Renegade (Heven and Hell #4)(61)
Author: Cambria Hebert

Trapped in a giant bubble. She was yelling and beating at it, trying to break free. Two daggers lay at her feet from failed attempts at getting out.

“Let her out!” I screamed at Kimber, jumping to my feet and going toward Gemma.

“She thinks he’s hers,” Kimber said coldly.

“She has healing powers! She can heal Cole. That is if it’s not too late!” I said, desperately.

Kimber looked at Cole who was still being restrained by Sam, although needlessly because he looked like he was about to pass out. Kimber waved a hand and Gemma fell forward, out of the bubble that was now gone. She ran forward, not even looking at me or Kimber and pushing Sam out of the way.

She put one arm beneath Cole’s shoulders and lifted him slightly off the ground as she sat, folding half his head and torso into her lap.

“Is this all I had to do to get you to touch me?” Cole said, his words slightly slurred.

Gemma made a sound in her throat and then raised her hands over his chest. Kimber started forward, but I grabbed her by her perfect ponytail and jerked her backward. “I swear I will burn every last hair on your head off if you even breathe too deeply,” I threatened.

No one else said a word as Gemma’s hand emanated a soft golden glow that traveled down and covered Cole’s chest and then spread out over his entire body, making him look like he was a nightlight in a dark hallway.

Gemma’s head was bent over, her hair falling around their faces so I couldn’t see, but I heard her speak softly every so often. “Is she chanting?” I asked Sam in hushed tones. I knew he could hear everything.

He glanced at me. “No.”

I nodded. It wasn’t a stretch to realize she was probably telling him how much she loved him.

Kimber made a sound and I glanced at her and she fell silent.

I don’t know how long we all stood there, waiting for Gemma to stop, waiting for her to move and for us to see that Cole was going to be fine. I thought about the wild look in his eyes when he lunged at me, and I prayed her healing would somehow get rid of the infection that was no doubt spreading through his bloodstream like ants on a tossed away crumb.

When the healing glow died away, Gemma hunched farther over Cole, like she was so tired she couldn’t hold herself up, and they sat there like that for long, quiet minutes.

Finally, my brother stirred. His legs bent and then straightened out and the hand that had been uninjured reached out and buried itself in the hair on the back of Gemma’s head. She pulled back slightly to look at him, but he wouldn’t let her go far.

I felt like a voyeur spying on a moment meant to be private when she lifted the hand that had been bitten and ran her fingers over the newly healed skin. “How do you feel?” she asked just loud enough so I could hear.

“Better than I have since the last time I held you.”

She must have laughed because her back rose and fell. “Technically, I’m holding you.”

“Even better.”

“Let me see your eyes,” she told him, tossing her head back, trying to flip her hair over her shoulder. It didn’t work so Cole used his hand to sweep it up and away from her face.

It was a curtain lifted and we had front row seats to their show.

Her face was slightly pale, but her cheeks were flushed. She hunched herself around him in a way that was so protective I thought of a piece of glass guarded by a piece of steal. But then I looked at Cole and he was far from something as fragile as glass. His chest, which had grown since the summer, spilled out of her small lap and he smiled with pleasure as his head reclined against her chest. He had blood smeared on his cheek and his shirt, but you would never know he’d just been injured seemingly beyond repair by the way he looked at her.

It was exact same look I’d seen on Sam’s face a dozen times before.

Gemma tipped Cole’s face up and leaned back to allow in more light and looked into his face, studying his eyes, which never once left her face. She sighed in relief and so did I.

“I think you’re going to be okay.”

“It still hurts,” he said.

Her face fell and her forehead creased. “Tell me where.” Her hand began to run over his chest, down his arm, and toward the place where he’d been bitten. He caught her hand and brought it up to his chest.

“Here,” he said, placing it over his heart.

He leaned up, closing the distance between their faces. I was so drawn in by the way they acted together that only part of me heard Kimber and her angry growl.

Just as Cole was about to kiss Gemma, magic intervened. Kimber intervened.

Gemma was ripped away from him and tossed a few feet away where she rolled across the ground and then lay for long seconds before pushing herself up off the ground. Cole rushed to her side, pulling her to her feet as she swayed a little.

“You healed me too much. You’re weak.”

“I’m fine,” Gemma protested.

Cole swung around to pin Kimber with a seething look of anger and disgust. “After everything I’ve done for you this is how you repay me?”

Kimber narrowed her eyes. “If you think I’ll stand here and watch you make out with this—this fallen angel, then you don’t know me very well.”

Something in Cole’s eyes went flat and he stepped away from Gemma and toward Kimber and me. “I know you plenty. That’s exactly why I would much rather kiss this angel.”

Kimber gasped and her aura flared with hurt. I have to admit after what she just pulled with Gemma and not allowing her to heal Cole, I didn’t really feel bad for her.

“An angel?” She snorted. “If she was a real angel, then where are her wings?”

Behind Cole Gemma gasped and he spun as the rest of us looked in her direction.

Huge white wings burst out from behind her. They were brilliant, with feathers that looked like the softest thing you could ever touch. But that wasn’t what was so stunning.

What was more stunning was the look on Gemma’s face.

If I’d ever wondered if she missed her wings, I never would again. She had this look of utter… longing and thrill spilling over her face. She looked behind her, reaching out to touch the downy feathers, a light gasp escaping her lips.

“Gems?” Cole breathed. He was no doubt as stunned as I was by the way she looked.

She looked up at Cole with the most beautiful expression I would ever see anyone wear.

“Is that what they looked like?” Kimber said nastily, breaking the hushed silence that had fallen over us all. “Before they began to rot and die?”