Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
EVEREST
Part of me knew I should’ve just stayed there in Coven Headquarters and waited for her. But the rest of me knew I was barely holding it together. She’d done it, she’d gotten the missing page and returned it to The Coven before meeting her mortal end and returning to me as Celina.
Eight hundred years of waiting, of worrying it would never happen.
Countless days and nights spent fearing something would prevent us from being reunited.
The last eighteen years had been torture but these last few months since Samhain nearly broke me.
Ever since I pulled her from that frat house I’d felt like I was going to lose her at any given moment.
I had no real concrete proof that she would return as an angel on Earth.
She could’ve just returned to live out eternity in Heaven with the rest of the angels.
Until I saw her with my own eyes I was terrified to rely too much on hope.
Heat filled my chest. I gasped and stood up straight.
Hot, sharp energy tickled down my spine.
My pulse quickened. The hair on the back of my neck and arms stood tall.
I looked down at my now hot pink fingernails and found my hands trembling.
I sucked in a breath and held it as I forced myself to turn around.
Celina.
That breath left me in such a forceful rush I actually swayed on my feet.
She was here. She was home. She was mine.
Since the moment I walked into that dungeon and found Francelina sitting on the cold, white marble floor I’d told myself I would be forever happy to at least have her back even if she couldn’t remember us.
I’d let myself be with her, love her in these last few months because memory or not she was my soulmate.
My other half. I was happy to just have her alive and next to me.
But this.
Tears pooled in my eyes. My whole body began to tremble.
All I could do was stare across the meadow at her standing among the purple wisteria flowers with the cherry blossom petals blending in with her hair and dress.
Francelina had had hot pink hair, it was bright and fiery just like my soulmate.
I’d actually convinced myself I preferred the hot pink…
until now. The long strawberry blonde waves cascading over her shoulders stole the breath from my lungs.
Even from twenty feet away I saw the freckles on her face. My mouth went dry.
Celina.
Her pink eyes glistened with unshed tears as she stared at me. I wanted to run to her, to hold her in my arms and never, ever let her go again. Except my body seemed locked in place. It was like my soul could only handle the emotions if I didn’t move even an inch.
Those big white angel wings of hers appeared at her back and I gasped.
And then she was flying toward me.
I managed to take a step forward just as she crashed into me.
Her arms wrapped around my neck, her fingers tangling in my hair. “Hayareshi,” she whispered.
My moon. I hadn’t heard that petname in eight centuries.
The sound that ripped up my throat burned on the way out.
I wrapped my arms around her waist and squeezed, feeling her ribs against my fingertips.
Everything I’d been holding in, all my pain and fear…
all my praying and wishing and hoping…just broke down.
My knees gave out as I sobbed against her neck, I didn’t even feel myself hit the ground.
“I’ve got you,” she said with a thick voice of her own. “I’m here.”
She held me while I nearly choked on my own tears.
We would both have bruises from how hard we held onto each other but neither of us cared.
Neither of us loosened our grip. I knew by the burning in my lungs that I was not breathing enough but I couldn’t get air in fast enough, not through the onslaught of tears.
I started to pull back, needing to look into her eyes, when her lips found mine.
New tears burned streaks down my cheeks.
She tasted salty like tears, like she was crying as badly as I was.
Her hands gripped my face, pulling me down farther and I went willingly.
My body was merely a current for her to control.
My hands slid up her back then tangled in her hair as I tipped her head back to deepen our kiss.
When we finally broke apart, my breaths were heavy and labored. My heart was pounding through my bones. I slid my hands down to her face and wiped her tears with my thumbs. “Celina,” I said on exhaled.
She beamed up at me with a smile like pure sunshine that filled the cracks of my broken soul. “Everest.”
“Welcome home, my love.”
She dove for me again, her arms coiling even tighter around my neck than before.
Our lips crashed together. I wrapped my arms back around her waist then lifted us up off the ground.
A cool gust of wind swept over me so I pulled back enough to see what caused it only to find her wings had lifted us up into the air, into the canopy of flowers.
I grinned against her lips, leaning back into this kiss while the world danced around us glorious shades of pink and purple.
All of a sudden she was giggling, the sound vibrating against my chest. With a frown, I looked down and my eyes widened. I must’ve pulled away without realizing it. My cheeks warmed. “Sorry, I have not flown since…”
Her brows scrunched in the middle. “Not even with Auryn?”
I shook my head. “It was too…painful in the beginning. Then I was just too afraid for her safety.”
She brushed her fingers down the side of my face. “We are free now.”
“Because you are home now, Celina.”
She closed her eyes. “Say it again. Say my name.”
I pressed my forehead to hers and whispered, “Celina.”
My feet touched the ground again followed by hers a few seconds later. She looked up at me with a smile that still took my breath away even a thousand years later. I took her hands in mine and just stared at her.
“Have you been coming here more often?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
She pulled one hand free and gestured to the oasis around us. “I may be Celina again but I am still Francelina… and Frankie knows how hard being here was without me.”
I groaned and hung my head.
“I came here the night you were reborn.” I cleared my throat. “I…didn’t want to see you as an infant.”
“Fair,” she said with a chuckle.
“I was here a lot those first few years you were back but not back. It was…difficult to know I was close yet still so far away.” I stared at the cherry blossom petals rolling through the grass at my feet. “To know I still had to wait.”
“I cannot even imagine,” she said softly.
“But then your parents had to fake their own death after an incident with demons and…I was terrified it was somehow my fault. That somehow —”
“Everest.”
“I know, I know. But sanity was an expensive treat I could not afford often back then.”
She cringed and squeezed my fingers.
“I had not been here in fourteen years until the other night—”
“When I was stuck and I felt you sitting on the stairs.”
I nodded. “I felt you, too.”
“We are lucky to know what a love like ours feels like.”
I smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear, seeing all of Frankie’s piercings. “For the record, I quite like the Frankie part of you.”
“Me too!”She jumped back from me and spun around with her arms out. “Right now I’m feeling my real hair, but how would you feel if I went back to the hot pink?”
I laughed. Gods, it felt good to laugh and not feel guilty about laughing. “From the moment I saw you with that hot pink hair I thought to myself…yeah, that’s more like her.”
She skipped back over to me and pressed her chest to mine. “Would it be a problem if I never wore another dress again?”
I threw my head back and laughed. “As always, I love you no matter what you wear.”
“Good.” She hopped back then skipped away from me towards the wooden stairs to our home. “Because now that I’ve had sweatpants, jeans, and leggings I have no intention of ever going back.”
“I’ve yet to get into leggings—”
She snort laughed as she opened the door.
“—but the few times I’ve worn sweatpants I have found them quite enjoyable.”
“You know what’s enjoyable, my darling Everest?” She spun around to face me with a wicked sparkle in her eyes. I must’ve made a face because she wagged her eyebrows playfully. “You wearing ripped up black jeans.”
I looked down at myself and Tennessee’s hand-me-down jeans that I was still wearing. “I won’t lie, I like them.”
“Is it the comfort you like, or the hand-me-down part?”
I hung my head and snickered. “Both. Definitely both.”
“You look hella hot in my cousin’s jeans.”
“Hella hot.” I shook my head and followed her inside. “There are words I never thought I’d hear you say.”
“How about…” she strolled into the living room then peeked over her shoulder at me. “Fine as fuck?”
I grinned. She winked then focused on the cabin around us.
Our home. We hadn’t built this house with our bare hands but we had spent a few centuries making it our own.
Just a few days ago I’d shown Francelina around our sacred place.
I’d loved watching her face light up at every little memento from our lives together but there was nothing compared to watching the fond recognition in her eyes as she remembered them.
She fell silent, moving from painting to painting, inspecting every detail with a smile. She picked things up as if she missed even the mundane items. For several minutes I just stood there watching her, wondering what was going through her mind. Finally, I couldn’t stand the silence anymore.
“Tell me what you’re thinking right now?”
She arched one eyebrow at me and smirked. “You can’t tell?”
“It has been eight centuries since I’ve spoken to my wife, I find I can no longer handle a single second of silence between us now that you’re back.”