Page 65 of Let It Snow (Eden’s Omegaverse #7)

I rush out onto the balcony, and with a light jump, barely boosted by my power, I land on the roof.

This is the perfect place.

I sit cross-legged, close my eyes, and listen to the wind.

Just listen.

Just let myself be.

Rest.

Can I hear its color? At the edge of my perception, there’s something there, almost silver. Is it a trace of Snow in me, of his power, of his energy? And me… am I also in him? We are merged now, one soul, maybe that’s how it feels?

One thing is certain, tears of some strange relief start streaming down my face. Snow sacrificed our independence for me, without knowing what it would really mean, what it would bring… Despite having this blind spot, he took a risk.

He did it for me.

No questions asked.

I guess that's what love does!

A sob tears out of me.

I prick my finger and let a drop fall onto the reader.

Beep, beep, beep.

On the screen I see:

Result: 0.82 ng/mL

Notes: Elevated level; corresponds to a mild activation of the stress axis typical for early-stage True Mates separation (2 hours post-separation).

I shoot to my feet.

"Aaaaaah!"

That’s when I see him.

Snow stands across the rooftop, smiling widely.

I run, faster and faster, and faster… until I crash into him, lifting him off the ground.

My wings spread wide…

So wide!

I soar into the night, carrying him with me, high into the navy-blue sky.

His arms wrap around me, and once again, I see the world through his eyes.

It explodes into countless tones, scents, colors, but I see only one: the burning red that binds us together.

"I love you!" I shout. "I was dying because I lost you! And took the world down with me…"

"All you did was create a new one. One where we can live. And love."

And he’s right. In that other version of the universe, Snow and I are gone, only ruins left behind. But in this one, everything has another chance for a miracle.

In this one, we can still love. Live. Be.

As we almost touch the cold clouds, Snow suddenly whispers.

"What’s that? Is this snow?"

We glance around and notice a strange effect.

Here, between the dark, heavy clouds swollen with moisture and streaks of deep blue, something bizarre appears, something you’d never expect at this latitude. It looks like it’s really snowing!

Tiny white flakes whirl around us, light and fleeting.

"How’s that even possible over Florida?" Snow asks, lost in thought.

"Maybe it’s a sign. Just for us, huh?" I chuckle, amused.

But Snow’s expression turns serious.

"Is snow even possible in a place of eternal summer?"

I bite my lip. "Well, snow inside summer… sounds interesting," I glance at him meaningfully, but Snow seems deep in thought, as if something about it really got to him.

He looks down into the darkness at the flurries of pale snow swirling around us, drifting lower, probably melting before they reach the ground. But up here, just beneath the clouds, they still hold that wintry magic.

"Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow," I start to hum softly, feeling silly and cheerful.

Snow blinks, as if the melody has woken him from some trance, and suddenly looks at me, straight into my eyes.

"Let me fall, Summer."

Now I blink, not understanding what he’s trying to say. His eyes burn in the evening vastness surrounding us, deep navy clouds billowing behind his back as cold gusts of wind carrying tiny snowflakes whip through the air, filling my wings like massive sails.

"You’ve lost your mind. That’s the last thing I’d ever want…"

"You have to trust me, Summer."

"Snow, if I let you go, I may not be able to catch up. I don’t fly that fast, I sort of drift, gliding through the air. I’m not a peregrine falcon…"

"Let me go, Summer. There has to be a day when we finally let everything go…"

And suddenly, he also starts to hum Let It Snow! His face now looks different: hopeful, relaxed, even transformed.

"Ever since our souls merged, I can finally find it in myself: the strength to shed my chrysalis. I couldn’t do it for years. Something was missing… a push."

"Wait, shed? So that glowing form of yours… isn’t all there is?"

"No. Now let me go, Summer."

I stay quiet for a moment. The wind pulls at us as I glide through the endless open sky. The snowflakes settle on our faces.

"But I’m scared…"

"So you have to let that go too, Summer. The fear. That everything will… crash and shatter again."

Something inside me tightens, and at the same time something is expanding and unraveling—all at once.

"You’re right," I whisper, then loosen my arms around him.

Snow drops instantly, plummeting toward the ground.

I dive after him, folding my wings tight to gain speed, cutting through the air like a bullet, but it’s not enough.

He’s twice my weight, at least two sixty-five to my one thirty, so he picks up speed faster.

I use the air itself to push me forward, pressing against the wind to keep close enough to save him if anything happens.

We’re slicing through the snowy sky.

The speed is crazy.

And… I watch as his body grows brighter, turning into a sphere of light.

He looks like a bolide, a blazing meteor cutting through the upper atmosphere, glowing bright.

Is this the chrysalis-shedding phase… or something else entirely?

Suddenly, the sphere starts to change shape, expanding outward.

Boom.

I shoot downward, and now I’m below him, and lose sight of him.

As if pressing the brakes, I abruptly spread my wings wide, halting hard, almost stopping midair.

I tilt my head back, scanning the sky above me.

Whoa!

What the hell is that?

Something enormous is floating up there.

A massive, luminous shape.

And I mean… massive!

Is this Snow, what he’s become?

His glowing wings look immense; they spread wide like the shimmering surface of a glider’s sails.

It’s hard to find the right words to describe it, there’s nothing like this on Earth, but if I had to compare, at first glance it looks like gigantic dragon wings, but with a swirly, spotted pattern similar to that of a butterfly’s, and at the same time they’re translucent—effulgent, lucent, like a fairy’s. What a mix!

"Oh… wow," slips out of me.

I rise slowly, climbing higher, trying to understand what exactly I’m seeing, and how it’s even possible that Snow is something so much more than I ever imagined.

As I get closer, I finally reach the level of his radiant chest and face.

The light pouring from him is blinding, yet as I stare, I can make out the lines of his features, his face, his body, his arms.

They also have a new quality to them; it seems that a scale-like pattern, similar to mine, is lightly overlaid on his skin, and his eyes resemble mine much more now too; we both have these narrow, dragon-like irises.

We look at each other.

"You are… spectacular," I murmur, and he smiles faintly. "Are you a light dragon or an… unusual butterfly?"

"I doubt there’s even a name for me."

"A… fairy?"

Snow chuckles softly.

"Light dragon has a nice ring to it," he says, tilting his head, and winking.

I swallow and just stare, amazed.

"Chrysalis phase complete?" I finally ask, because I have no idea what else to say. I’m too awed.

"Looks that way," he replies softly, glancing back toward his massive wings.

"We really are alien, aren’t we? And… kind of alike. But I’m made of matter, and you’re made of energy."

"The line’s a lot blurrier now," he whispers, and reaches out, intertwining his fingers with mine. We hover like that, our fingers barely touching, spinning slowly in the air, sort of… dancing. The light radiating from his body illuminates the clouds around us.

"We belong to each other," slips out of me, quiet but bursting with joy so huge it almost tears through my chest. "There’s nobody like us."

"Yes. We belong to each other, Summer," he answers, and then our lips meet in a weightless kiss.

"Let’s fly, Snow. Let’s fly together through the skies… something that’s only ours."

"Let’s fly," he says with a wide smile. "Our own thing."

◆◆◆

When we finally land on the Nolans’ rooftop, I’m so exhausted I could fall asleep standing.

Snow is in much better shape, both physically and mentally, and he helps me climb down the stairs through the roof hatch into my room.

My body still hasn’t recovered fully from what happened in the Ferro hangar, and now I’ve added such an intense physical strain on top of that.

I drop onto the bed, too tired to shower, and Snow covers me with a blanket. Only then do I remember that being True Mates gives us powerful regenerative abilities, but I guess my mind hasn’t switched to that mode yet. I don’t have the strength to say a single word anyway.

I fall asleep so quickly it almost feels as if I’ve sunk into a black well.

Despite such deep exhaustion, I wake up a few hours later.

It’s the middle of the night, and there’s something new in my body, an unusual unease.

It feels like a strange, unfamiliar kind of longing, as if something is pulling me out of bed, urging me to run somewhere, to search and find, and I know exactly what I need.

Snow.

Now we’re one soul, that need to be close, which used to stay somewhat under control and let us spend our days apart as Twin Souls, has exploded into something impossible to ignore.

Is this what I’ve read about?

The real Pull? Our souls became one just a few dozen hours ago. Is everything typical for a normal True Mates couple unfolding all over again?

I rush to the shower, rinse off the last bit of sleep, then throw on a long T-shirt and jump out through the balcony.

I run toward the basement where Snow lives, a grin stretching across my face as I realize we’ll finally understand what True Mates feel when they’re apart. It fills me to the brim. I just have to be near him. Something inside me twists, restless and hungry, in a way I’ve never felt before.

Unbelievable, if this is what they feel all the time… That tearing inside, that demand for closeness.

I didn’t think it would be this strong.