“I do,” he said, surprising me. “I like her. She was not chosen at random.”
“She wasn’t?”
Michael shook his head. “No.”
I started to ask more questions about that, and then decided, in that moment, I didn’t think I could handle hearing about my mother and father’s love affair.
I could only deal with so much.
There was something I needed to ask. “Why has she never visited me?”
“It is the same reason why Zayne’s father did not see him when he was in the Heavens,” he said, and I jolted. “Because she knew you would not be able to let her go. You would be stuck, and that pain, that grief and that love and want would’ve trapped her. She wouldn’t do that to you.”
A knot formed in my throat. “Does she know how sorry—”
“What happened to her was not your fault. She never thought that. Not for one second, and she would be furious if she knew you believed that.”
Tears blurred my eyes. She totally would be furious.
“The actions of others caused her death. You were just a chink in that chain, just like her. It was those who wielded that chain who are at fault. Deep down you know that.” His voice softened. “But sometimes no ownership in the end results is worse than the guilt of being the cause.”
Ugh.
He sounded so...so wise, and it was weird and wonderful, but mostly weird.
I swiped at the tears. “Why?”
He seemed to know what I was asking. “Because it was the only way I could have any relationship with you. The only way I could know you.”
The knot swelled in my throat. “And Zayne?” I asked hoarsely. “You made sure he could Fall so he could be with me.”
“It was a small gift I could ensure.”
A small gift? A wet laugh left me. “And the stars? That was you.”
He nodded.
“And you...you are the reason why I’m alive right now.”
“Partly.”
I blinked. “Partly?”
“I had help from a certain human with a new lease on life.”
“The Crone,” I realized.
Michael inclined his head. “The potion she gave you didn’t just bring Zayne to you. It bound you to him. Similar to the Protector bond, but stronger. You carry a part of his essence in you. As long as he lives, you live. You are marked.”
I pressed tingling fingers to my chest, to where the strange scar had taken shape, right where the light that had come from Zayne had hit me. Suddenly I remembered the look Tony had given the Crone when she told me I needed to draw my own blood.
My wide eyes shot to where Michael sat. “I...I didn’t die, then?”
He shook his head. “You were weakened and slipped unconscious while the bond repaired the damage done.”
“But I thought an angel blade could kill anything?”
“The bond between you and Zayne supersedes all.” He paused. “Well, almost everything. If you were decapitated, then...”
I blinked slowly.
“You have his lifespan, Trinity.” Those all-white eyes bore into mine. “You do understand what that means?”
My heart skipped a beat. “I’m... I’m immortal?”
He smiled then, and there was a catch in my chest. There was such familial fondness in the curve of his lips. “You are as immortal as any angelic being is.”
“I won’t...age?”
He shook his head again. “Most angels stop aging once they reach a certain maturity,” he said, which explained why so many of them looked like they were in their late twenties. “But you stopped aging the moment the bond was forged.”
All I could do was stare at him, and I did that for probably several minutes as I tried to work my brain through the fact that I would not grow old and break my hips while Zayne remained young and gloriously broken-bone free. Not aging past nineteen meant I would probably be carded for, like, eternity—
Oh my God, like for an actual eternity. Or until my head was chopped off, Highlander-style, or until Zayne... I wasn’t going to even go there. There were far worse things than never looking older than I did now.
Like dying now or by old age, in Zayne’s arms—“Wait,” I exclaimed, pulling my legs up to my chest to stand. “Do I have two bodies now? The one that was back in that field and this one now?”
A perplexed look settled into Michael’s features. “You have the strangest mind. You don’t have two bodies.”
“Then does Zayne know I’m here?” I asked. “Because I died—or passed out. Whatever. I was with Zayne.”
“You were, but I simply willed you here.”
“You simply willed me here?” I repeated dumbly. “Like I went poof?”
An eyebrow rose. “Yes.”
“Oh my God, Zayne must be really freaking out!”
“Probably.” He said this like it was no big deal. That people poofing out of people’s arms happened every day.
And the fact that he could just will me from one location to another was another mind-boggling fact. “Is that something all archangels can do?” I asked, thinking if that was the case, then why hadn’t Gabriel just willed me to his location?
“You are of my flesh and blood,” he said, and I wished he’d stop saying it that way. “That is why.”
Made as much sense as any of this did. I scrubbed a hand down my face, over my eyes. My eyes. My stomach dropped as I lowered my hand. I was almost afraid to ask, but I had to know. “Will my eyes continue to get worse?”
“Would it change anything if they did?” he asked. “If you’d known that the bond meant an eternity of darkness for you?”
“No.” I didn’t even need to think about that. “Being blind isn’t worse than death. Having this gift of life—of a life longer than I can even comprehend—with Zayne is so much more than being able to see. I can learn to live without my vision.” And Zayne would be there to help me. “I can’t learn how to come back from the dead.”
“Your mind.” He shook his head, laughing softly. “The bond stopped your aging. I cannot be a hundred percent sure, as this is not something ever done before, but it may have also stopped the deterioration of your eyes.”
“Really?” I whispered, a wave of prickly shock washing over me.
“It’s no magic cure. Your vision will not improve, and from what I understand about your particular genetic disorder, there is no guarantee of complete blindness,” he said, and he was right. There wasn’t. RP often progressed differently for each individual. I was kind of surprised he knew that.