My eyes creep up his cheeks to meet his gaze once more. “Oh. Well, why were you then? Didn’t look like you had a gun to your head.”
He laughs. “Well, that’s true. It wasn’t as if I was running down a mountain onto some crazy man’s property with her,” he says and winks.
“Touché.”
“Actually, I was trying to do you a favor.” He casts his line and looks at me from the corner of his eye. “I saw you in the dress store with Corrine. Drusilla was on her way in with her friend and I didn’t want her to ruin your fun, so I distracted her for a while.”
Even my toes are smiling right now. Meeting his gaze, I lean toward him again. He lays down his pole and wraps both of his arms around me tightly.
Being here, kissing Kieron and having him kiss me back is sheer ecstasy. It is unlike anything I have ever experienced. In this moment, held securely in his arms, I feel a deeper connection with him than I have ever felt with anyone…ever. I forget that I’m half-monster, and that he and I are doomed. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is right here in my arms, this boy kissing me so sweetly and with such tenderness.
Right now, everything is right in my crazy, mixed-up world.
Everything makes sense.
Everything really is perfect.
Finally.
Chapter 17. Lucky
“You can’t tell Bones…or anyone. They can’t ever know the truth. The results would be beyond catastrophic,” Kieron says.
Earlier this evening, Kieron had stopped me just as I reached the Bridge of Kings. He’d told me that we needed to talk...in private. So instead of going directly to the Bar, we’d detoured back to my special place high on the mountainside where we could be alone.
I pace in circles, my hands on my head, still unable to process all that has happened. Cody… Ivy…Light-angels…It’s too much. Impossible to believe.
“Light-angels? You really think they’re responsible for this?” My voice is frantic, boarding on hysterical. But I have good reason to be upset. If he’s right—and I fear he is—our whole world is about to change.
He nods solemnly. “The burn patterns are unmistakable. Their energy is unique to only them. ”
“But how do you even know this?” I ask, fingering my Boumeaux nervously. “If Light-angels really are responsible for this, how did they get into Thiberoux? How is that even possible?”
“I don’t know…I don’t know,” he mutters, shaking his head in disbelief. “I’ve never heard of it happening before…I’ve only had experience with them in the Mortal World. To think they’ve somehow managed to enter Thiberoux…that must mean they’re more powerful than we’ve ever imagined. That’s why we had to get out of there…”
I’m dizzy from his words and my own incessant pacing, so I sit down on a rock. The Sirens are singing, but even their soothing melodies can’t calm me now. “Okay. You need to start from the beginning, because none of this makes any sense. Why can’t Bones know? Shouldn’t we alert the others?”
Kieron comes and sits beside me, his face grim. “There’s a lot I don’t know…but there’s some stuff I do know.”
“Start with what you know.” I pull my knees to my chest and hug them tight.
He takes a deep breath. “Okay. I know that sometimes we have conflicts with Light-angels in the Mortal World—”
“Duh, even I know that…but not here!”
Kieron shakes his head in wonder. “Maybe they found a way to get in through a Portal. I do know there’s a bit of a power struggle happening with their side, and it’s always been a possibility that our side may be dragged into it. I also know that if we go to war with them…again…the world will spin into chaos. Millions of lives—human and angelus—will be lost in the crossfire—”
I turn my face to him, my eyes hard. “But we must warn the others…we can’t just let them get away with it—”
He places a gentle hand on my knee. “A response is just what they’re after. They left those bodies to be found for a reason. Telling the others, especially before we have all the facts, would be tantamount to starting the Apocalypse.” He searches my face for understanding, and I scowl.
“But what are we supposed to do—nothing?”
He nods glumly. “For now. It’s best to let the others think it was other demons. Better to fight a small battle with some of our kind than to bring about the end of the world as we all know it.”
“But what if they come back? We’re not safe here anymore…” My words fade away and I bury my face in my hands.