Page 64 of Let It Snow (Eden’s Omegaverse #7)

Realization surges through me, and it’s almost like a strange bliss. A relief. So he knows. How come? Well, I’m not that alone after all.

Blinking, I think about my response but choose the bratty one, just to stay vaguely sane.

So I jut my lips. "That didn’t happen."

"Oh really? You sure? Because I remember it did."

Damn. I swallow hard. I desperately need to change the subject, to push all this crap away from me. That’s when I notice a dried streak of red across his hand.

"What’s that?" I reach for his sleeve, trying to pull his hand under the garage light.

But Bay’s reflexes are sharp. He jerks his hand back fast.

"Don’t touch me," he says flatly.

"You touched me," I shoot back, narrowing my eyes and pointing to my neck. He sure did, when he threatened to kill me for what I did. There’s no way around that.

Silence settles between us.

Bay leans toward me slowly. His features are so much like Snow’s: beautiful, balanced, the same nose, mouth, cheekbones, but his eyes… Bay’s eyes burn with something else. Anger. Hostility.

Not even directed at me specifically, but at the whole world.

"I only lay hands on evildoers."

The silence grows heavier. And I mean as heavy as the dense matter of a neutron star… That scale.

Bay’s brows draw together as he tilts his head.

"Just don’t push it, Summer. I’m watching you."

I let out a loud, irritated snort. I don’t want to feel that, I don’t want to be reminded, so I burst out,

"Seriously? I’m not the bad guy here! The Ferros—"

Bay just raises two fingers to his eyes and then points them at me.

"Just keep it in check."

My lips tremble.

"You—you don’t understand…"

"Oh, I understand. I just don’t approve."

His attitude gets on my nerves.

Out of pure irritation, and maybe out of the draining guilt I’m trying to escape, I furrow my brows and snap, "I could destroy the whole world just to save him."

Yeah, I said that. Out in the open. Funny, it brings me a certain kind of relief, a bitter one, but it’s there.

Bay closes his eyes, almost satisfied by what I’ve just admitted, as if he expected exactly this.

"That wouldn’t be love."

A dry laugh bursts from me. "I know. It would be obsession. Sickness. Never mind. Judge me all you want. It is what it is."

He takes a step back, tilting his head.

"Can’t say I don’t relate, Summer. To a point. But never over the bodies of innocents."

"It was revenge," my voice cracks. "It was rage, fury, in that one terrible moment."

Bay steps back again.

"Oh, well. That’s how it is with True Mates. But no single person is worth more than the whole world."

My eyes fix on him, filled with a kind of grim triumph. I have something to tell him.

"We’re not True Mates, Bay."

"Oh, but you are. Now."

Did I go deaf? I blink, my mouth falling open.

"What?"

Bay lifts a brow and smiles faintly. "Snow didn’t tell you? He told me yesterday, while you were out cold. When you were saving Winter, he used our dad’s energy matrix. Through that gate, he bound your souls together, mixed them into one."

I gasp.

"You’re crazy. That’s impossible. When Snow… when Rocco killed him, I didn’t die. It would’ve happened if we were Trues with a merged soul."

Everyone in our society knows what happens when True Mates perish. The energy coil between them tears apart, and in a blinding flash of light, they burn, and that’s the end of them.

Bay steps closer, moving out of the shadow.

"Oh, but you were dying when I saw you, Summer."

"What are you talking about?!"

"You should’ve seen yourself. You looked like a body burned alive, charred black, nothing but ash. You didn’t feel pain because so much energy was pouring out of you as the coil split open, that no nerve signal could have gotten through."

He steps even closer, his eyes narrowing, and I tremble like a leaf.

"But—"

"Did you notice that even when you focused on me, talked to me, the wave of destruction kept spreading? You weren’t in control of it, Summer.

You were just… dying. The last, though pretty destructive song of a swan.

You were burning through your energy, and since you had ‘a little’"—he makes air quotes—"more of it than normal humans, it took longer for it all to drain out.

But by the time I was talking to you, I might as well have been talking to a corpse. "

The shock hits me so hard I stagger, catching myself against his car, my palms slick with sweat.

What the hell. What is he talking about?

Dark spots begin to spin before my eyes, and my back goes cold, as if someone poured icy water over me.

But it’s accompanied by a strange, almost sickening relief that spreads through my mind like a blot of light.

"Wait… it means I wasn’t killing them of my own volition?"

"Oh, don’t get too easy on yourself, Summer! You said it yourself. You felt you were doing it, out of revenge… fueled by rage and fury. The destruction was inevitable since you were dying, but it was very much approved by your heart."

My lips tremble, but I force myself to steady them.

"You know what they say… it’s the intention that matters!" Bay smirks.

I swallow hard. He’s right. No escape, huh? I guess there’s no complete redemption for me. Still, the fact that it would have happened anyway, regardless of my rage or my hunger for revenge, gives me a small, guilty relief and raises one more important question.

"So… if you hadn’t told me to reverse it, a minute later I would have been—?"

Bay lifts his hand and makes a fluttering motion, like a butterfly taking off.

"Poof!"

And he laughs, as if it was a funny thing.

Vomit almost rises in my throat.

I need something, anything, to make all of this a little… more bearable.

"I can’t figure out why you wanted so badly to be half of a soul. But that’s not my place to judge. Especially since, ironically, it’s what saved you both, Summer."

"Wait, what?"

Bay nods.

"You couldn’t have absorbed his power without it.

You instinctively wanted to stop his energy from escaping as he was dying, and without it, while being separate souls, you couldn’t have turned back time.

" He gives a light shrug. "So maybe there’s something deeper in it?

Maybe your obsession had… a larger purpose? And it saved you both in the end."

"My obsession saved us…?" I mumble; my lips feel numb.

Bay turns as if to leave.

"Think about it. It’s almost like your soul carried a shadow of Snow’s prophetic gift.

Remember your disappointment? Your despair?

You nearly lost your mind over it. ‘I want us to be True Mates!’ And because of that, poor Snow did what he could to grant your wish.

Ah, what love can do…! Your whining pushed him into merging your essence.

And it turned out… that’s the only reason you both walk among the living now. "

He smirks at me and… walks away.

Just like that, leaving me in complete disarray, swaying slightly, kind of feverish from shock.

Wow.

Just wow.

That’s a lot. An overwhelming flood of information now bubbling in my head, churning like waves over a sandbar. But above all, one hopeful thought slowly rises to the surface. Could there have been a method to my madness after all?

Could it be that in all that chaos, in those emotional outbursts that tore through me, there was some greater purpose, something that turned out to be our… lifeline?

But I don’t have much time to think.

A few seconds after Bay vanishes down the shadowed path to his house, I hear a faint rustle behind me.

Snow steps out from behind Bay’s car, his violet eyes calm as they meet mine.

"You heard it all?"

He slowly nods.

For a second I think hard about what to say, just staring at him, and then blurt it out, "It’s true? We’re… True Mates now?

He nods again.

"You bound our souls as one?"

Another nod.

I raise my hands, rubbing my temples in disbelief. "Crazy…" I whisper, my voice breaking. "Crazy!"

Snow’s smile is a bit rueful.

"That’s because I’m… crazy about you, Summer," he whispers, almost shyly.

Our gazes lock for a split second, and then I shoot into his arms like a bullet, burying myself in his embrace. A broken sob escapes me.

"I really thought I’d never see you again, that it was over."

His hands stroke my head, my back, he plants a kiss on the top of my head, but he stays silent.

"It’s all over, Summer. We can just relax now. And move on to the next chapter."

Oh, I so want this.

But I still need to ask.

"So now we can really… die? If we’re separated?"

His serious energy slightly changes, and Snow suddenly chuckles.

"I don’t know why it specifically matters so much to you, but yes. Exactly that. And you even saw this happening with your own eyes. In the other reality."

An unexpected thought pops into my head.

I jerk my head up, eyes wide.

"Wait. The veradiol would spike too?"

Snow laughs. I know it may seem weird that I’m thinking about such trivial things, yet I am. I desperately need some small joys, something to brighten all of this and maybe make it a bit lighter, more fun.

"Don’t you have one of those little testing devices?" Snow tilts his head playfully. Maybe he also wants to feel, for a moment, some relief from the weight of what happened.

"I do! I’ve got five different ones!"

"Then maybe it’s time to check if they actually work." He grins.

"I know, it may seem random, but…"

"Don’t worry about it, Summer. Let’s check it out!"

I grab his hand, and we tear upstairs to my room like maniacs. I dig through the bottom drawer and pull out the veradiol testing devices.

"The shortest time they can register separation is one hour," I say, handing him a device.

"Okay. Let’s do a baseline first."

We both prick our fingers, and the test comes up negative; no veradiol in our blood.

Then, I look at him.

"Now we need to separate. Meet me on the roof in an hour. Draw your blood a minute before you come, okay? The order of actions matters."

Snow nods, kisses my cheek, and leaves the room with a soft smile.