Текст книги "A fire in the flash"

Автор книги: Jennifer L. Armentrout

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Текущая страница: 33 (всего у книги 37 страниц)

“Um.” I glanced back at the flowers. “Lavender?”

“Close, but no.” She walked past me, and I expected her to keep walking, but she sat beside me. “They are called nepeta blue.”

“Oh,” I whispered, fingers pressing into the thin linen of my nightgown.

She stared ahead. “Why are you out here so late?”

“Couldn’t—” I caught myself. Momma liked it when I spoke properly. “I couldn’t sleep.”

There was no response.

“Why…why are you out here?” I tentatively asked.

“I had an ache in the temples,” she answered. “Thought the fresh air and silence would do me some good.”

“Oh,” I repeated, dragging my lip between my teeth. Then I remembered her once telling me that was unbecoming, so I stopped. “I should leave, then.” I started to rise.

“No, it’s okay.” Momma stopped me. “You’re…you’re always quiet.”

Surprise rushed through me. I didn’t know what to do or say. Momma never sat with me outside of our lessons. So, I did what she did. I looked at the pretty flowers.

I kept still and silent, every part of me aware of how close we were. I could almost feel the warmth of her body as the seconds ticked by, turning into minutes. I glanced at her. Her cheeks glimmered. Concern rose.

“Is your head making you sad?” I asked quietly.

“What?” She glanced down at me, her brows furrowing. “Oh,” she murmured, lifting a hand to wipe her cheek as if she didn’t realize she’d been crying. “No, it’s not my head.”

“Then what has made you sad?” I tipped closer to her, my hands balling.

“More like who,” she remarked, her attention focused on me. On my face. “I swear by the gods, every time I see you…”

I held my breath. How much of me could she see? Did I wash before coming out here? Sometimes I forgot, and there was always something smudged on my face.

“You have more freckles.” The corners of her lips tugged up. She smiled.

Momma smiled at me.

“Just like…” Clearing her throat, her smile faded. She turned back to the flowers. “Your father liked these.”

I didn’t know what to be more excited about. Her smile? Or that she was speaking of him.

“He also enjoyed their scent,” she continued. “Thought they had a lighter, fresher smell compared to lavender.” She shook her head. “I could never tell the difference, but he could. He thought lavender smelled like…”

I turned back to the flowers, my fingers relaxing. “Vanilla.”

“Yes,” she said, then sighed. “He said the same. Excuse me.” She rose and left the little garden nook without saying another word.

Left…me.

I slipped from the memory with a strange sense of clarity that had never been there before. Her stares and words were never just cold; they were also full of cruel agony and heartbreak for what she’d lost and the child she could never allow herself to grow close to. Care for. Love. Because if she did, how could she honor the deal my father’s ancestor made?

I fell into another memory, seeing Odetta’s silver hair and her lined face softening briefly in sympathy as she shared her suppers with me. I saw myself sitting beside her at the small table in her chambers while we ate. It was before the garden. I was younger, and I…I hadn’t remembered it correctly.

“Do you think Momma is proud she has a Maiden as a daughter?” I asked, toying with the fork.

“Silly child.” Odetta’s laugh was more of a wheeze. “Always asking silly questions.”

I didn’t think it was a silly question. I dropped the fork onto the table, pleased by the clang it made. “Never mind.”

Odetta reached over, curling her gnarled and bony fingers around my chin. She turned my head to hers. “Child, the Fates know you were touched by life and death, creating someone that should not be. How could she be anything but afraid?”

The memory shattered. She hadn’t said, “creating something that should not be.” She’d said, “creating someone.” Had she been talking about me? Or someone I would create? But I would create no one.

Holland’s soft voice rose then, overshadowing mine. “I do not fear death,” he said as he circled me. I was older, closer to seventeen. “I fear life.”

Frowning, I drew back my sword. “What?”

“Death can be a long-earned reward upon old age, but life?” Sir Holland spun, catching my arm and twisting, tossing me to the floor. “Life is vicious. When stolen, it can become the ruin of realms, a wrath that even Death will hide from.”

Ezra replaced Holland. The air was sticky with humidity as we walked the gardens, but she wore a cream, pinstriped waistcoat buttoned to the base of her throat.

“Did you believe it?” she asked.

I looked over at her. “Believe what?”

Her attention was fixed on the book she held. “You haven’t been listening.”

I hadn’t, so there was no point in lying.

“I was telling you what Phebe wrote about what Etris saw before she died—it doesn’t matter.” A breeze toyed with a lock of dark hair, sending it across her face as I wondered who in the fuck Phebe and Etris were. She looked over at me. “You matter to me.”

I stumbled, nearly tripping. “What?” I laughed.

Her stare was serious. “I just wanted you to know that. You matter to me.”

The smile slipped from my face. Did she know about the sleeping aid…? My chest turned to ice. How could she? Feeling my face warm, I shook my head. “Did this Phebe write in this book to tell you that?”

“Oh, yes. Most definitely.” She grinned, the hem of her gown snapping at her ankles as she began walking.

I remained where I was, palms damp. My chest clamped down—

My chest.

I saw tiny Jadis nestled against my chest, she and Reaver sleeping soundly. The image of them dispersed like smoke, replaced by flashes of Aios and Bele. Ector’s smile. Saion’s deep laugh…

Ash and I in the sweet-pea-smothered passageway of the Garden District before I knew it was him.

“I did not ask for your help,” I’d spat.

“But you have it nonetheless.”

My heart stuttered, and then I found us here, at this very lake, my head resting in his lap, his fingers a light touch on my arm. I thought maybe I’d fallen in love with him even then. I just hadn’t known. If I had…

The memory faded into a more recent one. I saw Ash and me at the coronation, looking at the golden swirls on our hands.

Ash had leaned back, one of those rare, genuine smiles on his face as he surveyed the crowd. “The Fates are capable of anything.”

“Liessa? Sera?”

The voice jarred me from the whirling memories. “Don’t leave me. Please.”

It was Ash, but he sounded different. Raw. Terrified. I’d never heard him so scared. “Please,” he pleaded. “Fucking Fates, I can’t lose you. I can’t…I love you. I do. Fates, I do. I fucking love you. How can I not? How can this not be love?” He screamed to the elms, or at least I thought he did. I wasn’t sure if it was him or if it only came from my mind. “I love you, even if I cannot. I’m in love with you.”

Then I wasn’t there.

I wasn’t anywhere but in death…

I love you.

Death wasn’t silent.

Or peaceful.

It sounded full of feral rage.

I love you, even if I cannot.

Death was a roar of fury and agony, the sound of a soul shattering.

Of a heart breaking.

I’m in love with you.

CHAPTER FORTY

I floated in the quiet darkness.

There was no pain. No happiness. No fear. No excitement. There was no sense of anything. I was just there. Who or what I was no longer mattered.

I was just an it.

A thing like every other living creature. A collection of differently shaped pieces meant to turn to ash…

Ash that would return to the earth, enriching the soil and providing for the life the lands gave birth to.

But the darkness wasn’t entirely silent. There was a distant hum. A whisper. A name being called. Begging. The far-away plea tugged at me.

Seraphena , child.

I stopped floating at the louder echo. That of a…soul. One I knew, because I had been something before I was nothing—someone who made up the collection of uneven pieces. I’d had a name.

Open your eyes, girl. The voice came again—an old, worn voice that belonged to…to…

Odetta.

She was a part of the cycle now, just as I was, right?

No, child, you’re not.

I cracked open my eyes. A pinprick of light appeared in the darkness, becoming a shade of swirling sapphire. Light sparked at its tail, and emerald shot out, wrapping itself around the blue. Rich brown followed, and then the three lights spun around a dark center.

In that center, there was a…a past. The past. A beginning of everything. And it started with a blast—an explosion that left small, throbbing lights behind as the raw energy rippled out, creating barren lands and mountains where there was nothing but emptiness before.

Those small, throbbing lights were stars—bright, brilliant stars. And after a time, they fell to lands no longer barren. Some fell where great winged creatures ruled while others fell to lands separated by sweeping bodies of water to the west and to the east. And those stars buried themselves deep in the ground—ground that eventually healed from their impacts. Soil that sprouted saplings, which grew into strong trees that fed what was buried deep beneath. Stars that were fed and nurtured and grown from the roots of the trees they’d given life to. Stars that stayed beneath the surface until they too were as strong as the trees, till they rose from the soil to walk as…

 Ancients.

I saw them, their ever-changing eyes full of their beginnings as warmth sparked inside me. That warmth filled all my different-shaped pieces as I saw a fire in the flesh, one that created the Primals. Crackling heat flooded my limbs as I heard the names they were called, both here and beyond, in unfamiliar lands full of towering cities and steel beasts.

Then I saw the Primal of Life, whose features were so painfully familiar. He reached into soil soaked with the blood of the draken he’d spent centuries cultivating, tending to with his breath and will, and the water and fire of the realms. He lifted a small babe, red-faced and howling. The babe’s eyes opened for the very first time, crimson that turned to a brilliant, stunning shade of the sky. Those eyes became a kaleidoscope of all the colors in the realms before changing to soft brown as the babe quieted upon seeing the Primal.

I saw the first mortal born, not in the image of the Primals and gods, but in the way of the Ancients, who were born of stars.

And I saw those Ancients rejoice in the continuation of life that had been shaped in their image. Then I saw that begin to change as those created in their image destroyed what came before the Primals, their very first creation—the realms themselves. And as the pulsing warmth expanded in my chest and shimmering silvery light appeared behind my eyes, I understood.

I understood.

The eather, the essence, had come from the stars that had fallen eons ago.

I understood.

Because I saw the Primals rise and the Ancients fall as my heart took its second first beat. I saw them faded into places of peace and rest. I saw many go to ground, and I saw that some remained to ensure what I now knew had to be more important than anything else.

There must always be balance, that life must always continue on. That death must always come.

I understood.

As the eather flowed into my fingers and down my legs, I saw the horror of what would happen if the cycle of life was broken. I heard the screams of thousands, of millions if death was vanquished, and I knew.

I knew that the Ancients who’d returned to the ground must never, ever return to the surface.

Because they were no longer the beginning of everything, the great creators, the givers of life and the balance that kept the realms stable.

 They were the end that would shake the realms, erupting the tallest mountains, spewing forth flames and clouds that would consume all in its path, turning day to night. They would boil the rivers and turn seas to deserts, laying utter waste to sprawling stone kingdoms and toppling those great steel cities in distant lands.

For if they rose, they did so as blood and bone, the ruin and the wrath of that once great beginning.

As the essence of the stars hummed from within me, I saw the end.

And I knew.

I knew I was not a part of the cycle of life.

I was the cycle.

The beginning.

Middle.

The last breath before the end.

Death’s steadfast companion.

I was Life.

Slowly, I became aware of a pressure in my head. It built and spread, clamping down on my lungs.

My heart seized and then sped up. A sudden burst of pain lanced my upper jaw. Teeth loosened. A metallic taste filled my mouth as a tremor started deep in the center of my chest, where the two embers flickered and pulsed, expanding with each fast-pounding beat of my heart. The embers grew, swelling inside me until the chasm that had been cracked open splintered.

Pure, unadulterated power poured out, spreading like roots in my veins. The essence filled my organs. Eather entrenched itself in my bones and bled into my tendons, flowing to my muscles. My body warmed.

Something tightened around me. Not something. Arms? Yes, arms. Someone was holding me in…in water. A lake.

“Sera?” came a ragged whisper. His whisper.

The Asher.

I knew that voice. I’d heard it in the darkness, hadn’t I?

The One who is Blessed.

The Guardian of Souls.

The Primal God of Common Men and Endings.

The End to my Beginning.

My eyes flew open, fixing on the night sky—the stars and the moon.

“Sera,” he gasped.

That name. That name. That name.

It was important, but something…something was still happening inside me. Raw, Primal energy pressed against my flesh, seeping through my pores. My skin hummed—

Time stopped. There were no sounds of water or wind. No rustling animals or distant calls. There was just him leaning over me, his silver eyes wide as he held me in his arms, keeping me afloat.

“Liessa,” he rasped.

Eather erupted from my chest, shooting into the air in a spinning, sparking funnel. The stream of eather slammed into the sky. Time felt as if it stopped once more.

Arms tensed around me. “Oh, shit.”

The surge of power throbbed, and I saw the shockwave before I heard it, rippling in waves through the air, extending in every direction. With a massive, deafening boom that shook the land in all the realms, the intense silvery-gold light rippled across the skies, stretching as far as the eye could see and beyond. That shockwave reached us—

He was torn from me, thrown back into the trees as I was lifted into the air. The water of my lake flew out and up, halting as shadowstone cracked beneath us and gave way. Tall elms groaned as they quaked, bending back and then pitching forward, their roots ripping free of the ground. They began to slide and topple, sinking into the rushing water as the eather returned to its vessel.

To me.

Essence wrapped and churned around me, crackling and spitting sparks, encasing me in its light until it was all I saw.

All I became.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

I slept.

And I dreamed.

I was at a lake, floating in the cool water. It was so peaceful. Tranquil.

I was never alone.

A silver-white wolf sat on the bank of the lake, watching and always alert, keeping guard while I floated and…

Listened.

Someone was talking to me as I slept.

The voice was full of silky shadows and smoke. There were others, too. A raspier one. Softer, feminine tones. Quiet murmurings. But his, the voice of midnight…his I tuned into. It soothed me. Meant something to me.

He meant something to me.

“The first time I saw you—really saw you? You were just a child, but I didn’t look like this. I’d taken my wolf form.”

I looked at where the silver wolf sat. The wolf…it was him.

“Not that being in that form makes it…how did you say it?” A rough, low laugh traveled across the water, bringing a smile to my lips. “Any less creepy.”

I…I’d said that?

“You were this little thing carrying your weight in pebbles, your hair a pale tangle of moonlight. When you saw me, I thought you’d scream and run away. Child or not, most sensible mortals would do that when confronted by a wolf. You did neither of those things.”

I didn’t think I… I was known to be sensible.

“You just stared at me with those big green eyes.” There were several moments of silence, and I feared he wouldn’t speak again, but he did. “It was a long time before you saw me again. Not until the night you turned seventeen, but I saw you between then.”

I had the strange impression that the night he spoke about had once been important to me. Life-changing and haunting. A source of bitter failure that had once felt like it would never go away. But I also sensed the event no longer meant anything to me.

“I never told you about the dream I had of your lake before I even laid eyes on it,” he said. “I can’t even say it was a dream. It was…yeah, it was something else. But for years, I told myself that was all it was. Convinced myself until I no longer could. It was a warning, one I heeded.” Heavy regret filled his voice. “But I did so in the worst way possible.”

He fell quiet then, and I was grateful. I didn’t want him talking about things that made him sad. I wanted him to laugh as he had before.

Time passed as I floated, and I heard other voices. Ones I didn’t recognize. Some I thought I would know eventually. They talked about the past and the future. They shared ancient knowledge, speaking of magic and power until his voice silenced theirs.

He spoke more, mentioning the night he saw me in a Temple. He told me how he tried to distance himself from me. Talked about how he saw me again when he stopped me from attacking some gods.

It sounded like a completely insensible thing for me to try, but it made me smile.

“I already knew by then that you were brave,” he said. “I just hadn’t realized how brave you’d become. How fearless and passionate you were.”

I liked that part.

“And I wasn’t prepared for how much I’d feel… How I’d feel alive just being in your presence.”

I really liked that part.

“After I had my kardia removed, I was still capable of feeling. Caring. I was still myself, I just didn’t… I don’t know.” His voice sounded closer.

As I floated, I felt the ghost of a touch on my cheek. My eyes closed. I really, really liked that.

It struck me then that I always liked when he touched me. Loved it.

“I just didn’t feel things strongly. I was no longer capable of doing so,” he told me. “Until you. You made me feel things strongly. Everything, liessa.”

Liessa? Was that my name? I didn’t think so, but my heart skipped at hearing it. And it wasn’t a bad feeling. It was pleasant. I loved when he called me that. It had a special meaning.

“From that very first damn kiss, I should’ve known.” He sighed.

Known what?

Better yet… I wanted him to tell me about our first kiss. I wanted to remember it.

And he did, much to my happiness. “You knew I was, at the very least, a god, and you still threatened me.”

Well, that happiness was incredibly short-lived. Why had I threatened him? I had a feeling I’d been justified.

“You warned me that if I tried anything…”

Go for that weapon on your thigh again? I heard his voice—not then, but in my mind. He’d said that to me after I threatened him, and I had answered with a yes.

“When I shushed you, I really thought you were going to hit me,” he said with another low chuckle. “I never knew a mortal to be so…wonderfully belligerent to a god. It was refreshing.”

That was an odd reaction, but it still made me grin.

“I could’ve done so many damn things to make sure we weren’t seen. Telling you to kiss me should’ve been the very last thing I suggested.” I felt that whisper of touch again, this time on my jaw. “But your threats provoked me, and damn…it shocked me. Even before Maia removed my kardia, I’d learned to control my temper. To not let things rile me. I knew better.”

He…he did. Because he…he’d had to learn that.

“But a few minutes with you and I was responding to your every word and every move without much thought. Just instinct. I wanted to challenge you. I didn’t think you’d kiss me. I figured you’d more than likely hit me. But you did.” His voice was a sigh against my skin. “And it shocked the hell out of me.”

But I… My brow wrinkled as I opened my eyes to the empty, dark sky above. I had…I had bitten his lip. Then he’d kissed me back.

“Fates, liessa, you tasted of warmth and sunshine,” he said. “Life. It left me feeling off balance for days. I was so damn pissed at myself for engaging you like that. I knew better. I fucking knew better. You didn’t realize who I was to you yet, and I knew the kind of danger I was putting you in. I knew what could happen. But you were in my arms after all those years of avoiding you, and you…you…you felt like you were mine.”

Mine.

Some knowledge arose that the idea of belonging to someone would enrage me, but not him. He was different. I did belong to him. And he belonged to me.

“I told myself it was because of what my father did. It made sense to me that I would feel that way since you’d been promised to me before you were even born.”

A deal…

One made between a desperate King and a Primal to save a kingdom…and the realms.

“It couldn’t be anything else, but I…I started to feel things strongly again. After that one damn kiss, I felt…I felt excitement. Anticipation. And damn, it had been a long time since I’d felt those two emotions, but everything was heightened when it came to you. Even anger and frustration,” he said with a dark, rich laugh. “And when you stabbed me?”

I…I’d stabbed him?

“I even felt alive then.”

What a strange man.

I smiled.

“When you argued with me. When you smiled at me. When you had that look of violence in your eyes. When it turned sensual. But especially when you laughed. I felt alive,” he said. “But I also felt fear again. And Fates, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt that. It was even before my kardia was removed, but I felt real fear when I thought about how willing you were to risk your life. Terror at the thought of Kolis discovering you.”

That name…

My hands balled into fists. I didn’t like that name.

I felt the soft glide of fingers over mine. I looked at where my hand drifted in the water. Slowly, my fingers relaxed, unfurling. It was his touch. It felt as if he were mapping the bones and tendons beneath my skin. He spoke of our time at the lake, and how he felt more like himself than ever when he was there with me. He talked about how he’d finally taken me into the Shadowlands.

“That fear had me acting like a real piece of shit,” he said. “And when I learned what you had plotted?”

I’d…I’d planned to kill him.

My chest seized with agony. I hadn’t wanted to, but I’d believed I had to. I’d been so very wrong, though. I knew that.

“Yeah, it pissed me off.”

No doubt. Who wouldn’t be mad?

“But it shouldn’t have angered me. I shouldn’t have felt betrayed,” he said, and I squeezed my eyes shut. My heart hurt. I didn’t want him to have felt that. I didn’t want to be the cause. “Not with my kardia removed. I couldn’t understand why, but what I did know, even then, was that I was angrier about the risk you took than your betrayal.”

My eyes drifted open.

“You wouldn’t have survived the attempt. You would’ve died. And for what? A fucking kingdom that didn’t know you existed? A mother who didn’t deserve such an honor? Fuck,” he spat.

His anger made me smile. It shouldn’t. Life was important. All life was, even those deemed unworthy of such. I knew that now. I didn’t think I’d known that then. Or cared. But it was now etched into my bones.

But so was the violence he’d seen in my eyes. Because…life was vicious. When stolen, it became the ruin of realms, a wrath that even Death would hide from.

And Death would hide from me.

Time passed as I floated in the lake, and the wolf sat on the bank, watching and waiting while the voice spoke of words we’d thrown at each other and things we’d whispered. He spoke of regrets and wants, passion and yearning. His voice always deepened then, roughening in a way that pulled forth glimpses of memories—of us, our bodies entwined and joined together. Those remembrances elicited sharp pulses of desire that left me aching, yearning to feel him against my skin and inside me so badly, I fell into those memories of him taking control.

I remembered those moments so clearly. His large body caging mine, holding me in place as he took me from behind. And I knew I only ever allowed him to dominate me and my body, and it drove me wild that I could do so and feel safe. That I could let go of whatever inhibitions and reservations remained hidden deep inside me and be so free. It thrilled me. It empowered me. We could make love. We could fuck. And in the end, it was I who chose.

I had the ultimate control.

I knew that.

I remembered that.

I floated some more, feeling less weightless and more solid. Later, when he spoke about his father, I remembered seeing the portrait of him. I recalled talking to him.

“Do you do that?” I asked, staring at the painting of the woman. She was beautiful, with deep, wine-red hair framing skin painted a rosy pink on an oval-shaped face. Her brows were strong, her silver-eyed gaze piercing. Piercing like his. Her cheekbones were high, and her mouth was full. “Do you often accept the aid of others?”

“Not as often as I should.” His voice was closer.

“Then maybe you don’t know if that is brave or not.” My attention had shifted to the painting of the male, and I felt my breath catch then. And it did so now. His hair was shoulder-length and black…

But his hair wasn’t as dark. It was a shade of brown with red undertones. A chestnut color. They shared the same features. A strong jaw and broad cheekbones. A straight nose and a wide mouth, but his was more defined than his father’s. He’d gotten sharper angles from his mother.

I could see him in my mind now as he spoke of following his father as a child, and he was striking. Had a beauty that bordered on cruel. Perfect to me. For me.

Later, he spoke of how he used to follow his father around a large palace as a child. “He never grew tired of my presence,” he said. “He wanted me with him. I think because I reminded him of my mother, even though I also resembled him. When he spoke about her, it was the only time I saw him smile—really smile. Fates, liessa, he loved her so much.”

Their story was a tragic one that had ended in betrayal and jealousy.

“He was so damn strong. He never completely lost himself to the agony of her loss,” he shared. His voice turned sad, and it made me sad. “He remained kind and compassionate, even though he’d lost a part of himself. I don’t know how he did it. How he continued on for as long as he did.”

A whisper of a touch brushed my jaw. “I wanted to be as strong as my father, but I wasn’t him.”

“It has nothing to do with strength,” that raspier voice of fire joined his, and I…I felt weight on my legs.

Frowning, I looked at where my legs drifted in the water. I saw nothing, but I felt a familiar weight I knew but couldn’t quite place.

“Eythos had many more years on him than you,” the other voice said, and images flashed in my mind of a tall man with copper skin and long, dark hair streaked with red. “And he changed, Ash.”

 My heart thudded heavily. Ash. I knew that name. He was the nightmare that had become my dream. The calm in my storm. My strength when I was weak. The breath when I couldn’t breathe. He was more than my King. My husband.

Ash was the other half of my heart and soul.

“He was never the same,” the other continued. “And if you hadn’t lived? He would’ve wasted away.”

There was a gap of silence, and then, “And if I’d lost her?” Ash replied. “I wouldn’t have wasted away. I would’ve destroyed everything.”

“I know,” the other said, the voice so heavy I felt the truth of it in my bones.

Because I was the other half of Ash’s soul. His heart. And nothing was more powerful than that—or more dangerous.

“But that will not come to pass,” the other said. “You saved her.”

He had.

That other voice was right, and I knew his name, didn’t I? He had once told me that not everyone can always be okay. He’d made me agree that if I…if I ever wasn’t okay, I would talk to him. That we’d…

We’ll make sure you’re okay.

Nektas.

That was his name.

Tears stung my throat and eyes, his offer meaning the world to me because Nektas knew that life was worth living, even when it was often unfair and the injustices seemed to stack up. Hardships didn’t always happen for a reason. Sometimes, the Fates didn’t have a greater plan.

But even when it began to feel like a chore one had to force themselves to complete, life was still worth living.

Even when it was unfair and heartbreaking, dark and full of the unknown, life was still worth living.

Because rewards could be found among the chores. Little pieces of enjoyment that would come to mean something. Darkness always gave way to the light if given time, and while some heartbreaks may never completely heal, living allowed there to be space for new sources of happiness and pleasure.

Life was worth living even when it was full of unfairness and injustice. When the heart felt light and when the chest was too tight to breathe.

Because death was final.

The absence of choice.

And life was a collection of new beginnings.

Full of unending choices.

Time passed, I slept, and Ash continued to speak. His voice would grow louder and then become a whisper.

Another voice came, one that was quiet and serious—always serious. “You need to feed. When she wakes…”

When I woke, I would be…hungry.

Ash was quiet, then I felt his touch again on my cheek. His hand was cool but a bit warmer. “I never felt alive until you,” he whispered, “And I should’ve known then what you were to me. That you were the impossible. The one thing that could return a kardia, scratching itself together from the wound its removal left behind. My heartmate.”

Lips curving upward, I dragged my arms through the water as I smiled.

“Take as long as you need to rest,” Ash told me. “I’ll be here, waiting. I’ll always wait for you, Sera.”