129. Lazarus
LAZARUS
“So what’s stopping you?” The question causes me to straighten as a strange sense of déjà vu washes over me. My gaze returns to his. I hesitate, but words I swear I’ve already spoken tumble from my lips like a rote recitation. “Would you have me burst in on him in his private bathing chamber?”
Levi’s taught expression shifts. Relaxes.
His eyes flicker in and out of that unsettling, dark kaleidoscope.
My skin prickles. My stomach briefly flips and clenches with a distinctly rollercoaster-like sensation.
Levi draws in a deep breath before his eyes settle on some distant point, his voice suddenly soft. “No.”
My brow knits together.
What in the hellish fuck?
Something is happening.
Something has... happened?
Just when I open my mouth to speak, Violette’s magic cracks like lightning behind me.
Levi and I turn to find her standing drenched, with one of her black silk dressing gowns plastered to her body.
She hesitates, features shifting as she stumbles towards a bedpost.
Worry grips me, and I fold to her, grasping her by the shoulders to steady her.
“Violette..."
Her face tilts towards mine. She throws her arms around me, squeezing me with surprising fervor. My arms wrap around her, bracing her tightly against me, as my eyes slip shut and I breathe her in. “Is everything alright?”
She nods, face planted in the curve of my neck. “I just love you.”
My heart swells to bursting even as concern continues to trickle in. “For eternity, sweet seraphim. Even when Akash returns our souls to her womb, and all that comes after it.”
Violette grows notably still. She draws back to hold my gaze. Levi stands nearby, watching like a sentry. “You bound my soul to yours knowing Azrael will die. That I will have to suffer that.”
My chest seizes as guilt grips my throat even as my features harden. My gaze flicks briefly to Levi.
How does she know?
Intuition?
He can’t speak within her mind, can he?
My eyes return to Violette’s, searching for the anger I surely deserve.
“Yes.”
She nods. “Even though, one day, you will have to endure my death. And Levi’s.”
The phantom pain of my impending damnation lances my heart. “There isn’t anything in this world I wouldn’t sacrifice to have you... Even myself, precious seraphim.”
Violette’s emotion rises to the surface in glittering tears, as a soft, sad smile tilts her trembling lips. She nods in understanding, voice dropping to a whisper, the last of her words spoken in Vassileon. “The feeling is mutual, dominu cordix eta anima mea.”
Owner of my heart and soul.