You did this—
I suck a shuddered breath, release an agonized scream.
That jungle of emotion shifts and squirms, thorny vines battling each other for freedom, making them impossible to dislodge. My scream turns into deep, chest-cleaving sobs that threaten to split me.
Don’t cry.
His words come to me like a blow of icy wind, making my skin pebble.
I look out across the azure water, reminded of the cloak I bought Zane; wrapped for him; poured all my love into.
The cloak that got him killed. Just like I got mybrotherkilled.
Mymother…
Rhordyn …
So many others.
I think of the jellyfish I once watched from the edge of a cliff. How jealous I was of their freedom to simply …drift.My whole body yields to the idea, aching with the sudden urge to swim out into the depths.
Just drift.
I push to a stand, wading through the water, charging forward—
“Stop.”
My heart leaps into my throat, the commanding baritone a blow from behind, like a rope snagging around my knees, almost pulling my legs out from under me.
Slowly, I turn.
My heart stops.
I see his eyes first—silver swirls that pierce through the tousled mess of his sea-stained curls, whipping me up inside. His all-consuming stare makes a sob burst up my throat.
Stubble paints his chiseled features, his face a beautifully barbaric masterpiece. He’s shirtless, standing amidst the jungle’s dense shadows, arms crossed, wearing a pair of tattered black pants that cling to his legs like savage strips of art. His silver-scrawled tattoos wink and flicker, hugging his powerful physique, yielding to every bulging brick of muscle—so much bigger than they were before …
Before.
Even my imagination is forgetting what Rhordyn really looked like. Is painting him bigger, sharper.
More fiercely captivating.
Just more fuel to the blaze of pain I’ve been cradling since I took his life. Or perhaps I’m wrong? Perhaps I didn’t get washed up on this shore at all? Perhaps webothsomehow made it into Mala and this is really happening; he’s really here.
Perhaps I’m dead, too.
This rich sense of peace cups my heart with warm hands as I run to him, deep, heaving sobs clawing up my throat as I kick up sand in my haste. I draw close enough to smell his frosty musk on a whip of wind before he drops his arms, drawing my attention to the tattered state of the left side of his chest …
It looks as though his tattoos have been cut from his skin, one by one. Torn off in messy strips around the red, risen scar directly above his heart. Right where I …
Where I …
My feet still.
I look up into his eyes and see they’re hard like flints. Register the energy rolling off him, smashing against my chest, making it hard to breathe.
“You. Bared. Your. Throat.”
