Page 98 of A Touch of Crimson
Shadoe’s mouth curved. “Hello, Lindsay.”
She reached out, and they linked fingers. A swift rush of cooling relief raced up Lindsay’s arm from the contact. Her mind filled with images of Syre and a beautiful woman. They were laughing. Playing. Chasing two young giggling children through a field of tall grasses.
Syre had wings. Great, magnificent wings of azure blue that perfectly matched the color of his irises. They spread and stretched in a visible manifestation of his joy. He lifted the little girl high and kissed her forehead. Lindsay felt the press of those lips against her own skin, felt the rush of paternal love that accompanied it as if it were for her.
Setting Shadoe down, Syre chased his son, an adorable boy with chubby arms and legs. Shadoe moved to where her mother was laying out a picnic. She sat on the edge of the blanket and tossed small pieces of some kind of vegetable near the clearing’s edge, where the grasses began their domination of the landscape.
A small rabbitlike creature appeared, soft, fluffy, and white. It followed the vegetable trail to Shadoe, who stroked its trusting head with her fingertips. When the creature grew bolder and reared up to set its front paws on Shadoe’s thigh, she laughed with delight and scooped it up like Syre had done to her only moments before. She nuzzled her freckled nose against the sweet animal’s, then buried her face in its neck.
The creature’s scream startled Lindsay so violently that she jerked and sank beneath the waves. The memory slid away from her, getting caught in the churning surf near the burning shoreline, but not before Lindsay caught the ripe smell of blood and the beauty of crimson soaking into pristine white. Like Adrian’s wings.
She kicked her way back up to the surface, gasping with a mixture of fear, fascination, and building hunger. The scent of the creature’s blood drove her wild. Her mouth watered with the desire to drink it greedily, the way Shadoe had.
Shadoe smiled at Lindsay’s sputtering breaths. The naphil floated gracefully on her back with her hands tucked behind her head. Her dark hair fanned outward, as did the transparent gauzy skirts of her dress. She looked like a nymph, beautiful and seductive.
“You were already a vampire,” Lindsay accused.
“No. The nephalim thirsted for blood before the Watchers fell. Our angel halves needed the energy found in the life force of others.” There was no horror or remorse in the woman’s voice. No shame or embarrassment. Lindsay struggled to make sense of it all. The raging heat was slowly fading, and languidness returned to her.
She felt like taking a nap, like sinking into the silken embrace of the memories around her.
“He’s loved me forever,” Shadoe said casually. “Obsessively.”
“I know.”
New recollections lapped over her. She recognized some of them from her dreams. They made sense now. Every image and scene held Adrian in moments of lust and passion. Lindsay watched with a sharp, ferocious jealousy. She closed her eyes but still found no relief.
The memories were in her head, her mind. Whispering. Crooning. Pleading. She was about to dive beneath the waves just to get away from them when she saw herself. She stilled her restless thrashing and took it all in, reliving the tender moments she’d shared with Adrian.
I need you, tzel.
Pain seared her at the understanding of what that meant: while making love to her, he’d been thinking of someone else.
The reminiscences continued unabated, giving her no peace.
Take me, neshama sheli.
She cried at the heated emotion radiating from Adrian as he asked her to take everything he offered her.
“What does that mean?” she asked Shadoe in a voice made husky by heartbreak and longing. “‘Neshama sheli’?”
“It means ‘my soul.’ It’s an endearment.”
Lindsay absorbed that. As the memories swirled around her, spinning faster and faster until a vortex formed in a downward spiral, she noted how his endearments for her changed as their relationship progressed. Toward the end, he referred to her only as his soul. Not Shadoe’s. His.
No, tzel. I’m going to free you. I’m going to let you go…
He’d been saying goodbye to Shadoe, not her. Lindsay kicked upward, fighting the voracious sucking of the whirlpool. She was screaming, shouting for help, drowning with the sudden realization of how poorly she’d interpreted her dreams the night before.
Adrian loved her. And god knew she was crazy enough about him to die for his happiness. Which appeared to be what she was to him—the woman who made him happy.
She wouldn’t give him up. She refused. He knew her inside and out. From the beginning, he’d allowed her to choose which direction she wanted to travel, and whichever road she chose—the hotel or the hunt, with or without him—he had made accommodations to allow her that freedom while still keeping her safe. She could be herself with him, and he would love her that way. Cherish her.
With all her might, Lindsay fought the relentless pull of the now glowing abyss below her, but the cyclonic recollections around her rose higher and higher, and the reels of images in the sky above her seemed farther and farther away.
“Shadoe!” she yelled. “You’ll never have all of him. Never again.”
An arm shot out and grasped her wrist. Shadoe leaned over the lip of the vortex, her long black hair hanging in a satiny curtain around her lovely face.
