“Why?”
His lips pressed together, forming a tight line right before he answered, “Because I’m not…whole.”
Not whole? What was that supposed to mean?
“It means that part of what makes me a god is missing.”
“Well, where is it?” I asked, though the words felt almost ignorant as they left my lips.
His fingers slid down my cheek, tracing a slow line that left a tingling sensation in their wake. His hand stopped as it reached my chest, and I sucked in a deep breath, unsure of why the butterflies had now morphed intoa raging storm. Above my heart, he tapped his fingers a few times, and I knitted my brows in confusion.
“I don’t understand.”
“You have it, Morrigan.”
Before I could form a response, dark shadows seeped from his neck, pouring out of his shirt. I jumped as I felt a small tickle on my skin and looked down to see the thick, black mist crawling over my chest. His other hand moved toward the door, and I felt a strange pulse in my body as his shadows spread over it.
Suddenly, small, black veins began to form along my skin beneath his fingers, darkening until the area was completely black. And then… it changed.
“What’s happening?” I asked, my breath catching in my chest as I began to panic.
“It’s okay,”he whispered.
The darkness began to lighten, turning into an orange hue that somehow shone brighter than the sun. As quickly as it appeared, it sank back into my skin, and I leaned back against the door.
“Morrigan!” Eris yelled. “Let me in! Now!”
“What was that?” I asked him. I touched my chest where his finger had been, but felt nothing. That was, until my entire body began to buzz with an uncomfortable itch, and my panic returned. “What did you do to me?!”
“Morrigan, calm down.”He placed his hands on my arms, holding them with his cold touch.
But I shoved them off and moved away from the door, distancing us as the itch turned into a burning sensation. “What did you do?!”
“If you start freaking out, you’re going to cause a surge, Morrigan.”His voice was so calm. How was he so calm?
I ran my hands through my hair, feeling the need to touch something…dosomething—anything. My confusion began melting into a rage that hadn’tbeen there before. “Why… Why am I feeling this?” I scratched at my arms, trying to make it go away.
“Fire,”he whispered. “I thought it would be more like mine. I didn’t realize you would have something different?—”
“What do you mean?!” My body twitched with fury, and I needed somewhere to direct it. My eyes landed on the porcelain tea cup sitting on my vanity, and I picked it up, turning back toward him. “Tell me what you did!” I threw it at him, but the cup passed through his body as if he, too, was made out of mist.
“I didn’t do anything, Morrigan, I swear. I just unlocked the light inside?—”
A scream erupted from my lips as the scratches began to burn. It felt like someone had lit a fire in my chest that spread through my veins, boiling every ounce of blood in my body. “It hurts!”
I scrambled toward my vanity, grabbing the mirror, but as I pushed down on it, the mirror slid beneath my palms. I landed against the wood and, in a fit of anger, grabbed the mirror and threw it to the ground. The sound of shattering glass echoed in my mind like a hollow cave, growing louder as the seconds passed.
“Just breathe, Morrigan,”he insisted. “I promise I will help you through this. I just need you to breathe.”
I grabbed onto the wall, trying to keep myself upright as my knees threatened to give out. But, when I looked at the placement of my hand, smoke started to rise, and the paint looked like it was… melting.
“It won’t stop,” I panted, unable to catch my own breath. “Why… Why is this…”
“Morrigan, you’re starting to shut me out,”he said with panic in his voice. “The surge… I can’t control the link between us anymore.”
As the pain worsened, I fell to my knees and screamed through the sensation of my skin tearing apart. All I could see were my veins glowing as if they were on fire under my skin.
“Morrigan,”he whispered, kneeling down beside me. “Keep me here. Find the link between us.”
