Our connection—our connection!—throbbed. And then our lips met, and it went blissfully silent.
I couldn’t imagine any mouth could feel this soft or anyone could taste this good. Andre’s lips glided over mine, his arms tightening around me. I’d seen a future with the devil, a future that stretched on and on, and in it I was happy. But it didn’t hold a flame to a single lifetime with this man.
Neither of us expected this, neither of us thought it was possible. We’d fought and fought, and I wasn’t sure we ever truly believed we’d make it out alive. And now I was in Andre’s arms, my hand pressed against his beating heart.
Eventually we had to come up for air. An hour ago, we wouldn’t need to catch our breaths. Now we did.
Andre still held me tightly against him, his hand cupping the side of my jaw. His eyes searched mine, his chest rising and falling. “What is the meaning of this?”
I blinked back watery tears.
Watery tears. Not blood.
“I think it’s over, Andre. It’s finally over.”
“Dios mio,” Andre whispered.
He reeled me back into his body, trembling around me. A tear hit my cheek, sliding down into my mouth. I tasted salt and water, and as my nose buried into the crook of Andre’s neck, I could smell him. Not his pheromones. Him.
We truly were no longer vampires, which meant we weren’t damned. Only, I wasn’t sure we were human, either. I still retained my ability to smell and hear things normal mortals couldn’t.
Above us, the sky brightened. We gazed to the skies, our arms still locked around one another’s.
The angels stared at me now, their brows pinched together, their mouths frowning. And as people roused themselves, they too studied me until they caught sight of what was happening above us.
Light backlit the dark clouds. They parted, and a beam of light stretched from beyond them to the field. Not light from the sun, which was rising in the east; light from on high.
The atmosphere inside the beam of light shimmered and coalesced into a man with iridescent wings and dark skin and eyes that seemed to contain the entire universe. He had the same otherworldly beauty as all the angels, but I could feel the power of this man eclipsing theirs.
He wore golden gladiator sandals and a cloth made from the same fabric as my own attire that draped around his hips. And he wore little else.
“I, the messenger known on earth as Jericho Aquinas, come bearing an edict for heaven, earth, and hell,” he said, his voice carrying over the field.
That was what Jericho really looked like? Holy heavens, the dude was a babe.
“In response to a plea made on a celestial request quill, God, our holy mother, has intervened.” He held up a scroll that shimmered. “This is Her edict.”
He unrolled the paper and began reading. The language he spoke wasn’t meant for human ears.
Teoian, my mind whispered, the language of the gods.
The sound of it reverberated in my bones, too powerful and vast to be understood. I caught the sound of my name amongst the words.
He paused. When he resumed speaking again, it was in another foreign language, one that enveloped me in a peaceful embrace. I felt the brush of divinity in this language not because of its power but because of the holiness that washed over my skin.
The angels stared at the messenger in growing shock as he spoke.
Jericho paused once more, and this time when he spoke, it was in English. “In return for freeing those unjustly imprisoned in hell, God has granted amnesty to all who were tricked by the fallen one once known as Lucifer. God has additionally granted amnesty to those both directly and indirectly involved in the release of these souls.
“The curse of vampirism has been lifted from those still living, along with their immortality. Whatever magic their body retains will be theirs to keep until the day of their death. Their sins up to the present day have been expunged.
“Lucifer, who sought to break this world to his will, has been stripped of those powers he so recklessly wielded and divested of a mate he sought to entrap. The bonds that he broke in the process have been mended.
“God’s vessel, Gabrielle Fiori, is to be recognized for her involvement in stopping the devil, as is Andre de Leon, Leanne Summers, Oliver Borealis, and Nona, the weaver of life. Any wrongdoing on their part is absolved by this heavenly decree.
“With these words, heaven acts out its will. May these times not be forgotten, lest history dare repeat itself.”
Jericho lowered the scroll and stared out across the field. His eyes briefly landed on me before continuing on. “Be good, humankind, for gods play with mortals and our reckoning is mighty and final.”
With that, his form shimmered out of existence, and the ray of light dissolved away.
Andre’s hand tightened on mine as he stared towards the lightening sky. The angels had left shortly after Jericho, and the remaining supernaturals scattered like dust in the wind. The only other beings that lingered were the last of Andre’s coven. There weren’t many, and I recognized even less.