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My teeth clinked together as a shiver took hold and I blinked my eyes open trying to pull my arms around me for warmth, but I couldn’t. Bright light blinded me as I cracked my eyes open. Everything was white and it took a moment to figure out the white landscape wasn’t heavenly clouds, but a snow covered glen.
I tried to speak but my throat was too raw to form words and my tongue felt like sandpaper on my cracked lips. I tried again, this time a dry rasp formed the word ‘help’ but it was so soft, not even the small field mouse by the edge of the forest budged.
Turning my head brought forth a wave of dizziness and nausea along with a stabbing pain behind my eye. I think I groaned. A shuffle behind me caught my attention and I turned my head enough to see a snow filled path that was vaguely familiar.
“It could be another trick.” a soft Irish brogue fell over the snow and a striking red head came into view.
“I highly doubt it,” a male voice blanketed the area and I turned, meeting a pair of bright blue eyes that were wide enough to tell me he had just witnessed something unthinkable.
I licked my lips again and tried to articulate.
“Help,” I hissed and met the redhead’s gaze.
Her stoic features hardened for a moment as she studied me and then her entire face softened and she fell to her knees in front of me. “Oh, blessed be, it’s finally you!”
I shrugged and glanced around the cove.
“Par...a...dise Cove?” I asked, still foggy as to why I was there and why there was snow on the ground.
The girl climbed to her feet.
“Rav...ven?” I asked. The name came from somewhere in the mud of my brain.
She beamed, her smile as bright as the sundrenched snow. “Yes!”
“Why am I tied to a chair in the snow?” I looked down at my bare feet. “Without shoes.”
Her smile faded and she regarded me with skepticism. Before she could answer, a stunning brunette stepped in front of me and my breath locked in my chest. I could neither pull air in nor exhale while this beauty filled my vision. It took a few beats of my heart before my body decided to function again and two words tumbled from my lips.
“Mind fuck.”
Tears formed in her eyes and she covered her mouth. There was a fear in her gaze mixed with longing and hope that made my eyes mist as well.
“Chris?” she whispered.
“Yeah, who else...” I trailed off and the chilly air couldn’t penetrate the ice that layered over my entire form. My shivers stilled and I slumped in the chair before glancing around at the cove. “Jesus,” I whispered and met her gaze. “I dropped him into a seizure in Au...gust.”
She uttered a high-pitched laugh and stepped closer, but she still didn’t dare touch me.
“Didn’t I?” I asked, searching her features and then Raven’s.
She kept laughing but she was now crying as well.
“Valerie,” I said with more force and she met my gaze winding down and wiping her face.
“Yes. But that was almost six months ago.”
“You’ve had me tied here for six months?” I couldn’t help the incredulous tone in my voice and her chin trembled.
She slowly shook her head. “No.”
My face fell and I stared into her sad calico eyes. “What did I do?”
“You didn’t do anything. But he did,” she said and reached up, unbuttoning the collar of her coat and the raw bruises on her throat clenched my chest. But that wasn’t the clincher; the crescent scars over her heart tore a gasp from my dry mouth.
She slowly buttoned the shirt and wouldn’t look at me.
“What else?” I asked, reading her as if I had been with her all my life.
She lifted her gaze. “Let’s just say he fooled all of us.”
I hung my head. I knew the things Lucifer promised he would do if he ever got a hold of her. My last mortal memory was the exorcism and then everything went white. It wasn’t like the dark abyss of the coma, this was pure and white and warm.
“Where the fuck was I?” I whispered and glanced up at her.
Tears filled her eyes and she shook her head with a shrug. “I don’t know,” she said. “I wasn’t sure it was you, but he somehow convinced me, and I wanted to believe it so badly, even though I knew there was something missing, something that wasn’t there when he looked at me. He almost broke me, Chris. He almost crushed me beyond recognition, and when I realized it wasn’t you...”
I stared at her, knowing just how devastating that must have been and a justified anger filled me. I should have been there to protect her, but I wasn’t in a position to intervene. The full return of memories left me hollow, because I shouldn’t be sitting here, either.
She gave me a slow nod and looked around. “This was our last try. Tom suggested we bring him here. He said it might be the one place that would allow you to come back and claim your body.” She wiped her face. “If this didn’t work...” She pressed her lips together and turned toward the frozen lake. “I would have let Damian kill him.”
“I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had.”
She turned. “Letting go would have destroyed me,” she said.
Heat filled my eyes, pooling and distorting my vision. I blinked and hot tracks warmed my cheeks. “I’m sorry.” My whisper came out wrapped in agony.
“Just don’t ever leave me again,” she said.
I let my lips curve a little. “Okay.” That was a statement I could agree to a thousand times over and she leaned in and pressed her lips to mine. The satin of her skin warmed me from the core outwards and when she parted her lips, our tongues mingled and all thought ceased. Time stopped with this kiss and she settled on my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck.
When she broke the kiss, she met my gaze and I inhaled like I came up from too long underwater. A slow smile formed and the sparkle returned to her eyes.
“It really is you,” she whispered and this time the kiss was filled with promises of things to come. The balance of power shifted, filling every fiber of my body, making me grin despite her lips still plastered on mine.
She pulled away and I glanced at Raven, Tom, and Damian standing a few feet away.
“Thank you,” I said and the bonds holding me in place disintegrated. I wrapped my arms around Valerie, picking her up and setting her on her feet as I stood next to her. My legs cramped up and I flinched but Valerie grabbed me around the waist to steady me.
“Go easy.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Go easy? I’ve been chilling in Heaven while all this shit went down. I can’t go easy until we close every last possible way that bastard can escape.”
“You said you wouldn’t leave me,” she said with a defiant pout.
“Baby, I don’t plan on ever leaving you again,” I said meeting her perplexed gaze. “Where ever I go, you will be by my side.”
“But...” she started and stepped away.
I grabbed the back of the chair for support, shifting my weight against the pins and needles tingling in both my legs. Coming back to life was just as uncomfortable as this conversation.
I glanced at Tom.
“Dad got him, right?”
“I think so. I wasn’t sure what the hell I was seeing, especially after I heard him say ‘game on’.” He paused and swallowed before going on. “That lightning bolt scared the shit out of us,” he said and pointed at my chest.
I glanced down at the burn mark where the lightning seared my skin, pushing me back into my body and knocking Lucifer out. A scar in the shape of a fiery sun graced the space over my heart and I looked back at my brother. “I think that may be Uriel’s sign,” I said and glanced at Valerie. “We need to have a long talk, but the bottom line is I made a deal and part of that deal was the promise to close all existing portals.
“Where did Dad take him?” Tom asked, the concern in his voice was enough; I didn’t need to read his mind in order to know where he was going.
“Dad made me promise. He can only hold the devil at bay for so long,” I said. “I have to live up to my end of the deal.”
“He sacrificed Heaven?”
I nodded. “For you and me,” I said, locking my gaze with his. “I didn’t want him to, but he was the only one who could make this possible.” I waved at my shivering form and turned back to Valerie. “You’ll just have to get used to traveling with me when the need strikes.” I shrugged.
Her expression hardened. “Like going to New York?”
My eyebrows scrunched for a moment and then everything clicked into place. “No. Not like New York,” I said in a soft voice. “What he did to you...” I trailed off and looked at the ground, shivering at both the cold encompassing me and the anger surfacing. “I will end him if he ever cros...ses my path again.” I raised my gaze meeting hers. My stutter accompanied my fury.
She stared me down and I opened my mind, letting down every conceivable wall, including the one holding the secrets of Heaven under wraps. Valerie blinked as she soaked in my memories from the destruction of the first portal that landed me in the coma to the existence of Heaven and the conversation with my father. Her eyes widened.
“You’re a trinity?” she gasped and I nodded, sliding my gaze to Tom.
“As I said before, we’re going to need to have a conversation because what I learned in Heaven affects you, too.”
He pointed to his chest and I nodded. “Not a trinity, though. But Naomi, you, and I have some things in common.”
“You remember everything?” Valerie said after things started settling in the whirlwind of her mind.
“Yes. On both sides of the grave.”
Silence settled over the small group and all shades of doubt evaporated.
“Do you mind if we go somewhere where I can get warm?” I asked as the chill threaded through my cells setting my teeth in a constant clatter. “I can’t feel my feet and I’d rather not have to deal with frostbite.”
All eyes dropped to my bare feet and I stepped toward the path, aware that they followed like a band of fanatical disciples.