Page 163 of Dead Vengeance

My chest turns warm with the knowledge. Their love is restored. Their beautiful bond, unbroken over centuries.

And now, all I can think about is Liam. The way he looks at me with his big, beautiful eyes. How vulnerable he is. How good and how sweet. And how exhausted. What these years have done to him. How badly I want to do this for him. The way he never stops. Never gives in.

So neither will I.

I keep that image in my mind. Of Liam, of his smile, of his touch. Of how he walked in my door and brought so much life back into me, opened so many avenues that had been closed. Put those beautiful notions in my mind for the first time—that I could have someone. Love someone. Give every good piece of myself to someone who accepts every weird and dark and difficult part of me.

The burst of what I know as love surges through me, and with it, I feel the beat of Jem’s heart slam against my hand. It takes every last crumb of energy to do it, but I throw myself backwards, severing the connection, falling against the dirt wall in a heap.

I try to open my eyes, but they roll back in my head, and the undeniable urge for sleep washes over me.

“What the fuck was that?” comes a voice from above.

“’e did it!” someone exclaims. “’e is a bloody necromancer!”

“Do me next!” another shouts.

“Oi!” says another. “I’ve been ’ere four ’undred years. If anyone gets resurrectin’, it’s me.”

“Archer.” This voice, real and close, and one I don’t recognise, accompanied by a warm hand on my cheek.

There’s only one person it can possibly be.

I force my eyes open, reality swimming before me. The swirl of colour forms itself into softly drawn lips, warm hazelnut eyes, and a face that’s so similar to the one I’ve come to adore. “Jem?”

“Thank you,” he says, a soft smile coming with the words. “We knew you could do it.”

His words barely register in my dizzied mind. But one thing—the most important—is abundantly clear: Jem’s in there. Jem’s soul is back in his body.

I don’t know how he knows me, or how he knows what I’ve done. He must have been present that whole time, watching us.

“Let’s get you out of this grave.” He takes my hand and pulls me up with a strength unimaginable for the time he’s been dead. I fall straight forward, and he catches me.

“You know,” he says, wrapping his arms around me to support me, “I heard a lot about you on the other side.”

The world’s dancing. I cough out a vague “Yeah?”

“Yeah. A lot of people really love you. Put your hands on the grass.”

I slip them into the wet strands, as easily led as a child.

Jem leans down. “Give me your foot.”

I do it on autopilot, lift a foot, and he boosts me up and out of the grave, where I fall flat on my stomach, lying in the wet grass.

Some vague intelligence somewhere in the back of my mind is telling me now is the time to go. Escape before they find I’ve dug up a grave. Interfered with corpses. Left a fresh one where an old one should have been.

“He can bury me there,” comes Fabian’s voice.

“Just in there is fine,” Simon calls down for him.

I hear a thud from the pit—the casket slamming closed on Fabian’s remains.

All right, then. Sounds like they’ve got that sorted.

Jem climbs out, and I push myself up to look at him. “It’s uncanny. You look so much like…”

His head snaps up, eyes staring straight past me. “Liam?”