Merry Ever After

I was moving, still traveling in my non-corporeal self, but I kept her locked out of my mind. I needed space to think about what my father had told me.

“A fallen messenger is coming. His wings were taken, and he will amass a great battle to win his way back to the heavens. He will find his answer in your soulmate. She is bonded to you and, therefore, seen as a plight to the Messenger ancestry. He will seek to eradicate her and further take out the good in you. He will then battle you, sending you back to the Underworld, ridding Earth of both ends of the soul-bond. When this happens, his wings will be returned to him, and he will be allowed entry back to the beyond. This is how it is said.”

When the words left my father, I knew they were true. I felt the power of the prophecy, felt the roots they stemmed from, and it was not from him. He had not created the prophecy.

If Shay were killed, he was right—she was the only good in me. I would be a full-blooded demon if I weren’t bonded to her.

“Kellan.”

I felt her now, heard her voice in my head, and I allowed her in.

“What’s going on?”

She felt my concern, and now I could feel hers.

“I’m coming back to you.”

“What did your father say?”

I let her go through my thoughts.

When she was done, I felt her withdrawal before she asked, “You think he’s telling the truth?”

I moved to her, prodding into her mind. I wanted access to what she was thinking. I could feel her fear and also her surprise that my father would be truthful.

“You think he’s telling you this because he’s your father?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can sense your worry, but we’ve battled other messengers before.”

I didn’t respond because this would be different. The prophecy had already been spoken. It would happen. This messenger was unlike the others. He had a mission, a quest. He would be committed. He would be brimming with power.

I could already feel the battle coming.

I would have to prepare Shay, but that wasn’t for now.

I needed a distraction. “Tell me about the holiday plans you have. I know you’ve been conspiring against me while I was gone.”

I sensed her smile as she relaxed, just a little. “I have!”

She told me while I traveled back to her.

Damien’s fraternity was having a party. Some of Shay’s college friends wanted to do a Christmas cocktail event on a rooftop of a building. It was going to be classy, so we needed to dress up. There would be caroling. And a hayride with eggnog.

And the worst one—

“I want to put a Christmas tree up in our house.”

IT’S MY TURN

SHAY

Kellan was scared.

That said everything.

I knew he was shielding parts of the prophecy. I could feel his walls, and I probed, but he didn’t want me to hear it all. I didn’t understand why, but I had to trust him. He was my soulmate. He wouldn’t keep it from me unless I wasn’t supposed to know. But I knew he was scared.

And now I was, too. Immediately, I felt his regret.

That’s why he didn’t want me to hear it all. He didn’t want this result.

I made a concerted effort to shove out my fear.

I replaced that with trust, love, and assurance.

Kellan could feel me doing this, and he knew why. It was my way of letting him know it was okay, the way he wanted to fight this prophecy. I would let him take the lead.

“I love you.”

He landed, and I heard him out loud, then felt him.

I whipped around, and there he was, turning into his corporeal self in the kitchen, right behind me.

I stood up from the couch, where I’d been sitting, and got only two feet toward him.

He finished finalizing his transition, and then he caught me.

I was in the air, in his arms, and his mouth was on mine.

“Home. You’re mine,” he said.

I sighed. “You’re mine.”

We went upstairs.

His mouth was commanding. His tongue moved in.

Lust and pleasure wound through me, zinging me.

My body heated. I needed him.

The time he took to go to his father and back hadn’t been that long—a few days, but it felt longer. Like months. Space and distance in any form weren’t supposed to come between bonded souls, but it’d been necessary.

I’d ached for him while he was gone, but now he was here, and that ache was throbbing.

I wanted more. Of him.

He laid me down on the bed and began tasting me.

The corner of my lips.

The side of my face.

My throat.

My chest.

Between my breasts.

My right breast. My nipple.

My left. The left nipple.

He kept moving down. His tongue moved over me, sensually caressing.

I could barely endure it.

I felt myself coming apart at the seams, wanting him, but he held off. He bent over me, moving farther down.