“This wasn’t your fault. These attacks have been happening for years. In your kingdom and mine. It was only a matter of time before they got this close.”
She looked up at him. “They spoke to me, theyknewmy name. They came for me, and now Agatha is dead and Aaron?—”
“Is alive because of you,” he finished for her.
Theo didn’t want to think using her power up there had given those that hunted her a signal. He wouldn’t think of what that could mean, nor the path ahead. Not when she was finally accepting his embrace.
She planted her hands on his thin shirt like she was going to push him away.
“I’m so tired. I’m tired of people I care about dying around me... dying for me. I’m tired of feeling numb every day I wake up.”
She dug her face into the soft material of his shirt. He breathed in her sweet scent mixed with the carnage staining her skin. Closing his eyes, he savored the feeling of her, fully aware that at any moment the spell could be broken and she could flee from him.
“I’m tired too.” It’s all he could think to say. Even though he knew she wouldn’t fully understand his meaning.
He hadn’t had a true embrace like this in so long. Not since his powers fully manifested, not since his parents. He hadn’t touched someone so thoroughly in thousands of years. The lovers he had taken were always at arm’s length, never anything sensual or passionate.
This... this felt essential somehow, it felt destined.
She interrupted his musing with a question he wished she hadn’t had the will to ask.
“Theodon, did they even look for me? When you took me... did the guards, or my family, even try to find me?” Her voice was so impassive. Like she already knew the answer and needed to hear the spoken words to confirm its truth.
His chest tightened. His exhale was deeply sorrowful. “Once Manos broke his trance, no one followed on the road that night. None of our scouts have reported activity near the western border.”
Her grip on his shirt slackened a little.
“And it’s Theo,” he added softly, tilting her chin up toward him. Forcing her to keep her head held high.
He felt her heartbeat grow wild as they stood there chest to chest. He locked eyes with the girl who consumed his every conscious thought.
He didn’t dare look away.
“Whatever force is gathering, let them come. I’ve seen what you can do. Pass your trial and we can conquer any army. You carry power that can destroy, I feel it when you call upon it. It’s dark and twisted like mine, but it’s yours. If you learn to control it, you don’t have to succumb to a destiny riddled with death.”
His thumb pad massaged the softness under her chin.
“Stop blaming yourself for lives that are lost. Stop mourning those that wouldn’t fight to keep you.” His thumb traveled to that pillow-soft bottom lip of hers, feeling her warm breath pass over his skin. “I would carve out anyone’s heart if they tried to take you. If you went missing tomorrow, I would only need to give the command, and not a single Divine would sleep until you were found, until we brought you home.”
She looked up at him, confused, yet there was yearning there. He hadn’t seen a single tear from her since they met. Maybe she was too broken to cry. Maybe she was just as fractured as he was, as he had always been.
“No vast space, void, or army could keep me from hunting you down and slaughtering those who stood in my way.” Anger brewed in his core at the thought. It dissipated as he sank further into the feel of her skin. “Now that I’ve known you, I fear you have gained a shadow in me, Helaina Ironblood. There is nowhere you could go that I won’t follow.”
She brought her blood-tinged hands to his forearms. Her delicate fingers swiped across the coarse hairs there, as if she was assuring herself he was real. Her touch was magnetic, drawing him toward her.
“Why are you saying these things? You’ve shown me nothing but cruelty since I got here.”
“Ipushedyou, Helaina, and I will continue to push you. The way I approach things has never been... delicate. I refuse to coddle you, to let you sink back into that place we found you in. You’ve been hidden and told to listen and obey for too fucking long. I wanted you to see that you didn’t have to be a victim of your circumstances anymore. I wanted you to choose to see what I saw in you. To be what I saw in you. You don’t need shielding or protection or safety, you never did.”
She roamed her eyes over his pectorals, then his shoulders, while she ran her fingers up and down his toned arms. He quivered, he physically shook from her intimate caresses.
“That’s not entirely true.” She continued the motions of her hands. “You’ve stepped in to protect me a couple of times.”
He laughed, actually laughed. “Once the bone dagger claims your mortal life, I won’t have to step in when beasts are seconds from devouring you or cooking you alive. Once you’re one of us, you’ll be unstoppable.”
She stopped her tantalizing touches. She took a good look at her hands for the first time.
“I... I need...” Her breaths grew frantic, the shock returning to her face.
