Page 71 of Born Free

“I love you, too,” I say, my voice quivering with emotion. “Forever.”

My entire body is shaking with uncertainty. I don’t know what’s about to happen. I don’t know what is happening right now. But as my eyes slide back to the shadow that is Roman, lost in death, I have no doubts.

“Juliet, no,” his voice says, clear even if his form is not.

“A hundred times,” I say as I take a step forward. “I will always choose you, Roman.”

And I wrap my arms around that shadowy form, and my lips find his, completing my world.

I’m enveloped by his shadows, and suddenly I’m falling.

Falling through the darkest dark I’ve ever encountered.

Until I’m suspended in nothing.

No light.

No sound.

No feeling.

Just nothing.

Just the emptiness of death.

And there I drift forever.

CHAPTEREIGHTEEN

Everything is pain.I feel my body, my very soul being ripped apart, shredded into a billion tiny little particles.

A needle weaves its way through what remains, stitching me to another. A hurricane turns us around and around until the two swarms of obliterated matter are so intertwined together, they will never, ever be separated again.

It hurts.

It’s agony.

It’s chaos.

My soul is being shredded and blended with another.

A word rings in my ears. The noise of my destruction is so loud, so ferocious, I can’t separate it at first.

But pound, pound, pound, they penetrate through the chaos.

Juliet.

Juliet.

“Juliet!”

My eyes snap open, the breath of life sucking into my lungs with sheer terror.

A pair of vivid blue eyes look down at me. They’re filled with tears and consumed by grief.

They are the eyes of the man I love.

A slew of grateful curses erupt from his mouth as our eyes meet. Roman wraps his arms around me, crushing me into his chest, weeping with relief.

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