Wicked Kiss (Nightwatchers) - By Michelle Rowen Page 0,108

eyes and looked up at me as I approached. The devastation mixed with glazed insanity in his eyes tore me up inside.

I crouched next to him. When I reached out to him, he cringed away from me, and averted his gaze toward the window.

“Bishop.” Fear made my throat so thick it was nearly impossible to speak. “Look at me.”

I didn’t accept that he’d completely lost it. He believed that he could save me right until the moment it was too late, so I wasn’t giving up on him. I didn’t think I’d ever give up on him.

I wasn’t losing him. Even if he’d already lost himself.

“I wanted to save you,” he whispered.

“I know.” I moved closer to him until I was only inches away. “And now I want to save you.”

I grabbed his face between my hands and kissed him.

Electricity sparked between us, visible sparks—but it didn’t hurt. It felt good. It felt better than it ever had before.

This was pure magic.

I was meant to kiss Bishop like this.

His tense muscles finally began to relax. I thought he would pull back, but instead he pulled me hard against him and deepened the kiss, holding nothing back.

I’d always mocked those movies where the characters kissed like this—such passion, such desperation between them as if they would die if they stopped.

I wouldn’t be mocking them anymore. No way.

When Bishop finally pulled back a little, there was surprise in his wide, blue eyes—but the fog of insanity had lifted.

Relief filled me. It hadn’t been too late—for either of us.

“You’re alive,” he managed.

“I am.”

“You kissed me.”

“I sure did.”

“And—” his brows drew together with confusion ”—you’re not sucking my soul out through my mouth. Although, with a kiss like that it would have been very worth it.”

I couldn’t help but laugh nervously. “This is going to sound really strange, but I think part of me stayed dead. That was my stasis. And I didn’t survive it.”

Confusion crossed his gaze. “You’re very lucid for a zombie.”

I didn’t understand any of this, but I knew there were two outcomes to stasis. Death or total evil. Unless this was one big illusion, this was neither. “Luckily, I’m not a zombie. But...the gray parts of me did die—the hunger, the chills.”

Clarity shone in his gaze. “If you weren’t a nexus, the rest of you would have stayed dead, too.”

“I think so.” I nodded, stunned. “But I’m back.”

He pressed his fingertips to my throat to check my pulse. I definitely had one. He shook his head. “So I’m completely insane now. That must be it.”

“Nope, you’re not. Trust me. But we can’t argue about it any longer. We have to get to the party. The team needs their leader.”

Bishop took my face gently between his hands, touching me as if he couldn’t believe I was actually here, with a heartbeat, back from the dead, not a zombie, and I could be near him without his soul making me crazy.

“This is completely unbelievable to me,” he whispered.

He didn’t say it in a “this is a miracle! Hallelujah!” way. More of a “what’s the catch?” I’d been thinking the exact same thing, which helped dampen my joy of being finally relieved of my gray hunger.

“Kind of too good to be true, isn’t it?” I said quietly.

“Kind of.” He nodded gravely.

Bishop might be many fantastical things, and we might have next to nothing in common, but at his heart he was a realist just like me. My resurrection was not exactly textbook. Even I knew that. Especially with that after-death dream starring Seth, the fallen angel.

I quickly shared that with Bishop. “Do you think it was just a dream?”

He studied me. “Knowing you, Samantha, I honestly don’t know.”

As the numbness wore off, the realization that I’d literally returned from the dead—which I’d been for at least twenty minutes according to the wall clock—set in.

I was back, with no hunger, no cold, and I’d allow myself to feel joy at that.

The gray part of me had gone into stasis and she’d died twenty minutes ago on that couch.

The rest of me had come back for more. With a sore chest and bruised lips—and grateful as hell for both.

Together, Bishop and I left the townhome and raced down the street to get closer to the abandoned house—which, at the moment, was definitely not abandoned. Noah must have gotten word that it was haunted and decided that would make it a cool new location for his Halloween party. The iron gates were open enough to squeeze