Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
FRANKIE
Heaven had rules for a reason.
Breaking those rules came with heavy, heavy consequences.
But as I caught my soulmate as he passed out, I was having a hard time remembering to care.
Sweyn had already fled to the underchambers of what used to be her castle, which now lay in piles of rubble.
I wanted to chase her down, to grab her by the hair and bash her face into stone until her eyeballs rolled away from us and her fangs were in pieces.
I wanted to strap her down and peel her bones from her body one by one so she would have to suffer just an ounce of the pain she’d inflicted upon my soulmate.
He’d suffered enough because of me these last eight centuries.
That was the only thing that kept my knees in the snow and my attention on Everest’s unconscious face.
I could have killed Sweyn just now. No one in Heaven would’ve been surprised or angry, but the rules would’ve been upheld anyway.
Doing so would’ve robbed my husband of the reunion with me he’d been waiting so patiently for.
He deserved better than me succumbing to my anger.
Despite what humans believed, hate wasn’t a forbidden emotion in Heaven.
It was what we did with that hate that mattered.
While Earth angels like me were given a few more liberties than those of Heaven, killing her with Heaven’s power would not have gone unpunished, and I would not break my Everest’s heart a second time.
I hadn’t had a choice last time. It was the right call.
I’d saved countless lives. I gave our daughter a chance to find her own soulmate and have a child.
Rae and Savannah would not exist had I not sacrificed myself to end that war.
“Tegan,” I whispered as Everest’s head rolled back over my arm and his hair dragged the snow. I dug my fingers into his black T-shirt and just breathed in that cinnamon scent of his, the same one that clung to my memories of our lifetime together. “Eden.”
As the bright white light of Tegan’s portal flashed around us, I stared into Everest’s face, the centuries of memories replaying in my mind like a movie.
I may have loved him with all of my heart as eighteen-year-old arcana Frankie, but I hadn’t scratched the surface of how deeply my heart beat for him.
While Frankie was still technically me, and all the memories of this second life were prominent in my mind, the truth was my soul was born Celina.
I hadn’t even realized the ache I’d felt every day until the memories returned.
Now I just needed Everest.
When Tegan’s portal faded, I looked up and smiled.
She was rather convenient indeed. Without having to ask, Tegan had portaled us straight into the backyard of Coven Headquarters in Eden.
In the exact spot I needed. In front of me sat the outside border of the Old Lands, and a quick glance over my shoulder proved headquarters was behind me.
We were in the spot where The Coven performed my initiation ceremony.
I brushed my fingertips across Everest’s forehead and over his cheek, then slowly lowered his upper body onto the ground.
His skin was too pale and was stretched tight.
His hair was ashy and lacking all vibrancy.
I cupped his face with my hands, then bent over and pressed my lips to his forehead.
Words I had not spoken in eight centuries poured from my lips as if I said them yesterday, words of prayer to Heaven, begging them to save him.
The rune beneath him began to glow.
Tears stung my eyes. I reached down and took his right hand in both of mine, pressing the back of his against my cheek. “Do not leave us now. I am here. Just come back to me. Please just come back.”
Auryn sank to her knees across from me. She cried and took his left hand in hers. “Stay with us, Father.”
Zabkiel, or Riah as he was modernly known, crouched behind Everest’s head, then reached over and pressed his palms into my soulmate’s chest. Golden light billowed beneath his fingers. Silver magic coiled around Everest’s body and up Riah’s arms. “Take only his hands in yours now,” he said softly.
I pulled his right hand into my lap, squeezing it between my own while my Heavenly power slowly rolled out of me.
Auryn did the same. Warmth spread across my back like a fire had been lit.
Raziel, Zabkiel’s brother, knelt beside Riah and pressed his palms to Everest’s chest. His glowing Heavenly power joined with Riah’s as if they were one.
Movement in my peripheral vision made me jump, but when I looked, I found it was only Thorne and Sage.
They knelt at Everest’s feet with their palms on his legs pushing their magic into him.
They looked to me with sad eyes. It was strange to look at them with Celina’s memories, because as far as I knew when I died, Thorne and Sage were adamantly on their father’s side.
Or so I thought. To learn as Frankie that they had been cursed by him from the beginning made my heart hurt for them.
Yet as they pushed their white wings out, I knew that had to have been one hell of a fire.
A beautiful woman with long, straight blonde hair and pretty blue eyes stopped behind Raziel and Zabkiel.
A glowing blue crescent moon flickered from her chest. Her body was covered in dark red lines that indicated she had a soulmate, and judging by the way the lines on her hands perfectly aligned with the lines on Raziel’s neck, I knew who her soulmate was.
She pushed Heavenly power into her soulmate, and it forced her white angel wings to pop out.
Raphael and Azrael stepped out from the Old Lands hand-in-hand.
For a moment, their white wings flickered with colors, but I knew that was a figment of my imagination.
They vanished, then reappeared beside us.
Azrael claimed the spot between Auryn and Raziel while Raphael came around to kneel on my left between me and Zabkiel.
Zabkiel wasn’t the only healing touch we had from Heaven on Earth. Raphael was a natural-born healer, though not in the same way Zabkiel was. I was thankful to have both of them.
Thunderclouds rolled over our heads. The angel Ananiel emerged from within the storms. Tears spilled onto my eyelashes.
Even from a distance his eyes held the color of the Caribbean Sea sparkling in the sunlight.
His gaze was locked on my soulmate, a deep frown wrinkling the skin between his eyebrows.
The moment his feet touched the ground, his angel wings popped out and the dark-blue lines of his soulmate mark covered his skin.
He hurried over and stopped beside Auryn, crouching down to blast Everest with his own Heavenly power.
I sniffled and stared at him. He glanced up to meet my stare, then winked before returning his attention to my husband.
Over his shoulder, I spotted Earth’s guardian angel sisters, Eithne, Valathame, and Keltie, walking toward us with their arms linked together.
Eithne stopped between her children, Thorne and Sage, choosing to push the strength of Earth’s core through them and into Everest—probably because of their shared Seelie bloodline.
Keltie slid in on my right side, directly across from her own soulmate.
She smelled of the ocean, of salty air and seaweed.
Instead of sending her magic directly into Everest, she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and pushed it through me.
Tears slid down my cheeks. I leaned into her chest, needing the strength of her presence now more than ever.
The rune beneath Everest began to glow with a rainbow-tinted swirl.
His body lifted a few inches off the ground.
Every angel around him held their stance, giving him all the power they could.
Valathame twirled her fingers in the air, sending her unique strength to coil around every inch of his body.
I glanced over to her and let out a broken sigh.
Her beautiful face was lifted up toward Heaven.
Her eyes were closed but her lips moved as she spoke her magic into the air.
My heart was pounding too hard in my ears to hear what she was saying, but that was okay, I didn’t need to know. I just needed it to work.
A warm breeze swept through the clearing and then Gabriel emerged.
My breath caught in my throat. The archangel had come .
. . for Everest. A hot lump of emotion formed in my throat.
Gabriel stopped a few feet over from Valathame.
He looked to her with nearly identical gold and white eyes and nodded.
The soulmate lines covering his body all the way to the top of his bald head made me smile.
I had not seen his soulmate in too, too long.
Hopefully that would change. I saw Gabriel’s daughter, Lavinia Bishop, in my mind from the brief moment I met her while time traveling to 1712.
The ferocity in her soul reminded me of the entire Bishop family, the family she gave life to.
She’d looked like Emersyn but with the stubborn rebelliousness of Tegan.
Gabriel began chanting in the elder dialect of Heaven, one I had not spoken since I left Heaven a millennia ago.
The sound of his words eased the chaos of my pulse.
Golden light shined brighter around Everest and then he lifted a foot off the ground.