Chapter 62

Adeena stared down at the soft green grass below her bare feet, toes squishing into the ground. She wasn't seeing it, though, but rather her sister's face as she held hers between her hands, screaming for her not to leave her. She didn't want to, of course, not when they were finally together again, but she'd been right. Death didn't hold her...but even sometimes when she was there in the in-between, she wanted to just let it all go.

Her white leather jacket was gone, though she was still in her bloodied tunic. She brushed her fingers along the gash in the fabric, pulling it apart to see the wound right over her heart. Even though she still felt the echoes of the sharp, fiery pain from the venom-laced dagger, here in the in-between it was nothing. The gray lines that ran across her sun-tanned skin were receding, the wound itself closing before it appeared as if nothing had happened at all. The only thing left was the two inch white line she knew would be there in the physical world also, just like the one along her neck from an assassination attempt all those years ago.

"What happened?" a voice choked out from in front of her.

Adeena looked up to see Destan staring at her bloodied tunic, russet eyes wide with panic.

Her lips curled up into a small, sad smile. "I saved my sister."

Destan reached his hand out, intent on touching the thin white line before he realized what he was doing, snatching his hand back. His eyes lifted to her face. "You did the same thing I did."

She nodded, feeling that draw toward him that began the last time she was there in the in-between.

Destan took a step closer to her just as she did the same, his fingers lifting to brush along her cheek. "Are you all right?"

Adeena swallowed hard, staring at him as his gentle touches left trails of fire in their wake. "Death cannot hold me...until I say so, that is."

"And when do you say so?" he asked, brows furrowed.

She didn't say a word as the world around them became brighter, glittering with a bright light she hadn't seen since she was four years old.

The music was what found her first.

Then the laughter.

The overwhelming feeling of pure love she so desperately wanted after over a century of nothing but death and darkness.

The land of light and shadows beckoned to her.

Destan stared at the archway of light, wide-eyed and transfixed on it as he shifted in its direction. "I've never been able to see it before. I've only ever seen...this in-between, as you call it." He looked back at her, turning back to her. "How?"

Adeena stepped closer, toe to toe, bodies aligned. "I...don't exactly know," she told him then. "Somehow, we're tied together. Maybe...that's why you were never able to find peace in death, why you were stuck here with me. And I'm...I'm sorry if I was the cause of your pain."

He leaned down to her, bringing their faces so close his warm breath brushed along her skin. She closed her eyes just as his arm wrapped around her waist and leaned her forehead against his.

"Will you go with me?" she asked him in a whisper as her fingers gripped his tunic. "You've been trapped here long enough, Destan, and you deserve to rest, too. And after having you with me here...well, I don't want to let you go just yet. Because you're...my friend."

Destan loosed the breath he'd been holding. "What about your family?"

Cleo, her grandparents, the family she hadn't met yet in Dalcaine...

But for the first time in her life, she was thinking only of herself.

"I'm tired, Destan," she whispered as tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. "So, so tired."

He didn't answer as his fingers brushed them away.

Adeena sniffled, then took a step back before lacing her fingers through his.

And started walking together toward that glittering light.

Her heart raced in her chest, love and laughter drawing her in until she could think of nothing more than it and the male who was at her side.

The male who suddenly halted just as they were about to take that first step into peace.

Adeena looked back at Destan, their hands still locked together and stretched between them. He wasn't looking at her, though, but at their hands.

"You can't go," he told her in a whisper.

"What?" she choked out. "Why not?"

Finally, he looked up at her face and gave her a pained smile. "You say death doesn't hold you and yet you're letting it draw you into a place you can never go back from. You've got a choice, Adeena, and you're choosing wrong."

"No, I..."

Destan stepped in front of her again, blocking her view of the land of light and shadows. Once more, he was holding her close. "You finally get to have your family back, which is what I know you've always wanted, and yet you're choosing to leave it all behind. You get to live, Adeena. You get to be with your sister again after all this time. Your entire family. Do you know what I would give to be able to do the same? Anything. Absolutely anything."

"But what about you?" Adeena choked out. "You can see it now. You can go into the land of light and shadows. But if I go back...I won't ever see you again in the in-between. I'll be alone just like I was before you..."

He pressed a finger to her lips, stopping her midsentence. "You will never be alone again, Adeena. In the living world and here in the in-between. When you're here, I'll find a way to get to you, all right?"

Panic rose in her throat at the thought of him not being there the next time she was, the wave of loneliness that rushed over her even with him with her then then. "What if you can't?"

Destan leaned in to brush a kiss against her cheek, hugging her tight as he said quietly in her ear, "I promise I will. I have a feeling I've made friends with death just as you have."

As she stood rooted in place, Destan started taking steps away from her, their fingers still intertwined, arms stretched out until she couldn't keep hold of him anymore. But she still had a hold on him in a different way, one that had her choking out a sob as soon as his smiling face disappeared into the light that enveloped him, wondering if he'd felt it, too.

A shimmering silver cord that anchored him to her, a way to come back to her when she was in the in-between...the beginnings of an ancient bond that tied them together even in death, the very reason he'd been stuck there with her and the reason he was now set free.

Death wouldn't hold either of them. Even if she couldn't share her life with him in the land of the living, she would take what she could get.

For now, though, Adeena had to get back to her sister, her family, her new home in Arloerin.

And felt herself being pulled away from the shimmering archway into the land of light and shadows.

***

One heartbeat sounded in her ears. Then another. And another.

One breath filled her lungs with air.

Then a gasp and a cry from the female who still held her body tight in her grasp.

Adeena opened her eyes to a bright blue sky...and the tear-filled eyes of her twin sister as she stared at her, hands fluttering over her before pausing at the sight of the now healed wound.

"What...?" Cleo managed to choke out. "How?"

But Adeena just smiled as she slowly managed to sit up and turned fully toward her. "I told you it wouldn't be for long," she told her, though the guilt still ate at her since she almost broke that promise. Her gaze then went to Dessa, who was on her other side, before flickering to her mate still frozen in time. "Now, you and I have a certain Seer to get back, don't we?"