CHAPTER 25
Asher had never been this tired in his life, every breath a struggle. The air around him was thick and it was like trying to breathe underwater. His eyelids were weighted down, making them impossible to open. Something heavy sat on his chest. He wanted to shove it aside, but he couldn’t move.
A voice. Someone was calling to him. It sounded far away…and sad.
A female? He tried to concentrate on it, but he couldn’t make out the words.
“Speak up,” he tried to say. “I can’t hear you.” But his lips wouldn’t move. With an enormous amount of effort, he was able to make his eyelids flicker open for a moment.
A swirling mist of gray surrounded him and he could make out a few vague shapes.
“Asher, please,” one of the voices called. He really wanted to go to her. He loved her.
Please, what? What did she want from him?
But then another voice called out to him. Another female, from the opposite side. It was much clearer, much easier to understand. “No, come to me, Asher. I’ve been waiting for you. We both have.”
Jenny? Was that her?
He tried to sit up, but that fucking elephant wouldn’t move. Something began to loosen inside him. He could feel it. Hidden tethers were coming undone. He had to get out of this body. It was broken. It couldn’t hold him any longer.
“Yes, that’s it,” Jenny called. “You can do it.”
“Asher, come back to me,” the first voice called.
Olivia?
“I love you, Asher,” she said. “Please come back. We have a whole lifetime to live together.”
A whole lifetime? But it was too late for that. He was too tired. He had to let go. He couldn’t do it anymore.
“The baby, Asher.” Jenny’s voice was loud in his ear. “It’s a girl. She looks just like you.”
He had a daughter? Jenny had been pregnant with a girl?
He coughed. How was that possible? Jenny was…dead.
Something hit his face. Hard.
Why was someone trying to hurt him?
“Leave me alone,” he wanted to say, but he couldn’t get his lips to move.
A burst of warmth raced through his veins like wildfire. An instant shot of something wonderful. Energizing him. Heightening his awareness. It was something he wanted more of. Something he desperately needed.
“Asher! Don’t you fucking die on me.” There was another slap.
“Olivia?” He wasn’t sure if he was talking or thinking.
Jenny was saying something else too, but he couldn’t make out the words. She sounded distant, standing at the end of a long tunnel.
The knots around the tethers were getting tighter now, not loosening. The weight on his chest…it wasn’t an elephant. It was…Olivia. She was trying to keep his soul anchored to his body.
“Goodbye, Jenny,” he called. “I’m not ready yet.”
Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance by Jennifer Ashley, Alyssa Day, Felicity Heaton, Erin Kellison, Laurie London, Erin Quinn, Bonnie Vanak and Caris Roane
CHAPTER 26
“You sure he’s not going to be standing there, waiting for us to step through the portal?” Alexandra Crawford pulled the tie on her robe tighter. “I really don’t want my future son-in-law to see me naked.”
Olivia laughed. She and Asher weren’t officially engaged yet. There were a few things she needed to accomplish first before that could happen.
“Mom, he’s waiting, but he’s not going to be right there. I promise.”
“And if the lad is, I’ll kick his arse for you, Mrs. Crawford.” Rickert stood behind them, his hands on his hips. There was no mistaking that he was a Cascadian assassin, with that leather kilt and the two long knives affixed to his back.
Asher and Neyla had gone through the portal about an hour ago in order to have clothes and transportation waiting for them when Olivia and her mother stepped through. “It’ll just be Neyla there, along with her friend Petra.”
“I hope there’s not a fanfare or anything. This body isn’t what it used to be.”
Olivia snorted. “So you’re saying that when you were younger, there was fanfare when you were naked?”
Her mother rolled her eyes. “There are some things that are not appropriate for a mother to share with her daughter. Now come on. I’m getting cold standing here. Let’s get on with this. I’m anxious to meet the Cascadian branch of our family.”
When Rickert had first seen Olivia and then her mother with their mismatched eyes, he’d told them of a family in one of southern regions where all the women were born with eyes of different colors. Their village had been the target of several deadly raids by Pacificans decades ago and it was possible that Olivia’s mother had come from there.