Save My Soul (31 page)

I nodded and couldn't stop smiling. I
wiped at my tears and threw myself off the stool and into his arms.
"Forever sounds great, but you don't have to wait any longer. Yes,
I'll be your wife, Adam. I will marry you."

He hugged me back fiercely, and I
could feel him sobbing softly. We held each other like that for a
long while before he let me go. His face was wet, but he was
wearing a smile a mile wide, just like the one I had to be wearing.
He stood, then helped me up.

"You were right, Kendra. I couldn't
keep you without God in my life. I'm sorry I was almost too late in
realizing it. Rhyan couldn't hear you for the longest and we
thought you were gone…until he heard you praying. He grabbed my
head and put my forehead to his; I could hear you too. Without even
thinking, I began reciting the prayers along with you."

I stared at him with a sort of
fascination as he told me for the first time that he believed in
God. He really believed.

His smile faltered. "When we found you
in that room…I thought we were already too late. Rhyan couldn't do
anything until I got some blood into your body. I was going crazy,
but I knew I had a job to do. I have never been so scared in all my
life. Not even when I found my family dead. I knew that I had to do
everything in my power to keep you here with me."

I kissed him hard on the mouth, then
he pulled back with an even bigger smile than before. I hadn't
thought that was possible. "I have a brand new guardian
angel."

I know my expression was a mixture of
excitement and shock. "Have you met him or her?"

He nodded with that big smile still in
place. "She's my mother, and she likes you a whole lot. She told me
to thank you, for saving her son."

I was speechless. What could I say to
that? "Tell her I said you're welcome." Somehow, that didn't seem
good enough. I shrugged. "I'd do anything for my
soulmate."

He smiled and pulled me
tight against his firm body. I could tell he had
other things
on his
mind. "And I would do anything for mine," he said, then he kissed
me softly.

"Welp, folks, I guess you already know
what happened next. Adam and I got married, of course, and we're
expecting our first child early next summer. We found out today
that it's a boy. I haven't told Adam yet, but I want to name him
Benjamin Lee. It was the name of his baby brother. He may not want
to, but I'm adding it to our list of potential baby
names.

I forgot to ask Rhyan to take away my
scars before he left. I was looking at them a few weeks ago,
remembering that I'd forgotten to ask him. They began to disappear
before my eyes. Of course, I began to tear up. I knew I wouldn't
hear a response, but I knew he was listening when I thanked him for
being my guardian angel and told him that I really did love him
very much. Suddenly, I felt a presence nearby. I looked all around
me. My eyes focused on a blurry object standing in the center of
the living room. It never became solid, but I could tell it was
Rhyan. He winked at me and then he was gone. A light gust of wind
blew through the house, but there were no windows open. A single
photo floated on the wind toward me. It landed in my lap and the
wind disappeared. I looked down at the photo and instantly began to
cry. Rhyan was staring back at me with a big smile on his face. I
looked at it for a long time then finally flipped it over. He had
written these words: I am with you always, Kendra, and I will love
you forevermore. Congratulations on the baby. The guardians have
already chosen his guardian angel. I made sure the one they chose
is just as good as me. I know you will make a wonderful mother.
Love Always, Rhyan. I smiled and clutched the picture to my chest.
It was definitely possible to love more than one person at a
time.

Adam was my soulmate, and I loved him
unconditionally. I couldn't live without him now that I'd found
him, but Rhyan would always have a special place in my heart, and
Adam knew that. It doesn't bother him. He knows how much I love
him.

My parents love Adam too, and they're
always asking me to bring him over. They don't realize how busy we
are. Oh, by the way, Adam took a leave of absence from the
hospital. He hasn't decided when, or even if, he'll go back. He's
been helping me with my photography. My work interests him, and I'm
thrilled that we get to spend so much time together.

And lastly, Kobhye has finally decided
to settle down. I bet you wouldn't have guessed she'd choose Aven.
They're happy, and Aven has forgiven me for not loving him back.
They aren't talking marriage yet, but she stays at his place more
than she stays at her own home. I'm cooking supper for the four of
us tonight. Well, Adam will be doing the cooking. I'll be
supervising.

I hope you've enjoyed reading about
this most important chapter of my life. If I could give you any
advice at all it would be: "Love conquers all evil. Don't judge a
book by its cover. Everything happens for a reason and...If you
haven't found your soulmate yet, don't ever, ever give up hope; he
or she is out there somewhere. I only hope you don't have to die to
find yours."

When I finished Save My Soul, I
honestly expected for it to be a stand-alone novel. I have to admit
that Rhyan was one of my favorite characters, but I never dreamed
so many fans would fall in love with him, too, and demand that he
get his own story, his own spotlight. I had no idea what to do, so
I decided to ask Rhyan what he thought. Would you like to know what
he said?

Someone cleared their throat. It must
have been to get my attention, because we don't have the human
annoyances of allergies or head colds, and I was the only other
being in the recreational room.

Nevertheless, I kept my head lowered
and my eyes drifted shut in hope the approaching angel would get
the hint that I had no interest in idle chit-chat.

"She's happy, Rhyan."

My lips parted and
something in between a moan and a sigh escaped on the exhale. I'd
heard the same line a thousand times. Next it would be,
"You should be happy for her, not moping around
here like a lost puppy. It's been a year. She's married to her
soulmate and has a child now. You need to move on. Get over her
already!"

The whole of Heaven's
occupants knew my problem. I felt like each and every one of them
had voiced their opinion more than once, and I wasn't going to sit
there and listen to it again like a broken record or a compact disk
set on repeat. It wasn't like
I
was the only angel in love with their
charge.

My eyes shot open and focused on my
new company. My stare held the first warning. Actually, there
wouldn't be a second one. I'd heard enough.

Josselyn froze and held both hands up
in a silent apology or truce. "I'll shut up."

I groaned, uncrossed my ankles from
the foot stool and got swiftly to my feet. "Talk all you want, but
I'm not staying here to listen to what you or anyone else thinks I
should do with my eternity." I started for the door.

I had to get out.

I could feel the walls of the large
room closing in on me.

It was bad enough that I could hear
Kendra's every thought, but when someone mentioned her, or reminded
me that I needed to stop torturing myself because I will never have
her, never touch her, never kiss her again...

"Rhyan, please," she said, and I
paused with my hand on the gold door knob. "I'm really sorry. I
don't know what you're going through, but I seriously didn't come
in here to make it any worse than it already is. I promise not to
say anymore on the subject if you want to just hang
out."

I laughed sarcastically. "I can't just
hang out, Jossel. I'm not me anymore!" I shouted, my body language
suddenly changing to show how I really felt. Pissed.

My fingers curled, forming a fist. I
wasn't going to hit her, but the wall beside me wasn't out of the
question. I guess there was a second warning after all.

I growled in frustration
as I pointed to the always spotless floor. "My
Heaven
is on earth, and she is
sleeping with another man right now, a man that would have had a
one way ticket to Hell if Coen hadn't interfered."

Josselyn's eyes grew wide as she
stared at me in shock. She finally blinked and looked around
nervously. Her voice was considerably lower when she spoke again.
"You don't mean that--"

"I do--" I started, but she ran to me
and covered my mouth with her hand. Surely she wasn't dumb enough
to think that would shut me up.

"Are you insane?" she whispered
frantically. She looked around cautiously again to make sure that
we were still alone. "I get the whole depressed thing..." Her brow
furrowed. "...well, not entirely, but I can see that you are upset
because you think some other kid stole your favorite toy. But you
can't go around damning people to Hell unless you have a wish to go
there yourself."

I jerked my head away from her hand,
then grabbed her wrist, stilling it in its place when she tried to
follow my movement. I glared into her deep brown eyes. "Hell
couldn't be any worse than the one I'm already living in," I said
through a clenched jaw, then shoved her away from me and walked out
the door.

I lost my footing and practically fell
into the corridor. My legs felt like jell-o and there was a high
pitched ringing in my ears all of a sudden.

What's happening to
me?

I shook my head in confusion and
rubbed my blurry eyes in an attempt to clear my vision. I stumbled
into the wall and fell to my knees as Heaven spun around me; my
palms, then skull, slapped the shiny floor with a loud clap and
thump.

Something was seriously wrong with me,
but I had no clue as to what. Angels were free of imperfections. We
never got ill or injured. Evidently those standard rules didn't
apply to me anymore.

I heard the door to the recreational
room open, footsteps coming toward me and a muffled voice screaming
my name.

It sounded like I was in a tunnel. I
could barely make out the words being spoken.

"Rhyan, can you hear me? Say
something! Tell me what's wrong so I can do something. Please!"
Josselyn began to sob above me, fear for my wellbeing clear in her
cries, but I found it impossible to answer her. I could only groan.
I couldn't concentrate on how to form a word, let alone an entire
sentence. My world had flipped upside down in only a few brief
seconds.

I would have panicked if I could have
remembered how.

I faintly heard the echo of a male
voice shouting, then more footsteps pounding the stone floor in my
direction.

"What's wrong with him?" the male
voice asked Josselyn, but I never heard her response.

An unfamiliar feeling started in my
toes and worked its way up my body. It was...pain. It felt like a
hundred burning hands on my naked flesh pulling me under a lake of
molten lava.

My mouth involuntarily opened and a
glass shattering scream left my throat.

My last thought was of Kendra. I
forced my eyes open and frantically grabbed for the first angel I
could get my hands on. It was Josselyn. Her expression was full of
terror and panic as she stared back at me.

I tried my best to ignore the pain
long enough to get my dying wish out of my mouth. "I give you
Kendra." My voice shook, but I pushed through the weak vocals and
finished what I needed to say. "Watch over her. I beg of you. I
will not carry her soul with me into the unknown." I opened my
mouth and released my link to Kendra into the shocked angel only a
breath away from me.

She stared wide eyed and disbelieving
at the empty floor where Rhyan had been only moments before. She
tried to play the last few minutes through her head, but disorder
and shock kept her thoughts scrambled in a big, scary
mess.

The uneasy feeling when first
receiving a new charge had her hands gripped into tight fists. She
could feel Kendra there, but she was asleep, so it wasn't quite so
bad yet.

"Where did you go?" she whispered to
the empty place in front of her, and a tear fell from her eye, but
evaporated into nothing before hitting the unblemished, unearthly
stone that made up the heavenly floor.

"He's gone over to Limbo," a male
voice said, startling Josselyn out of her hazy nightmare. "I've
only seen this happen three other times in four hundred
years."

She looked up at Malcolm through tear
filled eyes. "It's my fault," she said, and her breath hitched a
bit. A stream of fresh tears began to leak from her eyes, then
disappeared before they reached their destination.

He placed a hand on each side of her
arms and lifted her effortlessly to her feet, then took her face in
his hands and looked down into her eyes. "You can't possibly
believe that after knowing the condition he was in. Rhyan has been
dangling on the edge since Kendra made her choice, Josselyn. You
can't blame yourself for his mistake."