The far side of the roof collapsed, boulder-sized chunks of marble falling to the floor. Cracks splintered across the ceiling and down the walls. I pushed myself to my feet and spun back toward the steps and Tristan. A huge piece of marble fell from the ceiling in front of me, breaking into pieces on impact, destroying the phrase I’d read earlier so only “god,” “hostility,” and “tyranny” could be read. More snapping and cracking in the walls, and the words “all men are created equal” crumbled before me, along with “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
The world and everything I knew was falling apart around me.
I tried to move again, to run for Tristan, but a heavy weight immobilized me—the weight of complete and utter failure. My heart and soul broke for all that had been lost, shattering along with the pieces of marble that crashed down around me, knocking me to the floor. Despair wracked through my every cell, ripping me apart from within. I looked outward at the blazing sky as I collapsed facedown, unable to fight the truth anymore. The sensation that engulfed me was not one I could easily brush my fingers over, drag off and flick away. This girdle of misery was something I’d live with until my dying day and beyond.
I’d be tormented forever, not by what Lucas had done, but by my own failure to stop him. Because I could do nothing now. Nothing for the world. Nothing for my people. Nothing for myself nor my son nor my husband, who still fought, trying to protect us from evil to the bitter end.
I’d tried, and I’d failed.
It took me a long moment to realize that more than the heaviness of my emotions weighed me down. A chunk of roof had fallen, crushing my body to the floor and pinning me facedown. Not even with my inhuman strength could I move it from this position, and I called for Tristan, but my voice came out weak. He’d never hear me over his battle with the Demons. I let my head fall, my cheek pressing against the cool marble floor.
Barely conscious, I lay at the top of the stone steps with the stately Thomas Jefferson behind me, and gazed over the Potomac River Tidal Basin at the scene of annihilation before me. I tried one more time to scream my love’s name as fire and ice fell from the sky.
Hell stormed down on Earth, ending life as we knew it.
Epilogue
“Alexis! Dorian!” Tristan’s voice carried from what sounded like far away, although I knew he was close.
I opened my mouth to answer him, but could only scream from the excruciating agony that tore through my back and shoulders. My bones felt as though they were breaking, and my skin was shredding to pieces. Clenching my jaw, I pushed myself to my hands and knees, and focused on trying to breathe as the pain momentarily subsided.
“Tristan,” I gasped as my muscles tensed, readying for another onslaught I felt rippling from the inside out.
“Alexis! Dorian!” he yelled again, panic filling his voice now.
A wail ripped from my insides, my only answer. My back arched up like a cat’s and then down as more pain exploded from my spine. Panting, I fought to catch my breath. The pain rolled away again, and I rocked back on my heels and pressed my palms to my thighs to stand. My entire body ached, and I felt like a two-ton weight was strapped to my back.
“Alexis!” Tristan’s voice came closer, yet still muffled and distant. “Dorian!”
“Here,” I called out to him. He finally ran into what remained of the rotunda, hurdling over the piles of rubble that had once been the domed roof. The sky lightened above us with dawn, illuminating his fretful face, bruised and battered, as were his arms.
“Dorian! Alexis!” he yelled again as his eyes darted around the demolished building.
“I’m right here,” I repeated, trying to yell louder. “I’m okay!”
Sort of. I was sure I would be after my body healed whatever back injury I’d suffered. It seemed to be already on its way.
Tristan’s gaze swept everywhere but failed to land on me. Instead, it fell on the pile of marble and stone at my feet.
“Oh, no. Oh, fuck. Alexis!” He lifted a boulder and threw it to the side. “God, no. Please no.”
“What are you doing? What’s wrong?” The fear and anguish in his voice scared the hell out of me.
He threw off another chunk of stone and boomed out, “NOOOO!”
The desperate sound broke me. Tears streamed down my face, and I didn’t know why. Dorian had flown away. Right? Wherever he’d gone, I was positive that he couldn’t possibly be buried under this pile. So what did Tristan see that had him so devastated? It couldn’t be what he thought. I wanted to hold him and hug him and tell him it would be okay. But I couldn’t move, and he couldn’t hear me. And then I looked away from his desperate yet lovely face and down at what he had found. My breath caught in my throat.
Legs with familiar boots pinned under another slab of marble. A midsection soaking in a pool of blood. A small, pale hand.
Tristan lifted the last two pieces and threw them to the side. He bent down in an unusually disgraceful way, slipped in the blood and fell next to her. His whole body trembling, he slid his arms under her, wrapped them around her torso, and pulled her limp body to his chest, one hand against the back of her head, holding her tightly.
I shook my head in denial at the sight, straightening up as I tried to make sense of it all. Movement behind me made me jump and spin on my heel. Whatever had been back there disappeared, but something white moved behind me once more. I spun again, but every time I moved, it did, too. I looked over my shoulder, turning in place, but it remained in my peripheral vision. Realizing I acted like a puppy chasing its tail, I stopped. The movement behind me ceased, too.
But in front of me stood three women, looking all angel-like with their huge wings lifted and spread as though they were about to take flight. I grinned at first, happy to see Mom, Rina, and Cassandra, but almost immediately my smile faltered, and then slid away. Behind them, in the distance, standing with other people in a white mist that faded in and out, were Winston, Stefan, and Solomon. I shook my head, not understanding, and my gaze came back to Mom. My heart stuttered and tilted as I glanced at her wings, and my brow furrowed as I looked over my shoulder again. Now I knew what I’d seen moving before. As though appreciating the acknowledgement of their existence, my own wings lifted from my back and spread wide.
What the hell? I thought but didn’t dare to voice.
I noticed the clean freshness of the air for the first time and inhaled its clear, crisp scent. It didn’t match the scene of fire and destruction surrounding us. My frown deepened as I looked at my wings again, then at my mom and my grandmother, and then at my sobbing husband.
“Tristan,” I breathed, falling to my knees and trying to reach out for him, but unable to touch him, to comfort him.
He rocked back and forth, holding her body close with the most devastating and heart-wrenching expression I’d ever seen. Her chestnut colored hair spilled over his hand and arm as he clutched her to his chest as though if he let go, he’d fall completely apart.
“Alexis, my love,” he sobbed. “Don’t leave me, ma lykita.”
“Never,” I cried. “I’m here, Tristan. Always with you.”
His voice broke into a howl filled with a pain unlike anything I’d ever heard, sending wracks of grief all the way through my soul, shattering it into tiny shards. I lunged for him, needing to hold him, to return his embrace, to tell him I loved him, but I couldn’t push through to him, no matter how hard I tried or how many times I threw myself at him.
A hand landed on my shoulder, stilling me, and squeezed. “Alexis.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Honey.”
“NO!” I yelled at her.
This could not be happening. I could not be watching my husband, my soul mate, my one and only true love who owned a piece of my heart and soul through the veil. We could not be on opposite sides of it. I could no longer breathe as I looked up at my mother, pressing my hand against the stone embedded in my chest—a piece of Tristan’s heart. I o
pened my mouth to speak, but the words became lodged in my throat. I could only shake my head and look back to Tristan’s dirt-smudged, tear-stained face that was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“Am I …” I glanced up at Mom, whose face appeared as forlorn as my husband’s, and then back at Tristan. I swallowed, hard, and tried again. Blinking against the tears that flowed with each of my love’s sobs, I finally managed to push the question out. “Am I really … dead?”
* * * * *
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About the Author
Kristie Cook is a lifelong, award-winning writer in various genres, primarily New Adult paranormal romance and contemporary fantasy. Her internationally bestselling Soul Savers Series will be complete and all seven books available by early 2015. She's also written a companion novella, Genesis: A Soul Savers Novella, currently available. Over 350,000 Soul Savers books have been sold, with Promise peaking at #54 on the Amazon Top 100 Paid list and at #1 in the Amazon Fantasy category, and Wrath peaking in the Top 10 on 5 international iBooks stores.
She has also written The Book of Phoenix trilogy, a New Adult paranormal romance series that includes The Space Between, The Space Beyond, and The Space Within. The full trilogy is available now.
Besides writing, Kristie enjoys reading, cooking, traveling and riding on the back of a motorcycle. She has lived in ten states, but currently calls Southwest Florida home with her husband, a beagle, and a puggle, but spends many weekends with her three sons at UCF, cheering on the Knights.
Acknowledgements
First and always, my gratitude goes to God and Jesus Christ, my savior.
I thank my family, too, for being so understanding and supportive of my writing career, even when it takes me away from them more than it should. Especially to Shawn, Zakary, Austin, and Nathan.
Thank you to Brenda Pandos for my beautiful cover and for being such a good friend. Much appreciation to S.T. Bende for all of your help with blurbs and endings, but most of all for your friendship. Many thanks to Kristen and Tammi for keeping me on track and saving my sanity. Thank you to Regina Wamba for the custom and exclusive photo shoot, to Dani Cooper for modeling for the cover, and to Kristen, Jen, and Chrissi for giving my words your critical eyes. Thank you to my agent, Italia Gandolfo, for believing in me and my books, and to the Red Coat PR family. And more thanks to the entire writing and book community.
I have so much gratitude for my beta readers—Jessie, Heather, Debbie, Rissa, Jewels, Stacey, Claire, Mindy, and Inga—who worked on a tight deadline through the holiday season to make this book a reality. Many thanks to the rest of the Crew and to Kristie’s Warriors, who mean the world to me.
And thank you, reader, for once again choosing to spend your time with my characters. Because of you, I am living a dream and able to share it with the world. God bless you all. (And please don’t hate me when you finish this book. All I can say is, “Have Faith.”)
Want More by Kristie Cook?
— Soul Savers Series —
www.SoulSaversSeries.com
Promise
Purpose
Devotion
Power
Wrath
Torment
Faith
Genesis: A Soul Savers Novella
Wonder: A Soul Savers Collection of Holiday Short Stories & Recipes
— The Book of Phoenix Series —
www.TheBookofPhoenix.com
The Space Between
The Space Beyond
The Space Within
Torment (Soul Savers Book 6) Page 34
