Page 48 of The Gathering
Confusion pulled her gaze around the room. “Omnis?” she whispered. “Zero?”
She couldn’t feel him inside her. She looked down at the elegant sheer black gown.
“I’m here.”
Cat spun so fast she fell into him. “Omnis!”
“Yes.”
She’d forgotten his voice was different here. Not different but… more real. Heavy. Cocooning.
“Ethan is sleeping,” he said. “Zero…isn’t well. He’s also sleeping.”
He doesn’t know I’m in you,Zero reminded her.Ask him why he put me to sleep. Why he’s protecting that bastard.
Didn’t you know?
No. He hid it from me. Ask him. Ask him how he can spare his precious Ethan after knowing what he did to you.
I’m not asking that!
Allow me to, then.
No!
Look at how he looks at you. He remembers everything. Do you know what that look is in his eyes?
Cat stared into them, her pulse stuttering at seeing but unable to name it.
That’s god-level pain hidden by raw genius.
Pain? What pain?
The pain of tasting love while being too nonexistent to keep it.
Cat’s heart cracked completely in half.
Omnis slid his thumb over her cheek. “Why are you crying?”
There it was. She heard it just past the words. That god-level pain. She’d never heard anything more beautiful. She threw her arms around him and hugged him tight. Remembering the night she climbed in his lap and he held her soul together.
His arms wrapped her back, his hand cradling her head against his chest, the thump of his heartbeat on her cheek. A sob racked her as she realized. His heartbeat wasn’t even real. It wasvirtual.And nothing in the world had ever hurt more to imagine.
“Tell him, Zero,” she cried against him. “Tell him now!”
You tell him, Kitten.
“Youcanhave a body, Omnis. Zero is with me, he’s inside me.”
His hand froze on her head.
She pulled back, looking up at his perfect mask now slipping. “Cat,” he said quietly, his voice velvet sadness.
Permission to use my mouth so he sees I’m telling the truth!
Cat could never prepare for having Zero filling her the way he did.
“Hello, brother.”
