Page 229 of Feralheart

Fen stood on the opposite shore of a big body of water. His hands reached toward me, his mouth forming my name, but the sound couldn’t cross the distance.

I floundered into the water and tried to swim, but the current pulled me under. Water filled my lungs, burning, choking. I clawed toward the surface as hands latched onto my ankles, dragging me deeper.

When I finally broke through the top, gasping, Fen was gone. Only bones remained on the shore where he’d been standing. Red lines covered them, the same ones marking my palms.

I stumbled out of the water and dropped to my knees in the black sand.

My hands moved, trying to heal bones picked clean. The red lines spread from my palms onto the remains, searching for life that wasn’t there.

“You’re too late,” Tolross said. He smiled down at me without warmth. “Was it worth it?”

I lunged for him, but he dissolved into smoke with the taint of funeral pyres.

When I turned back, the bones were gone. Fen stood where they’d been, alive, his hand extended.

“Don’t come closer,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because I’ll kill you. That’s what my magic does.” My voice broke. “My mother. Tolross. Now you. Everything I touch dies.”

“That’s not true.”

“Look at your hands.”

Red lines covered his palms, spreading up his arms in an infection.

“It’s alright,” he said softly. “I’d rather die by your hands than anyone else’s.”

I jolted awake, gasping, and rose, slipping back outside.

Fen sat on his bedroll, staring at the flickering coals, his shoulders hunched forward, his good hand pressed against his chest where the bond thrummed.

He looked up, and the relief that flooded through our connection made my knees weaken.

“I dreamed you died,” I said, the words tumbling out. “I was too slow, or I made the wrong choice.”

He rose and crossed the space between us. His hands framed my face, his thumbs brushing away tears I hadn’t realized were falling. I leaned into the touch, turning my face into his palm, savoring his warmth. This man was real. Not bones or smoke or dreams that lied.

“I’m here,” he whispered. “We’re both here.”

“For now.”

“For now is enough.”

We both knew it wasn’t, but it was all we had.

His hand slid from my face to the back of my neck, his fingers threading into my hair.

He pulled me forward gently and kissed my forehead, a chaste, soft kiss, nothing like the desperate claiming from before.

It felt more intimate.

When he pulled back, his breath whispered across my skin. “If I don’t see tomorrow⁠—”

“Don’t.”

“If I don’t,” he said, his voice firm, “know that I’ll seek you always. I have no right to be with you, but my body doesn’t know how to do anything else.”