by C. L. Parker
Lacking the strength to hold his head up any longer, he gently placed it on her stomach, thanking God that his baby and his girl were okay. He relaxed, and the second his right shoulder met her left hip, everything went dark. He called her name as he was sent free-falling into oblivion. It was like the pull he had felt the night of the attempted séance when his secret had almost been revealed to Kerrigan before he had been ready to tell her. He instinctively closed his eyes to avoid vertigo, having no control over the direction in which he was pulled. He was tossed up and down, side to side, like balls being bounced into the air by the tiny hands of children with nothing but a thin parachute to catch them.
They were too late. Binding Drake hadn’t worked. He was dead. He just knew it.
Then someone grab his hand, and everything went still. The pain from each devastating blow to his body was gone, replaced by a serene, weightless sensation that wrapped him up like a mother’s comforting hug. He heard the sound of birds chirping, smelled the fragrant aroma of flowers in bloom, and felt the warmth of the sun on his face.
“Dominic, open your eyes,” Kerrigan whispered into his ear.
He opened his eyes and looked into the face of an angel. His angel. Maybe he was in Heaven after all.
“No, Dominic. You’re my angel. My Guardian Angel, remember?” she said, reading his mind. “I must say, you certainly look a lot better than you did just a few seconds ago.”
He looked down to find his shirt intact, all traces of his blood and the grime of the filthy alley gone. He put his fingers to the back of his head—no cut, no blood, no ache. He inhaled a deep breath, feeling nothing but crisp, clean air filtering into his perfectly intact lungs. He traced his teeth with his tongue, finding each one in place. He was completely healed.
“What happened? Where are we?”
“We’re in my sanctuary,” she said with an air of giddiness. Her long lashes framed eyes so blue and radiant they gave off their own light. The rays of the sun caressed her long hair, and the color reminded him of copper silk. Her skin glowed like a million tiny diamonds glistening in the sun. How was it possible for her to be even more beautiful than she normally was? Definitely an angel.
“Am I dead?” It seemed like a reasonable question to ask.
Plump lips the shade of dusty rose lifted into a smile. “If you are, then so am I.”
She stood to the side so that he could see where he was. Though he missed looking at her, he was in awe when he took in the beauty of his surroundings. Every flower known to man, and some that had probably never been discovered, were present and in full bloom. The grass was greener than the rolling hills of southern Kentucky, the sky, bluer than anything he had ever seen. A warm breeze brushed across his cheek, and he smiled... like he had never smiled before.
Kerrigan swept her arm out before her like a game show model. “Welcome to my nirvana.”
“But, how is this possible? What happened?”
“After I came out of Drew’s sanctuary he had told me that nothing is kept secret to him there. So, I know this to be true.” She turned to face him again. “The key to bringing you here was in our marks. There’s a reason they’re identical. Several reasons, actually.
“They’re proof that we’ve been touched by the Light, but they match because we belong to each other. And when they join, something very magical happens. All of the boundaries that stand between us simply melt away. The key to our possibilities were imbedded in our bodies all along. When they’re engaged, we can ascend... together.” She leaned in and let her lips graze the shell of his ear as she spoke her next words. “Only when we are joined are you and I ever whole.”
A chill ran down his back, and goose bumps formed on his arms. She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder as he closed his eyes and breathed her in. His head spun, overwhelmed with the intensity of the moment, dizzy with the realization that their connection ran so much deeper than he could have ever imagined. His feet left the ground, and he was slowly lifted straight up into the air. This time, he was sure to hold tight to his reason for living.
They stopped, and Kerrigan gasped. He opened his eyes to find her sanctuary gone. Instead, they were surrounded by a foggy, white void. There was no color to their backdrop, not even in their own clothes. The only color that remained was that of their physical features.
“Okay, we’re definitely dead now,” Dominic said, confused.
Kerrigan took a step back and shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’ve never felt more alive. Besides, I’m pretty sure Grammy and Sarah would be here to meet us if that were the case. I think this is where we need to be to banish your curse. It just feels right. Do you feel it? Like there’s a secret we’re really, really close to finding out?”
He did feel it. This place held all the answers to life. They were hidden somewhere in the mystic white fog, and all one had to do was simply ask to have them revealed. But there was a warning that pulled at the corner of his mind. It was too much knowledge for one person to have, dangerous and precarious.
Just then, two figures walked by. Kerrigan stepped into his side, and he wrapped his arm around her. The man looked remarkably similar to Dominic, only from a different time. The hair on his face was longer, and he wore a duster that fell to his dusty cowboy boots. A black Stetson was perched on his head, but his green eyes could not be hidden. Smile lines crinkled the corner of his eyes as he looked adoringly into the face of the woman in his company.
Kerrigan. Her hair was pulled up into a tight bun with loose tendrils hanging in ringlets around her face and down her delicate neck. She walked with a graceful stride, her long, full skirt brushing the ground. Her lips were just as full and her eyes were just as blue and soft.
“It’s us,” Kerrigan said. “I remember that day.” It shouldn’t have been possible, but Dominic knew it to be true because he remembered it, too.
“That was the day I asked your father for permission to court you, officially,” Dominic said. “Your name was Kate then, am I right?”
She nodded. “And you were Dusty.”
She was right. “Your father swore no man was good enough for you, but he changed his tune when—”
“I threatened to run away from home and marry you by night’s end,” she said, finishing his sentence, and laughing at the memory. “Sure taught him a lesson. He never could deny me what I wanted.”
The couple faded, only to be replaced by another. Still Kerrigan and Dominic, but in another lifetime. When they were gone, there was only Kerrigan. She was a child, sitting alone as her life whirled around her. Children who picked on her in class because she was weird, parents who didn’t pay her any attention, boys who pretended to like her as a cruel joke, an adult life filled with nothing but more loneliness until she died alone. Through it all, there was the overwhelming sense that she was searching for someone who never came. Kerrigan closed her eyes and turned away from the scene.
“Where were you?” she asked as she opened her eyes to gaze at him. One lonely tear cascaded down her cheek.
“Here,” he said, gently stoking her temple. “Always just on the edge of your memories. And hopefully, here,” he placed his hand on her chest, just over her heart. “Forever deep... in the center of your heart.”
The heat of his skin penetrated hers, sending waves of truth burning through the center of her chest to where she had always kept him. Her heart thumped loudly, something wild and untamed threatening to break free.
She looked from his hand, back to his beautiful face. The desire and love she saw nearly stole her breath away as she remembered every lifetime of searching for him.
“I’ve never stopped loving you. I looked everywhere for you... always. But... there were times when I couldn’t see you anywhere, and others where I felt you... but you were just out of reach.”
She recalled lives when she had felt empty and alone, even though she knew deep in her heart he was out there somewhere, gazing at the same moon, maybe even
feeling the same breeze. Those were the times that she felt him the most, when she was standing still and throwing her thoughts out into the world, feeling the answer she was seeking in the form of a breeze that would suddenly assault her as if it was moving straight through her.
“Shh, Querida.” His lips moved over hers. “I was looking for you, too.” He nodded in the other direction. His solo life played opposite hers. It was the same story of loneliness leading to destructive behavior that landed him in a jail cell for most of his life. He, too, was searching, never finding.
“But, we’re here now... together. Just you and me, as it should be.” He hugged her close.
And then another scene came of them together, happy and in love. They were at a beach party, and they were the envy of every man and woman. Dominic’s hair was cut neat, and he sat on a rock beside a bonfire, strumming his guitar while Kerrigan leaned into him with stars in her eyes. The pink headband that was nestled in her thick, shoulder-length hair was a perfect complement to the modest bathing suit she wore. Their love was palpable and destined for forever, until that, too, morphed into another space and time.
The scenes of their past lives played before them like ghosts upon a breeze, weaving in and out, fading likewatching anold film that had been poorly reserved. Their combined memories converged and then retreated as each new lifetime sought to remind them of who they were. Shadows that were mere whispers of the times they had known and loved one another, evidence of their connection, proof of their purpose. And as each life ended, a new one began. As did their search.
All of it reminded them of one truth: Theywere two halves of one whole, destined to walk the earth in search of the other. In search of something... more. Always seeking, sometimes finding. Yet there were other times whentheir paths just didn’t cross and they were incomplete. But they always felt the other, that tug toward something they couldn’t quite touch.
“So many lifetimes that I have loved you,” she whispered as the last of the images faded from view.
A million voices in the back of his mind, each of them having once belonged to her, told him it was true. As impossible as it seemed, he couldn’t question it because he felt it, too—lifetimes of loving the woman he now knew as Kerrigan Cruz.
He took a step back so that he could see her face. Cupping her cheek, he wiped her tears away, his fingertips falling to caress the curve of her neck and floating over the top of her shoulder and down her arm to take her hands in his.
“Te amaré para siempre. I will love you... forever.”
Kerrigan closed her eyes. “Siempre,” she whispered. A surge of Light flared through her body. Murmured voices told her the secret to cure his curse, although her heart already knew the answer. She was very much aware of the risks involved, but she was willing to do whatever it took to ensure they would never be separated again. She didn’t care that she might lose her gift if she saved him. She didn’t even care if she lost her life. Living without him wasn’t much of a life anyway. Live or die, at least they would always be together.
Siempre.
“I release half of your soul back to you, Dominic Grayson, and I give you half of mine as well.” Before he could refuse her gift, she kissed him. A bright spark of light ignited when their lips met, sealing the endowment. She could feel the reluctance in his kiss. He knew what she was risking, but judging by his gradual relaxation, he understood her reason for doing it. He, too, had known life without her.
He trembled under her touch and held on to her just as tightly as she held on to him. If they lived, a part of each of them would also live on in the other. If they died, their souls would still be united, and they would never lose each other again.
The Light surrounded them, so blindingly bright they melted into their surroundings. It consumed them, filling each of their bodies until it was greater than either of them. Their physical forms began to flake and separate like dust in the wind. Minuscule particles mixed and swirled in the air around them until there was no way to tell where Dominic began and Kerrigan ended. They opened their eyes and gazed at one another—a promise of tomorrow on their lips, a pledge of forever in their eyes, until those, too, were lost to the brilliance of the Light, and they simply faded away.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 01
Chapter 02
Chapter 03
Chapter 04
Chapter 05
Chapter 06
Chapter 07
Chapter 08
Chapter 09
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
