The Space Within (The Book of Phoenix #3)

by Kristie Cook

  Lakari swooped down, a gush of Dark souls pouring into the Gate after their master. A river of them screamed by us and downward. Away. Out of our world. Once and for all. As if the Gate to Hell knew they’d all been sucked out of our Earth, it closed up with a swoosh, and the flames disappeared.

  Enyxa jerked out of my grip and flew to her other half. They tried to join with each other, swirling together, but they were too weak on their own. Hope gathered them together and cupped them in her hands.

  “Very good, Jacquelena, you followed your instinct and saw their love,” she said as her body lit up and glowed a bright white. “Let’s get them to the Space Between.”

  Jeric’s soul clashed into mine, his pride for me washing through me. I returned the feeling, so proud of him for being the leader he was meant to be, before we shared a moment of peace. Then we pulled apart and, along with the others, followed Hope out to the permanent Gate in the middle of the bay.

  “While we’re here, you and Hayden can finally Forge,” I said to Bex.

  “Thank God and baby Jesus. I have no idea how we even survived that. That shit was crazy!”

  I laughed, and so did the others.

  When we reached the island with the weeping willow tree, Hope paused.

  “That’s my tree,” she said.

  Asia gasped. “I knew that! The Tree of Hope!”

  “I planted it in the very beginning. I put a tree by each one of Earth’s Gates,” she said. “Maybe some day I’ll tell you why.”

  She plunged downward then, the two souls still in her hands. We followed her down. The lights of the Gate sprang up. More Guardians joined us. Hundreds of souls. Hope held the two up.

  “I hold here the two halves of Ny’xan, one of the Original Seven,” she said. “May they find each other and their peace once again. May they grow together and return to us the strong souls of the Light they are meant to be. Until we meet again.”

  “Until we meet again,” every Guardian said in unison.

  Hope let them go, and they soared into the Gate. Everyone cheered and hollered when they disappeared inside. The sounds must have been strange to anyone else, and a pod of dolphins swam toward us to check it out. After a brief celebration in our soul forms, Jeric promised everyone a real party later. All of the Guardians except the remainder of the Original Seven left. Brock, Asia, Jeric, and I stood by as Bex and Hayden entered the Gate. We didn’t need to hear their vows. It was too late anyway, and they’d already proven themselves worthy.

  When the Gate disappeared several moments later, a ball of blinding white light remained—their souls conjoined. In other words, making love in the way only souls can do.

  “Well, then,” Brock said, chuckling as he turned away. “We’re out of here. You two enjoy that Bonding.”

  He took Asia’s hand, and they flew upward together.

  Jeric wrapped his soul around mine. “I think we have lots of Bonding to do, too.”

  The feeling sent tingles through me. We bounded upwards together and flew over the city lights as One, enjoying our reunion for all it was worth.

  Chapter 29

  1 Week Later

  Warmth on my face awoke me. I squinted my eyes open against a bright light with a large form silhouetted in it. I didn’t have to wait for my eyes and brain to focus to know that was Brock standing in the sunlight streaming through the window. My soul felt him before I’d fully gained consciousness.

  “Hey, beautiful,” he greeted as he squeezed my hand and lifted my knuckles to his lips.

  He shifted out of the light, allowing me to see his ruggedly handsome face better. His dark hair was as disheveled as always, as though he’d been pulling at it, which he probably had been. His chocolate eyes smiled warmly at me. Without moving my gaze from the face I missed so much, I could see from peripheral vision that I wasn’t in the same room I’d spent the last week in, healing. No, this one was more familiar, although it felt different now. Bright. Not like the dark one it had been while Brock was gone.

  “The healers let me bring you to our room,” he said. “I didn’t even wait for help. I carried you up here myself.”

  I smiled. “It’s not like you left my side anyway.”

  He’d even slept in the chair next to me the first few nights, then in the bed with me when the healers allowed. We’d spent most of that time outside of our bodies, Bonding.

  “No. But I couldn’t wait to get you alone. I’ve been going crazy waiting for you to wake up. I’ve already wasted too much of my life without you.”

  My heart swelled, and my soul sang. I squeezed his hand and brought it to my lips to return the gesture of kissing his knuckles.

  “I love you, Brock,” I said around the lump in my throat.

  He fell from the chair to his knees and rested his chin on the side of the bed.

  “You give me life, Asia,” he replied. “I will never doubt us again. I will never push you away. In fact, I will never let you go again.”

  I sucked in my bottom lip and gnawed at it as I looked into his deep brown eyes. “Before you say that, I have to tell you something.”

  “Nothing will change my mind, babe. Nothing can be worse than what we’ve been through already.”

  I nodded, although I wasn’t quite sure I agreed. “Just let me get this out there. Jeric was right. You deserve to know everything about me. And then you can decide for certain.”

  I tried to sit up, but my legs couldn’t quite cooperate.

  “You’re not fully healed yet,” he said. “You’re doing better than Jeric—he apparently took the brunt of the gozzard’s weight and has that broken arm, too—but you’re not quite up to snuff. Let me.”

  He came around to his side of the bed and crawled in next to me. Then he lifted my torso up and situated himself around me, then pulled me back against him. His muscular arms encircled my shoulders and his hands found mine in my lap, over the covers. Under the blanket, I wore only his extra-large shirt and panties. He picked my hands up and intertwined our fingers as I leaned back against his chest. His head leaned in, and he kissed my temple.

  “What’s on your mind?” he asked.

  I drew in a deep breath and almost chickened out. “You’ve already been through a lot. Maybe now’s not a good time.”

  His breath fluttered through my hair, and he lifted our hands to push some stray strands away from my face. I’d changed the color to a silvery lilac after he’d told me the other day that it had been his favorite color on me. I’d made it long, too, because I knew he liked to pull on it.

  “I’m here with you. Life is good. Our souls are Light again. So unless you’re about to tell me that you don’t want me here …”

  I squeezed his fingers. “Never. But hear me out. I’ve done something really horrible—”

  “Asia. Stop. I know you were taking the blame for what happened to Connor, but that was never your fault, babe. I never blamed you one second for that. Mom has some explaining to do, whenever she gets back from whatever she’s doing, but not you. You took some of that pain for me, Asia. I would have never made it through that time if not for you. I would have gone Dark immediately.”

  I nodded against his chest. “I know that now. I’d always felt terrible about that, and it had caused a lot of strain between us before … before you … went to Hell and came back. But I understand now. I mean, it’s good to hear that from you. You have no idea how good.” I paused and sighed. “But this thing I have to tell you is definitely all me. Jeric can verify it.”

  Brock tensed up behind me, and his fingers tightened around mine. When he spoke, I could tell it was through a clenched jaw. “While I was gone …?”

  “What? No! Nothing like that!” I extracted a hand from his grip and lifted it to his cheek, soothing his jaw. Then I blew out a breath and spi
lled. “It was the night you disappeared, but first, I have to go back, to when I had my miscarriage.”

  And I finally told him everything. Everything about douchebag Drew and dickhead Mark, about my pregnancy and miscarriage. About being shoved down the stairs and my medical records being wiped out. About how they’d bought their way out of trouble and how badly it had pissed me off when Mason had done the same thing and then nearly killed Bex. And then, with a heavy dose of guilt mixed with fear of how he’d react to my atrocity, I told him what I did to Mason. He cringed.

  Then he sat in stunned silence for a long moment.

  And then he laughed.

  He laughed so hard that he had us both bent over, his chest shaking me. His arms tightened around me as he settled down and sat back against the headboard again, pulling me with him.

  “You really stabbed a broken bottle neck into his dick?” he asked, his voice mixed with disbelief and humor.

  “Yeah, I pretty much did. It’s bad, I know, and I still can’t believe I did it. But the fucker deserved it.”

  “He most certainly did.”

  He laughed again and then crossed our arms over my chest, hugging me tighter.

  “You’re my hero,” he whispered against my ear. He chuckled again. “I don’t remember teaching you that move, though.”

  “The situation called for improvisation. Jeric had already beaten him to a pulp.”

  “He saw you do it, huh?”

  “Yeah. I think it gave him a whole new perspective of me.”

  He laughed. “I don’t doubt it. Nobody messes with my girl.”

  “Or the ones she loves.”

  His lips pressed against my cheekbone. “That includes me?”

  I tilted my head and turned my neck, our mouths less than an inch from each other. “More than anyone.”

  He caught my lips within his full ones and kissed my worries away. When my neck couldn’t hold that position any more, he kissed over my cheek and jaw and down the side of my throat, until his mouth landed on my favorite place. His lips parted, and his tongue swept out, swirling against my skin. I shuddered in his arms, then pulled his hands up to my chest and cupped them over my breasts. My nipples strained against the material of my shirt—I wore no bra—aching for his touch.

  “Can we …?” I asked breathlessly.

  He moaned against my neck. “We’re not supposed to. You can’t be moved like that yet.”

  “But there are other ways to pleasure each other.”

  His mouth moved up to my ear, and he nibbled on my lobe. “I like your way of thinking. But I’m not going to do anything that might hurt you.”

  Despite his words, his erection pressed against my lower back.

  “I’m pretty sure it would feel good, not hurt.”

  He pulled my lobe between his lips and circled it with the tip of his tongue before releasing it. “When I make love to you, Asia, I’m going to make real love with you.”

  “Oh, you most definitely will.” I pulled his arms from around me and motioned for him to lie next to me. “Wait. Take your shirt off. I miss seeing you like that.”

  He pulled his shirt over his head, and I smiled at his beauty, although it only made me ache more for him. Once he lay down next to me, we turned to face each other. I trailed my fingertips over his glorious pecs and abs, then back and forth above the waistband of his jeans, making his muscles jump under my touch. Then I slid my hand over the large bulge in his jeans.

  “Asia,” he moaned, his eyes hooding over, the darkness of them smoldering.

  “Touch me,” I whispered. “I need your hands on me. I need to feel your body and your soul.”

  His hand slid under my shirt and up my side, over my ribs. He cupped my breast and rubbed his thumb over my tight nipple, then rolled and pinched it between his fingers.

  “More,” I whimpered as I undid his jeans and slid my hand inside, freeing him from the confines. His hand moved downward, under the covers, between my legs. He leaned in, and his mouth found mine at the same time his finger stroked against me. I became liquid at his touch.

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Then keep doing what you’re doing,” I moaned.

  His whole hand became involved in pleasuring me as mine pleasured him, and we stroked each other more frantically and urgently until we both felt the release we needed—the release of our souls from our bodies at the height of our physical climax.

  “This is what I really needed,” my soul said to his. “Feeling you in all the spaces within me.”

  “Right where I belong,” he agreed. “Where my soul belongs. As a part of yours since the beginning of time.”

  “And into eternity.”

  Our souls swirled more tightly together, forming an almost solid bond like when we had first been Forged. No longer would either of us doubt these words. Never again would we let anyone try to convince us differently, including our own selves.

  We belonged together. Our souls two halves of the same One.

  Chapter 30

  4 Weeks Later

  Leni jumped out of the Camaro after me, and I’d barely had a chance to shut the door before Brock peeled away. After several weeks of being stuck at the manor, we were all ready for freedom and privacy. While some of us had to physically heal, others cleaned up the manor after the big battle. We burned the Dark creatures’ bodies. We buried our own after sending their souls to the Space Between. Yoshi and Tasha almost hadn’t survived. Mat and Kel hadn’t. Neither had Uri and Melinda. We said “Until we meet again” more times than I wanted to remember, but I would remember anyway. Every single one of them.

  After we mourned them and Sissy, we celebrated. We celebrated our victory and our comrades’ lives. We celebrated the fact that we may not be able to lead normal lives, exactly, but with Enyxa and the Lakari no longer a threat to this world, we might actually be able to live to old age with our Twin Flames. Something we’d never been able to do in the past. We all planned to take full advantage of this.

  We all were ready to celebrate this fact alone with our other halves.

  “I can’t believe I’m home!” Leni squealed as she threw open the door of her Airstream camper after jimmying the lock with the edge of an envelope that had been stuck to the door. She stepped in and spun in a circle with her arms held out. “So many times I thought I’d never see this place again. Hell, I thought I’d never see Earth again.” She turned toward me and beamed, her sea-green eyes brighter than I’d ever seen them. “Or your gorgeous face.”

  I shut the door behind me with a big, dorky grin. Seeing my girl and her love for me would never get old. I’d cherish both for as long as I existed in this body and beyond. I opened my arms for her, and she danced her way over to me. My dick was already beginning to swell.

  “What’s in the envelope?” I asked, looking for a distraction so I could contain my excitement.

  Although our souls had Bonded often, we hadn’t been able to be together physically until now. The healers hadn’t allowed it until two days ago, but then Leni made us wait until we could be truly alone. The past two days had been nearly as torturous as when she’d been gone. So now that I could finally make love to her in all possible ways, I didn’t want it to end before it even began. I wanted it to last as long as I could possibly draw it out.

  Her caramel curls fell over her face as she looked down at the paper still in her hand. She slid a finger under the flap to open it and pulled out a card. We read it together.

  “Hope’s invited us to a party. A field party.” Her voice sounded as perplexed as I felt. “Isn’t that Ty’s property? Did you ever find anything …?”

  I rubbed my brow ring. “Yeah. And no. Maybe Hope has something up her sleeve.”

  “She has lots of those, doesn’t she?”
>
  She swung her arms around my neck and looked up at me. Her boobs pressed against my chest as she leaned into my body. My arms fell around her, resting on the small of her back, my hands on her round ass. She wasn’t looking for an answer. The question had been rhetorical. She was looking for a kiss. At least, I hoped that’s what she wanted because I leaned down and crushed my mouth to hers. The invitation fell to the floor, quickly forgotten.

  Her full lips were soft and delicious as always, but I needed more. I licked at them, pressing into the seam between them, until her mouth parted. I sucked her bottom lip into my mouth, and she let out a little whimper before nipping at my own. Her tongue found mine. Her fingers tangled in my hair and pulled. Her body pressed into me, her tits rubbing against my chest. I moved one hand up her back and into her curls while grabbing her ass with the other and holding her pelvis against me as I jerked against her belly, my dick straining against my jeans.

  “Damn it, Leni,” I groaned against her lips. “I want to fuck every inch of your body with my mouth before I make love to you. I want to make you forget every moment you were in Hell and show you heaven again. But it’s been so fucking long, and I’m about to come right now.”

  She giggled as her hand slid down my neck, my chest, my abs, and to my cock. She cupped the bulge and stroked it. I groaned again.

  “We have as long as we want to do it as many times as we want,” she said as her fingers moved to the button of my jeans and deftly popped it from the hole. Her hand slid under the waistband, pushing the zipper down, her fingers teasing me, and I about came undone.

  “Uh-huh,” I said, wrapping my hands over her wrists and pulling her hands far, far away.

  She smiled mischievously, her green eyes twinkling.