The smile that stretched across her face drove the breath from his body with its beauty. “Care to join us?”
“Us?”
Her words made him notice that a few feet away on a lounge chair lay his monster, completely naked and sunbathing.
Confusion rattled him, but that seemed only to make Jackie’s grin widen.
“He’s not all that bad, you know,” she told him.
Iain’s mind sputtered as he tried to make sense of her words. “Not all that…?”
She shrugged one lovely shoulder. “A little rough around the edges, but completely trainable.”
The monster let out an affirmative growl. “At least she doesn’t keep me locked in a fucking cage all the time.”
This was all too surreal. None of this made any sense. Clearly he had died and this was what hell looked like.
As if reading his mind, she chuckled. “You’re not dead. Neither am I. Neither is Stan.”
“Stan?”
“I thought he should have a name,” said Jackie.
The monster smiled. “Kinda manly, don’t you think? Very human.”
Iain had no words to express his feelings of What the fuck?
“You need to stop worrying,” she told Iain. “Everything’s fine.”
“The hell it is. You gave me your soul. Take it back.”
“I tried to give you my soul. You only took half. We’re both going to be fine. I’m just going to sleep for a bit longer. Stan here had me use so much power to kill Murak that I’m still wrung dry.”
“I’ll fix that,” promised Iain. “And then we’ll talk.”
She and Stan went back to their sunbathing, completely ignoring him.
Iain fell back into himself and opened his eyes. “Her soul,” he whispered to the concerned group hovering over him. “She gave me half her soul.”
“That changes things,” said Ronan. “We didn’t even know such a thing was possible.”
“I’m going to call Joseph,” said Drake. “Ronan’s right. This changes things.”
He and Helen left.
“I need to take her outside. Replenish her strength.”
“You’re too weak to carry her,” said Ronan.
“I’ll do it,” Cain offered.
Iain nodded. As much as he hated seeing her in another man’s arms, it was for the best. He needed to feel the ground beneath his fingers and draw upon its strength to drive away her weakness and his.
Ronan helped Iain stumble outside. He knelt on the cool ground and dug his fingers through the dry grass into the moist dirt below. Cain held her close enough for him to cup his left hand around her throat and allow the two halves of the luceria to connect.
He gathered up the power of the earth and let it trickle into her. It strengthened both of them, and soon, he felt almost normal.
Iain took Jackie from Cain’s arms and cradled her against his bare chest just as she was beginning to wake. Her gray eyes looked up into his, so full of love he wasn’t sure he could hold it all.
He heard Ronan and Cain walk away, leaving the two of them alone under the stars.
“We made it,” she said, her voice faint.
“Thanks to you.”
She smiled at him, and it warmed his very soul.
His soul. He had one again, thanks to her.
She laid her hand over his heart, and the branches of his lifemark swayed, stretching toward her touch.
Tears filled Iain’s eyes and splashed down onto her wrist. “Thank you,” he told her. “Thank you for saving my life. Thank you for sharing yours with me.”
She shrugged. “You would have done the same for me.”
He would have. He’d do anything for her. He loved her.
As that thought hit, his whole being swelled with the strength of it. He loved her. She’d not only saved his life but given him back the most basic of pleasures—loving another. That had been stolen from him for so long, he’d forgotten how good it felt, how restoring and peaceful it was to love.
Even his love for Serena was there, faint and watery by comparison with what he felt for Jackie, but still its own kind of gift.
“I love you,” he told her, enjoying the ring of those words in his ears.
Her eyes shimmered with happy tears. “I love you, too.”
A smile stretched his mouth for the first time in years.
Jackie pulled in a breath and grinned back. “I thought you were hot before, but when you smile, you’re…breathtaking.”
“I’ll show you breathtaking,” he said, and lowered his mouth to hers. He was going to spend the rest of his long, long life showing her how grateful he was, and just how deeply a man with half a soul could love.
Tynan’s phone rang, distracting him from his thoughts. Project Lullaby was progressing well, but not nearly fast enough. They were going to have to pick up the pace if they were to have any hope of saving themselves from starvation.
“Jackie’s pregnant,” said Ronan as soon as Tynan answered. “Your cure has worked again.”
Shock glued Tynan’s lips shut for a brief moment. His world began to shift under his feet. Things he’d believed true were simply wrong, and he was struggling to adjust to the new data. “I never gave Iain the serum.”
“Then how is it possible she carries a child?”
“I have no idea. Did she bed another man?”
“No. I walked her memories while she slept, searching for a way to save her. I saw no other man. I did, however, see something else.”
“What?”
“There was this odd memory of a black field, like a starless sky. Lights flared into existence, one by one, as she learned how to channel Iain’s power into different forms and uses. It was so bizarre that I poked around, searching for the source of such an odd mental image.”
“What did you find?” asked Tynan.
“One of the lights had a familiar feel. It felt like…Lexi, whose mind I’ve touched. I inspected that light more deeply and found a connection there. Lexi actually called me to see if I was well—she said she’d suddenly had a bad feeling that something was wrong. I don’t understand how or why, but Jackie is connected to Lexi. And to many others.”
“Did you recognize any of the others?”
“Yes. Andra, Helen, and Tori also had lights of their own. But there were others as well—ones that were not at all familiar. There were, however, some things they all had in common.”
“And what were they?”
“Every light felt feminine and was laced with power. It is my belief that whoever these women are that Jackie is connected to, every one of them is a Theronai.”
“How many?”
“Six. And I saw each one flare to life as I walked her memories. More may well appear.”
The implications of that were huge. It meant that there were more women out there just waiting to be found. Tynan’s mind spun as he put this new information into place, forcing other pieces to shift and spin to make room. “How do we find these women?”
“I don’t know. Jackie may be able to locate them. But there’s something else this explains.”
“What?”
“I believe this connection is why she’s seemingly compatible with all male Theronai. If she’s somehow tied to other women, it could grant her the ability to tap into any man’s power.”
“Do you think that this ability is something that can be learned?”
Ronan’s voice dropped with disappointment. “I don’t think so. My guess is that this is an inherent ability that only Jackie possesses. I will look into it further if I get the opportunity. Iain’s awake now, though.”
So the chances of Ronan spending time in Jackie’s mind were slim.
“Do I tell them?” asked Ronan.
“Tell them about Jackie’s gift, but keep the news of her pregnancy to yourself for now. Let me administer the serum to Iain first.”
Ronan’s voice was accusatory. “You want to take credit for this when it wasn’t your doing?”
“Think about it, Ronan. If the Theronai have somehow spontaneously regained their fertility and they don’t know it, the chances of procreation are higher, especially with human women. If they know they could have offspring, some of them may choose to use birth control. Do we really want that?”
“No. Of course not. We need all the blood we can get.”
“Then we’re in agreement. As soon as Iain returns, I’ll give him a shot of saline and no one will be the wiser.”
“Until the next woman turns up pregnant by one of the male Theronai.”
A smile stretched Tynan’s face. “There may be hope for our race yet.”
Cain couldn’t watch the lovefest. It wasn’t that he begrudged Iain his happiness, but it was hard to see his chance for a future come so close, only to slip through his fingers.
Jackie had never truly been his. She never would have been his, even if Iain had died. She loved him, and Cain was thrilled to see her happy.
His own happiness hardly mattered by comparison.
Cain looked down at the cold, black ring on his finger. He was delaying the inevitable. Wearing this ring might even prevent him from finding the woman for him—assuming she was even out there. He didn’t hold out much hope, but the thought of missing out on what might be his one and only chance left him cold and afraid.
It wasn’t the pain. That he could stand, no matter how grueling it got. It was the loneliness. It was eating him up inside, chewing away at the few strands of hope he’d managed to hold on to.
The ring wasn’t going to help. It was cheating. He’d lived his whole life by the rules. Skirting them now seemed…cowardly.
Cain pulled the ring from his finger and set it on the kitchen table of the little Gerai house. Iain would find it and give it to someone else.
He felt another leaf inch down his chest. The pain hit him hard, leaving him panting through it, gripping the back of a chair so hard he heard the wood creak. Slowly, the pain eased up to simply grueling, and his vision returned.
Things were changing, and Cain wasn’t sure he could change with them. He’d been alive for far too long. As much as he loved his job of protecting humans and guarding the gate, a man couldn’t live for his work alone.
Sibyl no longer needed him. Gilda and Angus were dead. Several of his brothers had found mates, and their ranks were once again growing. Even little Nika was pregnant, giving hope to all the other men.
Cain had never realized how much he loved having a child of his own until Sibyl was gone, and a great, gaping wound had opened up inside of him. She wasn’t his by birth, but she was his daughter in every other way. Even now, all she had to do was call him and he’d run to her aid.
But he knew her better than that. She wasn’t going to call him. She craved her independence too much. He was on his own and had to find a way to keep going, so that’s what he’d do. For whatever time he had left.