Page 89 of Revelations

A stray tear ran down her cheek. She hadn’t even felt it, but the warmth from his fingers as he stroked it away broke through the wall that had built up around her. It spread. The numbness that had encapsulated her body melted away.

Heavy sobs wrenched out of her chest. Her knees buckled underneath her, but Jasper’s arms grabbed her to him. Holding on tightly with one arm, his other reached up to run his fingers through her hair. The thudding of his strong heart thundered beneath her ear as she latched onto him as if for dear life.

***

A week later, she awoke to the sound of birds singing in the trees, as golden leaves fell to the ground and blew around in the late autumn wind. Today was the day. Today she and Thomas would leave the United States for Ireland. Today, she was going…home.

Her belly tensed with a mixture of excitement, anticipation, and dread.

Chapter 23 – Home Sweet Home – Not Exactly

Hours later, the blue of the Atlantic Ocean faded beneath the puffy gray clouds as the 747 reached its cruising altitude. With nothing to see, and little interest in the in-flight movie, Greylyn blocked out the world with the new noise-cancelling headphones Jasper had gifted her before their departure.

Jasper was needed in Arizona. Initially, he had denied the guardian angel pull, but the strain in his facial expression and voice hadn’t fooled her.

“Go, Jasper. You have to go. I’ll be fine. Thomas will be with me, and we promise to keep to just research until you get there. I don’t plan to confront Olivier in the next few days, or even weeks or months. Not until I’m ready and on my own terms. Not his.” Hugging him tightly, she added, “I’ll wait for you. I promise.”

He hadn’t been easily convinced, but acted placated, nonetheless. Dirt and gravel had flown up as he’d sped away on his Harley, shiny boots jutting out from the sides of the massive beast, and modern opera blaring over the speaker system.

The white noise played over the headphones, and Greylyn’s eyelids grew heavy as her fingers toyed with her necklace. She wasn’t tired. Her mind raced with a tumult of thoughts. What would she find in Ireland? Would she find anything? How the hell was she supposed to stop a prophecy? Were they notcalled prophecies for a reason? Would she discover who she’d been once, before being reborn a guardian angel? How had she known Kael in her human life? Why hadn’t he killed her as Lucifer had ordered him to do? Had that been a lie as well? Truthfully, did she really want to know?

There had been no more nightmares since returning from the frigid gates of Hell and landing back in balmy South Carolina—not of Kael, anyway. Dreams of being a rope used in a tug-of-war between Lucifer and Olivier plagued her every time that she closed her eyes. Somehow, that didn’t even seem like a nightmare, more like a parable whose lesson she hadn’t yet realized. Even that was not as distressing as the mental images that flashed through her mind when she was awake—visions of Kael being tortured in the pits by a sinister-smiling Olivier.

Refusing to let herself think of him, her mind turned to other, more pertinent things…like how to find out her history once she arrived in Ireland. Thomas most likely already had that part planned out, but she needed something to occupy her thoughts for the eight-hour flight.

It was of no use. Being trapped on the plane only served to bring Kael more to the forefront. They had been through a lot. He had helped her after years of her thinking of him as a cold, calculating bastard; someone who should be destroyed and pay for the damage that he hadwrought on the Earth. But he hadshown another side of himself.

Was it all just an act?

Her physical reaction to him was undeniable. His own reaction to her was, as well. There was no faking that kind of chemistry.

But was that where it stopped? Physical attraction? If so, why did her heart threaten to burst from her chest whenever she thought of him being abused by Olivier?

If that was all that it was—physical attraction—why had he gone through so much trouble to save her, to save Thomas? Had it all been a ploy to gain her trust, or had he been attempting to atone for his sins?

Stop it, Grey. He’s a dark guardian. There’s no atonement for him. No redemption.

Shaking her head, she massaged the bridge of her nose to alleviate the tension there, causing pain to shoot through her eyes like a migraine.

Doesn’t matter now. If Olivier allowed him to live, Kael would never deter from his loyalty to the fallen archangel again.He is lost to me.

Eventually, the stress took an undeniable physical toll. As the static continued in her ears, a great weight pushed her eyelids down. Unable to fight it anymore, darkness enveloped her.

***

It had been four hundred and fiftyyears since that fateful night. Buildings now lined the avenues of the small town. They must have been built afterward. What had been here then? Farmland? Nothing?

Without having to research it, she knew—it had been mostly farmland; a tiny village, with happy children playing in the streets, while running about doing chores; sheep had mewed in the distance.

Despite the dusk hiding the lush green hillside and distant mountains, Greylyn saw them as much in her own mind as with her eyes. Clean, crisp air refreshed her lungs from the poorly circulated oxygen that she had endured while she’d been encased in the plane for so many hours. A breeze off the large lake—or lough—carried a slightly brine tang. It mixed with the aroma of fresh bread that wafted from a small wooden building a couple doors down. Both filled the air as they drove up the cobblestone driveway.

The bed and breakfast rose up in front of them; a traditional brick and stone manor nestled in between rolling knolls with a small plume of smoke drifting out of the chimney. To the side was an expansive garden, complete with high bushes forming a labyrinth. As the car pulled up, luminarias—small browns bags filled with flickering candles—lighted the narrow path.

Stepping out of the squat, cramped economy car that they had rented in Dublin, Greylyn allowed herself to feel Ireland, reallyfeelit. She had instinctively known that being in the country would be more emotional, a sense of being…what exactly? Home? Ireland was not so much a place as a feeling. And no more so than right in this spot away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

No smog existed in the countryside; only pure oxygen mixed with hints of lavender from a nearby meadow. Smooth silk seemed to stroke her arms and face as the wind picked up and blew stray tendrils of hair out of her eyes. The pebbles crunched under her sneakers, resounding in her ears as if to say, “Welcome Home.”

This was home, or had been once. She felt it in every fiber of her being.

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