Chapter 30
He might not have been in love with her then – he’d never know for certain – but he sure as hell was in love with her now. He just couldn’t get her out of his mind. Even being within an inch of her was driving him crazy. Not being able to touch her, to reach out, link his fingers through hers and pull her towards him. Not being able to kiss her. And it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t just the desperate, driving desire he had to … well, to do things to her he doubted any man, or Shadow Warrior, had ever done to her before.
He wasn’t sure whether what his mother had told him was fuelling this crazy surge of possession and obsession that he was feeling, or whether she had revealed it to him, like a piece of dirt washed under water that suddenly glinted and revealed itself to be gold. Maybe he’d always felt this way about Evie and had just never realised.
He focused. Evie was holding the door open for him, looking at him like she had done back when he’d escaped from the hospital and they’d found him wearing only those green pants and unable to recall who anyone was. She couldn’t wait to get inside and away from him.
He followed after her, watching her stride up the stairs, taking them two at a time, her dark hair whipping behind her, her arms still coated in goosebumps.
It was weird. Frankly, if you’d told him a day ago that he’d be having a baby with this girl at some point in the future – because there was a little way to go before she consented to anything resembling baby making – he’d have run screaming for the hills, goddamn the Originals taking over town. But now something – everything in fact – had changed. When he looked at this girl, mainly at her butt it had to be said at this second in time, as she stormed up the stairs ahead of him, he knew there was nothing he wouldn’t do to protect her.
And their unborn kid.
OK, that was weird. He appreciated that was weird, even if only spoken in his head. And he hadn’t even fully started to analyse the weirdness of knowing his child was going to be the White Light. Would that be what they wrote on the birth certificate? He shook off the thought – it was a trip, the kind he didn’t want to take right now. The main thing troubling him was why he’d bring a child into the world knowing that that kid would have to face the kind of crap he was having to face. If there was ever an argument for using protection and not getting caught up in the moment …
He watched as Evie slammed through the fire escape on the landing, her expression set, her cheeks flushed. Hell, he could see how accidents happened.
Man, how was he supposed to handle this one? He couldn’t tell her, that much he knew for sure. She couldn’t ever find out. Or at least, not now. Not yet. Nor about the fact the way through was still open.
He needed to focus. His mum had thrown him for a ten-mile loop. But he needed to concentrate on later and the recce they were doing around Beverly Hills with Victor. They needed to figure out how to decimate these things, properly this time, without leaving any alive like they had done a thousand years ago. Good move, Elders.
If his mum was right and the way through was still open then they were in big trouble. Goddamn it to hell. That was the last time he tried to be a hero. It all made sense. Why he had been found wandering completely out of it in Beverly Hills – of all the places for a portal to other realms to open up. It also explained the spate of killings in the same area. The Originals were staying close, guarding it. He wondered if Victor had discovered it yet. He hoped not. Not given what had happened last time. Evie wouldn’t be safe if he had.
Cyrus stopped abruptly in his tracks, something that had been niggling at him, slotting into place and making a ripple of laughter rise up his throat. The prophecy had been right so far, hadn’t it? So that meant the rest of it was also likely to be right. Which meant that no matter what went on in the next week, or even the next nine months plus a bit (though who knew how much of a bit), both he and Evie were going to live long enough to make a baby.
He was grinning as he pushed open the door.