I followed him out to the lift. I’d expected him to be angry, ranting that Dad had lost his mind. But he was silent. Too silent.
I pressed the lift button. Lincoln didn’t look at me.
‘He just wants someone to blame. It won’t last,’ I said quietly, wishing I could be there for Lincoln the way I wanted.
He tried to say something, but closed his mouth again, as if he couldn’t speak, and shook his head.
‘Linc?’ I reached out, the tips of my fingers grazing his hand. The contact sparked the usual influx of soul-crushing hurt.
Lincoln gripped my hand and suddenly, without warning, pulled me into his chest and wrapped his arms around me so tightly it was as if he was trying to weld us together.
It was a rare display of raw emotion and an even rarer display of physical need. I held on to him just as tightly, neither one of us saying or doing any more. Just holding on. I breathed him in – sun and melting honey – my soul only craving for more.
We stood like that until the elevator doors slid open. Lincoln sighed and pulled away from me, his hand moving to my jaw as he did, his thumb smudging my cheek in that way I loved, his emerald-green eyes piercing into mine. Wordlessly, he stepped into the lift.
The moment the doors closed, my knees gave out and I dropped to the ground in literal agony. I gripped my chest and stomach as, from somewhere within, the magic that bound our souls was torn apart.
I didn’t even hear the door open behind me, but suddenly Evelyn was there, crouching beside me. I felt a tentative hand on my back as I tried to hold back the tears of pain.
‘Are you hurt?’ she asked, her voice sharp and fast. I could feel her tension as she looked around for an enemy.
‘No,’ I managed to say.
‘Then what?’ she continued, looking me over. ‘I don’t under–’ she broke off, looking at me, then the lift. ‘Lincoln? This is–’ she stopped again. Then, sternly, she grabbed me by the shoulders, hauling me to my feet.
‘Tell me that you two are not involved!’ She shook me. ‘Tell me you are not in love with your partner!’
I tried to swallow back the pain, the punishment for touching him. I started to shiver.
‘Answer me now! Are you sleeping with him?’ Evelyn said, giving me one more shake, forcing my head up to hers. Her eyes were blazing and boring into me.
‘No,’ I said, tears streaming from my eyes, partly from physical pain, partly from my heart. I knew why she was asking – it was forbidden for Grigori partners to start relationships – it caused some kind of negative response in our angelic components and the results were dangerous; at best the Grigori’s powers are weakened, at worst they are lost. But Lincoln and I were quite the opposite.
We were soulmates.
Our powers would become greater if we were together … But there would be other costly consequences that neither one of us wanted to bring about.
She kept her eyes on me as I tried to gain control. ‘But there is something, isn’t there? Between you two, something you’re not telling me.’
Her demand gave me what I needed to pull myself together and step out of her hold.
‘You know what, Mother, if you’re so clever, figure it out yourself!’ And with that I stormed passed her into the apartment.
Evelyn had made herself comfortable in our home, with Dad now sleeping in the living room and despite my efforts, she didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
It didn’t take a genius to see Dad was falling in love with her all over again. I tried to make him understand how awful she was – and he actually agreed with what I said, part of the time. Evelyn had lied to him for their entire relationship and he hadn’t forgotten that. But even so, his eyes tracked her around the apartment constantly.
The day after Lincoln’s visit, I spent the morning avoiding home and trying to run off some of the residual soul-ache his touch had left behind. I always felt a little better after a good workout.
When I got home I grabbed a bottle of water from the kitchen and noticed yet another cut-up newspaper in pieces on the bench. I held it up to Dad and shook it.
‘Has she explained why she keeps massacring these yet?’ I asked, joining him on the sofa. She had been destroying our newspapers daily and I kept finding international ones stuffed into the rubbish.
‘I don’t think it will go on for much longer,’ Dad said with a smile that spelled trouble. ‘I’ve shown her how to use the internet.’
Great, that explains why I can’t find my laptop.
‘We should just send her to a hotel or something. Griffin could arrange it.’ I’d offered this solution a number of times to no avail, but I was determined.
Dad just shook his head and gave his usual response. ‘She’s too weak. Whatever happened to her in the transition back … here – she can’t be on her own.’
I slumped against the pillows. ‘She’s probably faking the fainting spells. She doesn’t belong here, Dad.’