I didn’t wake in a nest of crunchy leaves curled around the man I love, tending buttery blooms of relief and a bursting heart. Instead, my entire body is one bighurt.Even the simple task of moving my lids hurts so much I want to weep.
An agonizing slug of lava blazes through my veins, my arm cropped across my chest—alight with a fiery itch, as though grubs are gnawing at the underside of my skin, tearing off chunks of flesh. I feel that same gluttonous grubbing in my lungs, like the meat is being consumed in gobbled bites.
I cough and sputter, tasting blood and the rancid tang of sour milk, certain every muscle in my body is being kneaded, stretched, or snapped.
Exhaustion gores its thumbs into my eyes, threatening to burst them. Heavy lures tug at my lids, and I choke through another gargled breath that feels like the beginning of the end …
My head flops to the side, lids growing heavier.
Heavier.
Through the haze of my vision, I see a deeply tanned man with white hair emerging from behind a pile of sparkly things.
He looks like Kai.
He can’t be Kai.
“Treasure, you’re awake …”
The lures tugging at my lids win the war, and I tumble back into an inky sleep that wraps me in its black, leathery wings.
This is real. I’m dying—the end beneath my feet, waiting to open its maw andchomp.To weigh the heavy regret in my heart, then spit me out as dust.
And all I want ishim.
* * *
TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP. TAP.
I release a groan that jerks my chest into a foray of violent coughs, panic crushing its hands around my ribs—certain I’m drowning from the inside out. Deep, wet hacks shred my lungs, and I tip my head to the side, retching the blood that bubbles up with each soggy heave.
“That’s it, Treasure. Get it up …”
Fire seeps from my pores. Drips off me in rivulets that do nothing to quell this raging inferno.
The spasm abates, panic loosening as my head flops. I draw a rattling breath and squint into a pair of emerald eyes.
Kai …
“I’m s-so sorry,” I rasp, not wanting to die without him knowing the weight of my regret, hacking through another round of chest-cleaving coughs as I try to scrub the masticating lava grubs from my leg.
My arm.
“No, Treasure … Don’t be sorry.” He cups my cheek with a warm hand I nuzzle against, then wail at the pain, feeling as if my skin is sliding off the bone. “Fuck.”
My wail turns into a wet, rancid cough, and I arch to the side in an agonizing roll, retching curdled, lumpy stuff that tastes like my rotted insides coming away in chunks.
“I failed you from thestart.”
I don’t know what he means.
But it doesn’t matter—not anymore.
I’m bereft at the thought as I vomit another lumpy mouthful into a bowl I can barely make out. A premature death has always felt imminent, like a shadow slithering around me. Watching me.
Ticking down my days.
But the look in that Vruk’s big, inky eyes as the world crumbled beneath me will haunt me to the end. Like I punched my fist through his chest and ripped out his heart, clutching it in my bloody hand as I fell.
