, my feet carrying me forward. It was only when a hand wrapped around my wrist that I jerked to a stop, wheeling around.

Xero stood behind me, his dark eyes wide. Reds, oranges, and golds sparked in his irises as his nostrils flared.

“Piper, I—”

“I love you too,” I panted, my heart cracking as I tugged my wrist free from his grip.

It was the end of the line. The odds of any of us surviving beyond today were almost nil. But I wanted to go out fighting, and I hoped he and the others would understand that.

He reached for me again, fire burning in his eyes.

“That’s not what I was gonna say.” He pulled me close, his chest rising and falling fast as shouts and screams echoed around us. “I don’t just love you. I need you. In every way possible. You’re my fucking soulmate, Piper, and I don’t care how it happened. Whether it was fate, or luck, or magic. My soul is yours. It always will be.”

Then he crushed his lips against mine in a kiss that broke my heart open and reformed it into something new. My mouth moved against his in a rhythm that belonged only to us, and I could feel each of my men gathering around me.

“My soul came alive when I met you, Piper,” Kai murmured as I broke away from Xero and found Jayce’s lips.

“You showed me I have a fucking soul. And it belongs to you now.” Kingston’s voice was low and deep, poured directly into my ear as I kissed Kai for all I was worth.

The moment Kai and I separated, Kingston kissed me fiercely. Jayce’s soft whisper hit me right in the chest. “You’ve had my heart for a long time. And it’s about damn time I admitted you have my soul too.”

All four men were so close to me that I felt lifted by them, supported by them, and everywhere we touched, heat flared inside me.

It built from somewhere deep inside me—from my own soul, maybe—and spread out until it seemed to light up my entire body.

No.

Didn’t just seem to.

It did light up my body. A bright yellow glow, like the buttery rays of the sun, poured out of me, washing over the men and spreading out over the battlefield around us. Everyone it touched stopped what they were doing, hesitating mid-attack or mid-defense.

I sucked in a gasping breath of air, and as if the glow were carried on the wind, it all rushed back into me, slamming into my body with an almost physical force.

“Holy crap,” Hannah breathed. She’d been standing nearby, so she had been bathed in the yellow light as it expanded. “Piper. Is that your… persuasion power?”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“I—I don’t know.”

I shook my head. All four men took a half-step away from me, staring at me in shock and awe.

Fuck. The battle.