Grace and Glory (The Harbinger #3) - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,65

been lying. The Crone hadn’t given me some kind of bunk spell. I hadn’t messed up. It really worked.

Tears slipped free, and there was no stopping them. I broke wide open, and all the hopelessness and despair, the sorrow and grief, crashed into the relief and pounding joy spilling out of me. I tried to rein it all back in. This was a happy moment, a good one, and I didn’t need to spend it drowning Zayne in my tears, but I couldn’t stop myself.

Zayne pressed his cheek to the side of my head. He spoke as my body shook, releasing all the pent-up emotion that I’d barely been able to keep leashed from the moment I’d lost him. I had no idea what he said. He could’ve been telling me that he was part-platypus at this point, and I wouldn’t have cared. I lifted my hands, sinking my fingers into the soft strands of his hair.

“Your tears are killing me,” he said, and that I understood fully. “Killing me.”

It was Zayne.

It was Zayne.

It was Zayne.

That was all I could think as I soaked in the feel of him. Zayne was alive, he was back and it was really him. I don’t know how much time passed while Zayne continued to whisper to me, gently rocking us while I cried enough to sink the entire city of Washington, DC. Eventually, after what felt like an absurd amount of time, the tears lessened, and the tremors that coursed through me every couple of seconds ceased. I could breathe. I could finally breathe.

Zayne carefully guided my face out of his neck. Blinking until his features cleared, I shuddered as I reached up, wrapping my fingers around his wrists. “I’m sorry. I just—you’re alive and it’s you, and I’m so happy, and I can’t stop crying, because what if this is some kind of superdetailed dream? That seems more plausible. I lost you, and when you came back, I thought—” As close as we were, I could see his eyes—really see them since I didn’t have to worry about him throwing me somewhere. “Your eyes.” I leaned in until our noses almost touched. I squinted. “Wow.”

His hands dropped to my hips. “What? I haven’t seen them.”

Did Heaven not have mirrors? Better yet, had he not looked in the mirror since he...since he Fell? I touched his cheek. “They’re really blue. Like very, very blue,” I told him, at an utter loss when it came to using descriptive words. “But there’s a...white-gold behind your pupils. I can see just the edges of it. It’s grace. I noticed it before, but to really see it like this? I’ve just never seen anything like that.”

Thick lashes swept down, shielding his eyes as he turned his head, pressing his cheek into my palm. “How noticeable is it?”

“Have you really not looked at yourself recently?”

“No. I...”

“What?” When he didn’t answer, I guided his face toward mine. “What, Zayne?”

“I think I was avoiding my reflection.” His eyes opened, but his gaze was focused beyond me. “I don’t know why. I don’t even know if it was a conscious choice or if it was me, but what I became...even then I didn’t want to see myself. That probably doesn’t make sense.”

“It does.” A pang tore at my heart as I smoothed my thumb along his jaw. “Do you remember what the last couple of days were like?”

Zayne didn’t answer for a long moment. “There was a lot of confusion. A lot of feelings and thoughts I didn’t understand, but it was all very consuming. That’s the only way I can describe it, and what I felt...” His jaw tensed against my palm. “It was so much anger and arrogance and this, I don’t know...sense of twisted righteousness? Like I suddenly had all this hate toward angels and anything with grace in it, but I also hated demons—all demons. I believed I was better than demons and more... I don’t know. More aware than those who hadn’t Fallen? I just hated everything and everyone, and it was like...like being aware of what I was doing and saying, and either not connecting with it or not understanding it.”

Zayne’s entire body had tensed against mine as he continued. “They warned me it could happen, but I thought I could handle it. I guess I already had a healthy dose of arrogance going into it, but I can’t even describe what it was like being bombarded with all these...powerful, violent emotions that suddenly felt