My pulse kicked up as I reached down, gripping the edge of the bench. My head turned in the direction Zayne had come from the last time I’d been here, but the path was empty, as far as I could see.

Was I experiencing wishful smelling?

Easing my grip on the bench, I’d started to stand, when I felt it. A strange, shivery warmth that danced along the nape of my neck and between my shoulders. A breeze glided from behind me, lifting strands of my hair, and I was surrounded in wintermint.

The warmth spread from my neck down my back, and I sensed I was no longer alone. Someone or something was here, and I knew... I knew Heaven smelled like what you desired most.

My lips parted as I slowly stood, bones and muscles protesting, and turned around, closing my eyes because I was too afraid to look, to discover nothing but darkness existed there, and maybe, just maybe, I was losing a little of my mind. Trembling, I opened my eyes, and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak or think beyond what I saw.

Zayne.

It was him, his blond hair loose and falling against cheeks and brushing broad, bare shoulders. It was his full lips I’d kissed and loved, and his broad chest that rose and fell rapidly...but those were not his eyes that stared back at me.

These eyes were a shade of blue so vibrant and so clear, they made Warden eyes seem pale and lifeless in comparison. They were the color of the sky at twilight.

And it wasn’t his skin.

Where his skin had looked like it had been kissed by the sun, it now carried a faint luminous golden glow. Not like a spirit, because he was blood and bone, but he was...he was shining, and my heart was pounding fast.

“Trin,” he said, and the tremors turned to full-body shakes at the sound of his voice—his voice. It was him, the way he said my name, it was him, and he was alive and breathing and I didn’t care how. I didn’t care why. He was alive, and—

Zayne’s shoulders moved, straightening, and something white and golden swept into the air and spread out on either side of him, nearly ten feet wide.

My mouth dropped open.

Wings.

They were wings.

Not Warden wings.

Even with my eyes, I could tell these were feathered. They were white and thick with streaks of gold laced throughout, and those gold veins glowed with Heavenly fire, with grace.

They were angelic wings.

Zayne was an angel.

Keep reading for an excerpt from White Hot Kiss by Jennifer L. Armentrout.

Acknowledgments