Lailah (The Styclar Saga) (43 page)

I sighed heavily and began to pace through the clearing, oozing a false sense of confidence, as though I knew what I was doing, I knew where I was going, when really I knew nothing. But I was afraid that the longer I stood here, the greater the unspoken divide between us would become.

He raced to my side and took my hand with his own. “Do you remember everything?” he asked tentatively.

“I remember … I remember the last six years. I remember the memories and the dreams I have had for the same time. I can’t recall anything before. And I know the things she did. The girl in shadow.” I gulped. “Me.”

“She was an extreme darkness, Lai; she’s gone now. You accepted both sides of yourself before your heart stopped. It’s probably why you haven’t forgotten.”

As we moved through the snow underfoot, the trees’ bare branches seemed to bow, as though they were tucking themselves away. They seemed to pity me.

“I’m different. Again, I’m different.” I sighed and let my hand drift away from Gabriel’s.

“No. It’s just now, for the first time in your existence, you know where you come from. You know what you were born out of and into. You’re you. What gifts you have, how they work on this plane, is something we have to work out, but we will work it out together.”

I wasn’t sure how right he was about that. My body didn’t feel normal. I didn’t feel human anymore. I had been born into human skin, having been birthed here on Earth. And when I had died at seventeen nearly two centuries ago, I had woken up inheriting my immortal lineage. Now, after everything that had happened, I was very aware of the fact that this body of mine was not the same as it once was.

“I smelled blood, and fangs cracked through my gums, Gabriel.” I paused to allow the weight of that fact to sink beneath Gabriel’s sea-of-glass exterior. He barely noticed. I didn’t even cause a ripple. “I’m light and dark; I know it to be true now. And I don’t even really know what that means for me yet. But Azrael said I could exist and keep my form in any of the three dimensions. So they will come for me. They will all come for me.”

He stopped dead in his tracks; at last something I had said had caused some sort of reaction. “Yes, they will. Once they know you are alive, and they will find out. They will seek you and they won’t stop until they have you. So, we run. We cut all ties and we leave together, and we hide. You have been through enough. It ends here.” Gabriel’s jaw locked and his eyes widened with conviction.

He shocked me. No longer softening the blow for my benefit, he seemed to have hardened. Either that or he was taking my choices away from me, perhaps for my own good. I wasn’t sure.

*   *   *

W
E HADN’T WALKED FOR LONG
when a château fort came into view. It stood alone, with a brewing fog clouding at its base.

I looked at Gabriel with raised eyebrows. “Seriously, this is where you’ve been staying?”

Gabriel seemed to have more money than sense, and I made a mental note to ask him where his wealth came from.

“It’s very small. I couldn’t take you back to the barn, Han—” He stopped.

The very suggestion of her name made my toes curl instantly. Sadly I hadn’t forgotten her. In fact, there were a fair few things concerning that Vampire that I would have gladly left behind.

“It wasn’t safe,” he finished.

Standing now only meters away from the entrance, I rocked back on the heels of my feet dubiously. Gabriel halted and reached for my hand. As he slipped his fingers between mine, I knew he could sense my unease.

I didn’t know how long I had been trapped between life and death, but he never seemed to change. His broad shoulders and strong arms made me feel safe. As long as I allowed him to wrap me within them, I felt untouchable. He was an unbreakable wall, protecting me, and I knew he’d meet his end long before he’d let anyone tear it down and pry me from him again. And God, he was gorgeous.

“I love you, Lailah.”

Gabriel surprised me, and I looked to him with wide eyes.

“I. Love. You,” he repeated firmly.

This was the first time he had ever actually used those three words like that. He had always been so cryptic and indirect. Though I guess now I understood why.

“I should have said it sooner. I didn’t think I had to, because I felt it. I have always felt it and so I thought you knew it. Every day we have been together, I
should
have said it.”

Right now, I had no inclination to debate the specifics of the love he was proclaiming for someone whose eyes he had struggled to meet only half an hour ago, or even what that meant for us now. So instead, I smiled, though I was sure that the sadness curved with the edge of my lips was obvious enough for him to read. Having faced the end—the real end—and come through the other side, I was suddenly so tired. I was done with the complications of Pureblood Vampires, Arch Angels, and being a pawn in a battle between the two. I wanted it all to stop. I wanted my happy ending.

So I tightened my grip around his hand and said, “I love you. I’ll do what you say; I will go wherever you want to take me, for as long as you will have me.”

It was true. I’d woken from my cocoon a Hedylidae, not a Morpho butterfly like him. But if he felt for me even a fraction of what I felt for him, I would flap my confused wings as hard as I could and follow him to the ends of any and every world, without question.

I immediately felt a sense of angst swelling within him. As he tilted his head, his blond curls fell slightly into his vision, stopping me from being able to read the message his eyes were writing.

Finally he said, “Really?”

“Really,” I said. I had no idea why he seemed so surprised.

Gabriel let go of my hand and began rolling his fingertips in circles within his palms. “What about Jonah?” His tone dipped.

I scratched the tops of my arms pensively before I replied, “Sorry—who?”

A F
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LAILAH.
Copyright © 2014 by Nikki Kelly. All rights reserved. For information, address Feiwel and Friends, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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First Edition: 2014

eISBN 9781250064240

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