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Now he was squeezing her hand, his expression growing earnest, desperate. “Neverstop fighting, Sophia. No matter what.”
She waved a careless hand in the air. “We’re talking about you, aren’t we?”
“Never lose your fire.” When he said this, he knew a fire of his own lit his eyes. The fireshehad given him.
She pursed her lips together, as if contemplating what he said. In the end, she chose to ignore his comments, it seemed. “I know why you want to save Giselle now, and I understand.”
“That doesn’t matter.” He didn’t give a shit if she understood why he had wanted to bring Giselle back to life, even after having already chosen Sophia. He was foolish to have considered it. What mattered now was Sophia, and his fear that she may one day crash and burn into nothing was eating him alive. “Promise me you won’t lose your fire, no matter what happens,” he returned to the topic he knew she was evading.
As if the simple thought of something in her plan going wrong scared her too much to even think about it, she ignored his comment. Again. “It does matter. It matters to me that I tell you this.” The pleading look in her eyes had him sighing in defeat and allowing her to continue. “You regret so many things you did, all because of grief over Giselle. If you give up on her you’d have to accept that you grieved for so long about someone you’d one day forget. I understand why that’s something you don’t want to accept. Because that would mean all those people you hurt… it was all for nothing.”
What she said wasn’t a question. She said it like a statement, an absolute fact of life. He couldn’t deny what Sophia told him, because it struck a chord in him. She was right. He had wanted to save Giselle so badly not to make it up to her, but to make it up to himself. Maybe, more than anything, he had wanted to prove to himself that every wicked act he committed was in the nameof someone he loved, not someone he’d one day forget about completely.
But Gisellewasnothing. He could see that now. It was as if he had been bewitched all those years and could now clearly see beyond whatever had clouded his mind.
He didn’t want Giselle, and a part of him was beginning to believe he never truly did.
“I’m not going to bring her back.” He said, realizing he still hadn’t told Sophia he decided not to revive Giselle, not that he could anyway. “Her fate was decided years ago. And who am I to bring a fey back into a world without any fey? A fey I don’t even have any interest in.”
Sophia’s eyes glimmered, and he could practically feel the joy that radiated off her. “Thank you,” she softly said, though she shouldn’t thank him for this. “Casper told me you were favored to win and that I should stay away from you. Now I know why. You made a name for yourself while dealing with your pain in whatever way you and your beast knew how to. Maybe those dark yearshadto happen. If not for your past, you wouldn’t have become such an incredible warrior, and if not for your grief, you wouldn’t have signed up for this tournament. Maybe everything happened so you could be here when I needed you most. Without that dark past of yours you wouldn’t have had any reason to sign up for The Elaron Games, and without you I would’ve died the very first day of this tournament.”
He swallowed. This wasn’t the first time this morning he could feel incredibly power behind her words. “I don’t think I can recall the last time someone’s words affected me so much before.”
“Well, the sexwasgood,” she shot him a playful smile. “And I can’t lie, Idohave my moments.”
“That, you do.” Grinning, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly against his chest. Taking in a breath of freshair, he said, “If the last two hundred years brought me to you, then I’d go through it over and over again with a smile on my face if I knew it would lead me to you every time.”
He believed he could feel her smiling against his chest.
Serenity washed over him, and in his blissful contentment he fell into a deep sleep. So deep, in fact, he didn’t stir for anything.
Not even when Sophia slipped away, leaving him completely alone in the cove.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Sophia Brenning
Someone is watching us.
Sophia couldn’t rid herself of the unsettling feeling that she and Antonio weren’t the only ones in the cove that morning. Someone was there with them and she was determined to find out who it was.
Sophia propped herself up on her elbows and looked at Antonio, who was sleeping soundly. Images of the mind altering night they just shared together, Antonio showing her things -manythings - she never experienced before, flooded her mind, making her elbows go weak. She hadn’t experienced so much pleasure before, and now she wasn’t sure if she could go another night without experiencing that pleasure again.
She was, without question, changed.
Life without Antonio? It was becoming more difficult to imagine with every passing moment.
Unfortunately, it was a new day, and as with every new day during The Elaron Games, they had battles to fight. Battles towin.As much as Sophia wanted their night to carry on into the day, she knew they needed to rest.
But for her to have any inkling of rest, she needed to find out what threat was causing her stomach to turn. Someone waswatching them, she knew it. Her gut instinct was hardly ever wrong.
Coming to a stand, Sophia tossed her clothes on and scanned the cove around her. It didn’t take long to confirm she was right to have trusted her gut. Someonewaswatching them, and that someone didn’t seem to be hiding it at all.
A woman in a dark hooded cloak stood along the water’s edge with watchful eyes. When Sophia noticed her, the woman didn’t so much as flinch. It was as if she wanted to be seen and Sophia hadn’t a clue as to why.
Sophia looked down to Antonio, who was still peacefully sleeping. She debated waking him but didn’t have it in her heart to do so. Antonio hadn’t slept enough in days. He needed all the sleep he could get before he fought today.
In any case, if Sophia could defeat a harpy on her own, she could doa loton her own - including confronting some cloaked woman standing alone.
