Page 135 of Enchanted

I nodded, tears filling my eyes at the memory. The gift I’d been given. “She told me I haven’t been alone at all. That she’s been there with me during all my treatment. All of it. Even though I couldn’t see or feel her, she was there, Rami.”

“I’m so glad.” He kissed my forehead. “You have no idea, Ethan. Was she happy?”

“She seemed so. She was doing needlepoint—a pair of white wings.”

Rami chuckled. “Sounds like she knew before you did.”

“Turns out she’s been checking in on me. She promised she doesn’t watch anything saucy.”

“Fuck, I’d hope not. Are you sure there’s nothing else she needs? I can make it happen if there is. There are some perks to you being mated to an angel, after all.”

I straightened in his arms. “Wait, can you take me to see her again?”

He shook his head sadly. “No. I’m sorry, Ethan. There’s no way for you to enter Heaven.”

“Oh.” I slumped in disappointment. “Never mind.”

He touched my chin until I looked at him. “But I might be able to get letters to her and vice versa. Would you like that?”

My heart leapt. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.” He smiled. “It’ll be breaking all sorts of rules, but I’m more of a ‘do first ask for forgiveness later’ kind of angel.”

I bit my lip, torn. “I don’t want you to get into trouble.”

“Please,” he snorted. “One thing you need to learn about us Seraphim is that we sometimes get into trouble simply by existing. Let me speak to Benji. If anyone can work out how to make it happen, it’ll be him.”

“Thank you,” I said hoarsely, throwing my arms around his neck. “I don’t deserve you, I really don’t.”

“You do,” he said, his feet moving. “You deserve everything, Ethan.”

“Life’s already been pretty generous with me lately, I’m starting to worry that there’s something awful looming around the corner,” I confessed as Rami carried me indoors and towards the staircase. “First the cancer disappearing, then meeting you.”

He cleared his throat. “Technically, those events happened the other way around.”

I gave him a pointed look. “Yeah, I suspected as much. I’m guessing you can explain everything?”

“I can,” he said, kissing my head again. I shivered, loving it when he did that. “Can we get cleaned up first?”

“Please.” The dried blood was making my skin so uncomfortable. “Will you join me in the shower?”

He somehow opened the door we’d stopped in front of without even jostling me. “I’ll never say no to that, baby.”

My lips met his and a word echoed in my mind.

Finally.

Desire licked at me, so strong it made me breathless, but that wasn’t what had me pulling back to stare at Rami in confusion. No, it was the relief and tenderness that surrounded it. “Rami…is that…?”

“Can you feel me?” He touched my chest, right over where the emotions were thrumming. Emotions I was certain weren’t mine. “I can feel you, Eth. It’s the bond. Everything you feel, I feel. Every drop of sadness. Pain. Hope. Lust. I’ll experience it all alongside you.”

My throat bobbed. “I’m really never going to be alone again?”

“No, Ethan. Never.”

For someone else, this bond might’ve represented a cage.

But to me?