He smiled then, and there was a catch in my chest. There was such familial fondness in the curve of his lips. “You are as immortal as any angelic being is.”
“I won’t...age?”
He shook his head again. “Most angels stop aging once they reach a certain maturity,” he said, which explained why so many of them looked like they were in their late twenties. “But you stopped aging the moment the bond was forged.”
All I could do was stare at him, and I did that for probably several minutes as I tried to work my brain through the fact that I would not grow old and break my hips while Zayne remained young and gloriously broken-bone free. Not aging past nineteen meant I would probably be carded for, like, eternity—
Oh my God, like for an actual eternity. Or until my head was chopped off, Highlander-style, or until Zayne... I wasn’t going to even go there. There were far worse things than never looking older than I did now.
Like dying now or by old age, in Zayne’s arms—“Wait,” I exclaimed, pulling my legs up to my chest to stand. “Do I have two bodies now? The one that was back in that field and this one now?”
A perplexed look settled into Michael’s features. “You have the strangest mind. You don’t have two bodies.”
“Then does Zayne know I’m here?” I asked. “Because I died—or passed out. Whatever. I was with Zayne.”
“You were, but I simply willed you here.”
“You simply willed me here?” I repeated dumbly. “Like I went poof?”
An eyebrow rose. “Yes.”
“Oh my God, Zayne must be really freaking out!”
“Probably.” He said this like it was no big deal. That people poofing out of people’s arms happened every day.
And the fact that he could just will me from one location to another was another mind-boggling fact. “Is that something all archangels can do?” I asked, thinking if that was the case, then why hadn’t Gabriel just willed me to his location?
“You are of my flesh and blood,” he said, and I wished he’d stop saying it that way. “That is why.”
Made as much sense as any of this did. I scrubbed a hand down my face, over my eyes. My eyes. My stomach dropped as I lowered my hand. I was almost afraid to ask, but I had to know. “Will my eyes continue to get worse?”
“Would it change anything if they did?” he asked. “If you’d known that the bond meant an eternity of darkness for you?”
“No.” I didn’t even need to think about that. “Being blind isn’t worse than death. Having this gift of life—of a life longer than I can even comprehend—with Zayne is so much more than being able to see. I can learn to live without my vision.” And Zayne would be there to help me. “I can’t learn how to come back from the dead.”
“Your mind.” He shook his head, laughing softly. “The bond stopped your aging. I cannot be a hundred percent sure, as this is not something ever done before, but it may have also stopped the deterioration of your eyes.”
“Really?” I whispered, a wave of prickly shock washing over me.
“It’s no magic cure. Your vision will not improve, and from what I understand about your particular genetic disorder, there is no guarantee of complete blindness,” he said, and he was right. There wasn’t. RP often progressed differently for each individual. I was kind of surprised he knew that.
Then it struck me that he did know because Peanut had known everything about my disease.
And he was Peanut.
I might pass out.
“Or it may get worse, Trinity. Your aging has stopped, and what that does genetically is beyond even me. It is unknown, as are other things, such as your ability to conceive—”
“Let’s not talk about that.”
He frowned. “Conception is a simple matter of life, Trinity. It’s nothing to be embarrassed by. Do you think I’m unaware of your recent scare?”
“Okay. Whoa. Let’s just not go there. I don’t think my brain could process it.” I shuddered, but my brain had already gone there. Grim knew when he spoke to Zayne and I. He’d said that a child between us would be a Trueborn, but that was before. I hadn’t understood what he meant then, but I did now.
That was before I had taken in a part of Zayne’s essence—before the bond. “What am I now?” I asked. “Am I still a Trueborn?”
“You are,” he confirmed. “But you are also something else entirely. Something new and without labels. You are, as you’ve said before, a very unique snowflake.”
A shaky laugh left me as I tipped my head back against the wall. I’d said that multiple times to...Peanut. All of this was a lot—a lot of good, but still a mega truck ton of stuff. I looked over at him, throat feeling swollen all over again. “I don’t know what to say other than thank you, and that seems inadequate—”