Page 164 of Walking in Darkness

Our love.

Over and over, I begged him to stay.

“Pax, I’m right here. Find me. Find me the way you always have.”

Timothy pumped and pumped. Exertion strained his arms, but he refused to give up as Dani and I called him back.

As we begged and prayed that the energy we poured into him was weaving something inside.

A healing we couldn’t see.

We refused to falter or give.

Our breaths were harsh and ragged as we gave him everything we had.

And I knew it when I saw the stirring of his eyes.

The slight fluttering of his lashes.

“Pax, Pax! You hear me. I know you hear me.” Tears gushed down my face as the words rushed from my mouth.

“Come back to me. I’m waiting. I’m right here.”

His chest suddenly arched off the ground as he sucked in a jagged breath.

Timothy heaved out a delirious, surprised laugh. “Yes, that’s it. That’s it!”

He pumped two more times before Pax jolted, flying upright as he coughed and choked, his hands gripping his wound as he inhaled oxygen into his lungs. One second later, those pale, pale eyes were on me where I was on my knees in front of him.

Those fierce, terrifying, beautiful eyes.

They were whole and knowing.

Pure and right.

Together.

And together it was done.

I threw myself at him, curling around him as he wrapped his arms around my waist. He released the heaviest breath into my neck as he locked me against his chest. “Aria. I heard you. I heard you.”

“You’ve always heard me.” It was a sob of praise. Of respect for this affinity. For the gift we’d been given.

For this love.

Ellis had always told us who we were would be a blessing and a curse.

But this? Having Pax? It was a treasure.

I held him against me as tight as I could, clinging to him as he breathed me in. Sharp, deep gulps that he pulled into the well of his lungs.

Then he peeled back, his palm soft as he set it on my cheek, his expression racked with devotion, words rough as he uttered them into the air: “You did it, Aria. You fucking did it. I knew you could. Knew you had the greatest strength in you.”

He curled me back in his arms, murmuring in reverence, “You did it.”

Energy swelled, the connection binding. Warmth that blistered through my body and sank down into every recess inside me.

A knowledge that seeped into the marrow.