Page 153 of The Rebel and the Rose
Another weaker thud.
She wasn’t cold any more. The numbness was gone. In its place, a violent heat ripped through her body.
‘I love you,’ she whispered against his lips. ‘Please, Bastian. Iloveyou.’
A weak flutter beneath her fingertips.
The final beat.
She closed her eyes, pressed a trembling kiss to his cold lips. ‘Please, come back to me.’
Then silence. The wind ceased, the river quietening to a reverential hush. For a moment, it felt like they were the last two people in the world. One of them already gone, the other holding fiercely to that thread in her chest. The one that told her he was hers. And she was his.
I love you, she said again and again.
Come back to me.
Time stretched, the familiar ache of grief creeping in. She refused to let go of him. To take her hand from his quiet heart.
I love you.
Come back to me.
Something sparked. The darkness winking from black to gold.
There was a slow, deliberate thud.
A heartbeat.
Sera lifted her head, confusion warring with hope.
Light suffused them. Here in the dark of night, a bubble of warmth surrounded them. It was coming from her. Her palm on his chest was glowing.
She stared and stared, terrified to remove it.
She felt it again – that deliberate thud.
And another, stronger now.
A rhythm.
A beating heart.
Ransom’s lashes fluttered, his chest bowing under her touch.
A breath!
And another.
Then a name. ‘Seraphine.’
Sera let out a sob. ‘Bastian?’
He whispered, ‘I love you, too.’
Slowly, so very slowly, she removed her hand from his chest, stunned at what she found there. Not a gaping wound, or even a scar. But a handprint.
‘Bastian?’ she said again, nervous now.
