Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
FRANKIE
The silence that filled the room was thick enough to cut.
Tegan had just explained what we’d found when we got down to the siren den, in vague detail as I’d requested.
I didn’t usually omit things from my husband but his soul was too fragile right now, he’d been through too much for too long.
Later, after we rid this world of the Unseelies permanently, I would tell him the full truth of what happened.
Or if he straight out asked, I would never lie to his face if he asked.
But if he didn’t ask then I would simply delay the truth until he was in a stronger state of emotion to process it.
Constance let out a deep sigh then pressed her hand to her belly. She wasn’t quite showing but I was worried how the stress of all this was going to affect her unborn child. “So what do we do now?”
More silence.
“I need to ask my mother and my aunts, see if they know. Maybe Lucifer knows.”
Tegan was pacing the front window. “I’m wondering if it doesn’t have to be so literal. Like technically Deacon is a siren, could we get his tears?”
The flames in the hearth behind Emersyn flared and danced over her skin yet she said nothing. The bandage around her eyes made me want to scream.
Jackson cleared his throat. “Is no one worried about why they’re dead?”
“Unseelie killed them.” I shrugged and slowly glanced around to everyone. They weren’t going to like this fact. “It means they know we’re trying to remove their barrier spell.”
Everyone groaned and cursed.
“Worse than that.” Thiago scrubbed his face with his hands. “It means they know how to break it and are already one-step ahead of us to try and prevent us from completing this quest.”
Henley nodded. “Means we need to get moving on the other ingredients.”
“Blood from a fallen angel sounds fun,” Bentley said with a nod.
“What?”
“Says who?”
“What does that mean?”
“Why would you say that?”
Everyone was rightly spooked by his comment, while I just wanted to be sick.
Tegan didn’t stop pacing. “Read it, Bentley.”
next prophecy.
Thiago nodded and plopped down on the couch beside Royce. “Right. That’s fun.”
Royce just shook his head.
“We have to get blood from a fallen angel…” Henley cocked her head to the side and eyed me. “What might our resident angels know about this mission?”
Auryn scoffed. “I know I wish I knew this a few weeks ago.”
I scowled. A few weeks ago? Then it hit me.
Saber slept with Azazel in Avolire. Saber was Auryn.
My Auryn. My daughter slept with the angel of sin to protect me.
Rage rushed through me faster and stronger than a storm tide.
My stomach rolled and tries to toss up what I’d eaten earlier.
I held my hand up in her direction and gave her a pointed glare.
“Do not remind me or your father. I can’t watch him destroy another room. ”
Auryn grinned then pretended to zip her mouth shut.
I nodded. I couldn’t be upset with her, we both knew what would have happened if Azazel had gotten his hands on me instead.
Also, I’d already assured her there was nothing to be ashamed of.
This was war, the very definition of desperate times meaning desperate measures.
Even if now that I knew I was her mother I wanted to skin him like a potato.
I wished I could’ve truly been there as myself with Everest. “Wait. Why are you up here? You’re supposed to be with your father—”
“He isn’t here.” She winked.
I gasped and clutched my chest as my pulse went haywire. “Where is he?”
“He went home.” She gave me a beaming smile. “I promised I’d let you know the moment you returned.”
Tears burned my eyes. A hot lump of emotion formed in my throat. He was awake. He was back. We were finally to be truly reunited. My heart was absolutely pounding.
Cooper glanced back and forth between me and my daughter with a frown. “Why would he leave?”
Savannah scoffed. “Maybe ‘cause this group doesn’t believe in privacy?”
Everyone else turned to stare at her.
“Ey,” Savannah hissed then clicked her tongue. “Y’all leave papaw alone.”
Raeven smiled at his spitfire of a daughter then looked to me and nodded his head toward the door. “Go, meemaw. We’ll help them come up with a plan.”
“He’s waited long enough,” Auryn said softly.
Tenn turned to me and his cheeks flushed. “No one is going after fallen angels at night, so just be back by morning.”
My heart was pounding through my veins so hard I could barely hear myself think.
“I put your stuff in your room upstairs.” Tegan gave me a soft smile. “Thought you might look for it.”
I looked over to her and had to swallow down the emotions threatening to spill out. Everest was awake. He was okay. He was waiting for me at our home in our oasis. My hands began to tremble.
Tegan winked and flicked her wrist. White light flashed — and then I was in my room on the third floor.
Frankie’s room. Even as Frankie I hadn’t had a chance to make this room my own, I supposed that was fitting.
Though I had gotten to share the bed with Everest and that meant more to me than words could conjure.
I spotted myself in the full-body mirror and butterflies danced in my stomach.
I was suddenly nervous of what he would think of me in this new body.
To me, I looked like me. Sure, there were a few new battle scars from my wild human childhood of playing sports but I was still me.
I knew Everest had already proven he was still into me physically.
My cheeks flushed in the mirror. Poor Everest. I giggled as I thought back to all those instances where I’d tortured him just enough until his self-control snapped, especially those nights in Tampa when he’d been pretending to be a healer or that one night in 1712.
Heat rushed through my body at those memories.
Even though I knew he still wanted me, regardless of how modernized I looked, I still couldn’t handle the idea of showing up to our home in jeans and a sweater.
While I had no intention of reverting back to the fashion of my first life on a permanent basis, I wanted this one moment to feel like us before everything was stolen away.
After all, I’d taken my favorite pink dress with me.
No reason not to put it on. I quickly slipped off my modern clothes and stepped into my favorite dress that still somehow felt like second skin on me after all these centuries.
The material was just as soft as I remembered.
The love bell sleeves still made me want to hold my arms out and dance around.
The butterflies dancing in my stomach as I buttoned up the dress made me bounce from foot to foot. I could hardly stand still.
Everest was awake.
With a grin, I pushed out onto the balcony and leapt into the air.
My wings spread wide instantly, carrying me higher into the sky.
The cool air rushing through the feathers was a soft tickle that I missed more than I ever could have imagined.
I closed my eyes, shutting the modern world from the moment and just let muscle memory take me home.
When my feet finally touched the ground and I felt the familiar brush of grass against my skin, I opened my eyes.
Tears pooled immediately. I was home. Our Oasis.
Mom and her sisters had given this oasis to us after we married.
They’d wanted us to have at least one place where Lilith could not touch us.
As I walked through the flowers and over the river rocks there was a slideshow of memories playing through my mind.
The first time we saw this place we’d openly wept then slept beneath the canopy of wisteria trees.
I’d given birth to Auryn here then raised her among the animals and nature.
It was like walking through a movie. It wasn’t happening now but I saw Auryn the first time she crawled because she wanted to touch the bunny and we’d had to drag her out from under the bushes.
I stopped beside the little river bank where she used to like to splash around.
She’d taken her very first steps right here.
Everest had had to leave us for two weeks, it’d been the first time we’d spent that long apart.
Auryn had been so happy to see him she’d just stood up and walked to him while squealing.
She probably would’ve started running had he not swept her up in his arms.
My chest tightened so I rubbed it. So many happy memories here…
and so many sad ones. For them, at least. I couldn’t imagine being able to come here to our home if I’d lost Everest. It would’ve been too much to bear.
I’d have to remember to thank Aunt Val for ensuring this was one of my stops of my time travel quest. I would’ve hated to learn he hadn’t been here in eight centuries.
At least he had some new memories of me here to go with the old ones.
Little Rae had grown up here, too.
I wondered just how sad it made my grandson to not be able to bring Savannah here all these years.
We would have to change that soon. I slipped beneath the perfectly overgrown canopy of wisteria and cherry blossom trees.
The purple and pink flowers surrounding me made this place feel like a fantasy.
Like magic.
Like Heaven.
I ducked beneath a low hanging branch then stopped short. My heart stopped. My breath caught in my throat. My body froze in place.
Everest.