He was standing with his legs spread, the bloodied feather stil clutched in his hand, looking straight up at the nothingness above. He didn’t seem to even recognize that I was in the room with him. But I could both see him and feel him. His agony touched me like a physical force, reaching me easily from the other side of the white expanse. To me, it felt like a gaping hole in his soul. Although it wasn’t visible to the naked eye, I could perceive it as clearly as if it were.
“Please don’t take her from me. I’ve done everything you asked. Everything! Please don’t take her.”
There was silence as he watched the empty, white sky.
He seemed to be listening to someone, someone I could neither see nor hear.
“No!” he cried angrily, his voice cracking with emotion. Bo fel to his knees, his feathery sword fal ing out of sight. It was as though it dropped through a trap door and disappeared into oblivion.
“Please,” he said again, this time his tone suggesting that he was ready to try being reasonable since nothing else had worked. “Please don’t. You know how I feel about her. You know I can’t live here without her. God, please! Please don’t take her from me.”
Bo’s head slumped forward as his voice dropped to a desperate whisper. “Please. She’s like the air to me.”
He stayed that way for several long, tense seconds before his head snapped up. After a short pause, Bo exhaled as if in great relief and I saw his eyes close.
“Yes, anything. I’l do anything.”
He listened for another minute, nodding occasional y. He didn’t speak again until he said, “What?” and his head jerked around toward me.
Bo’s eyes met mine from across the colorless space and I felt them like sweet rain on my dry soul. I’d honestly believed that I had looked into them for the last time. But now, seeing them once more, made me feel like I could fly.
Looking away, Bo bowed his head and murmured, with a wealth of emotion, “Thank you. Thank you.”
When he rose to his feet, he crossed the space between us. Stopping in front of me, Bo bent to scoop me up into his arms. I felt the skin of my cheek col ide with his chest. I knew then, as I’d known for some time, that al I ever needed in life was safely stored in that chest, beneath the skin and bone of an angel.
Little by little, the white faded to black and I felt the shock of landing back in a body that was alive with feeling. I was lying on my back and my heart was being torn apart by an intolerable pain. It was more than enough to take my breath away, a gasp sticking in my chest like Bo’s feather sword had.
I fought to open my eyes, but I couldn’t lift my lids. It was as if they were sealed together with a paralyzing glue, as were my lips.
Inside a body that I couldn’t control, I was trapped in an airless torment that left me blind, deaf, mute and immobile.
But before panic could swal ow me up, an enormous opaque hand descended from the blackness above me. It reached inside my chest, ripping out the pain and the heartache that crouched there, and then vanished without a trace.
Although I was confused, I relaxed back into a blissful numbness that held me like a cloud. I dipped and swayed as if I were perched atop gently rol ing waves.
Ambient sounds began to penetrate the haze. One voice in particular was like a ray of sunshine breaking through fog and setting my heart, my soul, and my world on fire.
“Ridley,” it said, the voice so close to my ear that chil s ran down my neck and shoulder. “Ridley, can you hear me?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but my throat was so dry, so painful y dry, that I couldn’t move the words past the tongue that was stuck to the roof of my mouth.
“Ridley, please wake up,” it said again. I felt something warm against my forehead. It was hard, like maybe another forehead. “Please, baby. Please wake up.”
I tried to shout I’m here, Bo! but the sound didn’t make it out of the confines of my head.
Hands gently gathered me closer to that bare chest. I inhaled and my nose was pleasantly flooded with the smel that calmed my entire existence.
“How could you do that to me? How did you think I could live without you?” he whispered, his voice a rumbling in his chest that tickled my ear and reverberated through my jaw.
I felt his lips brush my hair and I wanted desperately to turn my face up and capture them with my own. Putting every ounce of focus I had toward prompting my muscles to obey, I strained until I felt Bo’s smooth skin shift against my cheek.
His heart literal y skipped a beat when I moved. I heard it in his chest, like a stutter. He pul ed away from me and I could almost feel his gaze sweeping over my face, burning through my skin to reach my soul.
Lifting with al my might, I pried my lids open and was immediately rewarded with the most gloriously handsome face I’d ever seen. I looked it over, appreciating the sharp angles and firm planes, the mouth that tortured me in such a sweet way, the eyes that I could never escape and never wanted to.
Struggling, I lifted my free hand and touched it to his warm cheek. He turned his face into it, closing his eyes as he pressed his lips to my palm.
“I love you,” he whispered.
The words sang through my soul like the sweetest song, the chords dancing across my heart like the delicate feet of a bal erina.
I cleared my throat and managed to croak, “I love you, too.”
The smile that curved Bo’s mouth was nothing short of stunning. It lit his whole face as if the windows of heaven had opened up and bathed him in loving, angelic perfection.
Bo swept his lips across mine and then crushed me to his chest. Despite al the stress and activity of the last several hours, I could feel the warmth of his skin beneath my cheek.
It should’ve been cooling, like mine undoubtedly was. That could only mean one thing.
“Mortal?” I asked dryly.
“We’l talk later. We need to get out of here.”
“Wait! What did you see?”
Bo looked quizzical y at me.
“What do you mean?”
“What did you see on my skin? Isn’t that why you looked at me like that?”
Bo pursed his lips.
“Do we have to talk about this now? It just sort of explained how to find my wings and what to do with them. It didn’t mention your part, though.” Bo closed his eyes and when he continued, his voice was thick with emotion. “If I had known—”
“I know,” I interrupted. “That’s why I couldn’t tel you.”
“Ridley, how could you—”