Page 113 of Hart's Redemption

“I don’t remember these doors.” He winced as if suddenly realizing what he’d said.

I simply frowned, not understanding in the least what he was talking about. How could he remember doors he’d never seen? I shook my head and cracked a smile at him. “Ready?”

“Josh, you’re being really suspicious. What’s this all...” I pushed open the doors, and his words trailed off.

I watched as his face lit up with awe, and a different light burned inside of me. “What do you think?” I walked us a couple of steps inside so he could get the full effect.

His eyes continued to widen until I feared they would pop out of his head. “Sweet mother of the moon, this is incredible. Are they… are they real?”

The wonder threading through his voice was better than any gift I could imagine. “Every last one of them.”

“I’ve never seen so many in one place.”

“Elijah Bennett, welcome to the Harker Family Library. Your library.” He took a step back and wobbled. I quickly wrapped an arm around his waist to steady him. He rested his weight comfortably against me, and I placed a light kiss just above his ear. “Do you really like it?”

“It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.” Suddenly, he stiffened in my arms. “Please tell me not all of these books are about killing werewolves.”

Laughter bubbled out of me.

“I’m serious,” he mumbled.

“No, baby. Those are downstairs.”

“Oh. Good. We can burn those later.”

I laughed again, feeling lighter than I’d ever felt in my life, and released him. “Nothing but classics up here, baby. A good portion of them are actually first editions.”

Elijah swayed, and I immediately feared that maybe I should have left that detail out. He steadied himself quickly enough and looked at me. “You’re a wonder, Joshua Hart.”

I shrugged. It wasn’t as if I’dpersonallyaccumulated this wealth of literature, though the newest acquisition of nineteenth-century original prints might have been at my behest.

“No. Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Brush this off like it’s no big deal.” He gestured to the massive room with its shelves upon shelves of aged paper bound in a fashion long abandoned. “This has to be the most incredible thing anyone has ever done for me.”

“You did say you would never say no to books.”

Elijah

I smiled at this incredible man who hadn’t been satisfied with giving me one world, so he’d given me hundreds—thousands. “Come here.” I held my hand out to him. The moment he took it, I pulled him in close so that his body lined up perfectly with mine. I nuzzled into his neck, where I dropped a tender kiss and drank in his delicious scent.

“Is this your way of saying you like it?”

“I love it. And I love you.”

He threaded his long fingers through my hair. “I love you too,” he whispered, his soft lips lightly brushing the shell of my ear.

"We are going to have the most amazing life here," I said, meaning it down to my marrow.

He leaned back and smiled softly at me. I saw the curiosity spark in his eyes the moment before he asked, "What did you mean when you said you hadn't seen the library doors before? You seemed genuinely surprised."

I fought the temptation to give in to the knee-jerk response to dismiss the comment offhand. We said, no more secrets. "Do you remember when I told you about what I saw while I was in your mind?"

His brow furrowed as he thought. "Doors? You said my memories were kept behind doors," he repeated more confidently.

"It wasn't until we stepped inside this house that I realized where those doors were from. I'd assumed since most of them were similar that it was an arbitrary door conjured by your mind. But they weren't. They werethesedoors." I huffed a laugh to myself. "Except for the library doors. You must have done most of your voracious reading in your room."