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I snarled, unable to restrain my anger. “We both know that’s not true.”
“It’s the only thing that is true.” Her arms fanned out as she sank below the water’s surface, distorting her perfect breasts and hissing as the river lapped at the burn above her heart. Her hair danced with the current, and she blinked, sending a tear rolling down her cheek and splashing into the stream.
A faint blue glow appeared around her just as a melodic lullaby echoed wetly around the willow glade. “We taste your grief to be bound to a chief. A future of belief now stolen by a thief. So here and now, we offer relief. A time of goodbyes, but do so in brief.”
Runa froze, her gaze locking with mine.
The watery song rippled around us, repeating itself until it faded into a single haunting note. It seemed Vetak had been watching, after all.
I didn’t trust the water element, just like I didn’t trust the others, but to finally be given permission to touch, even briefly?
My feet shifted without my command.
Zetas padded back to her spot beneath the tree, and Runa...she stood upright. Brave and beautiful, water sluiced over her skin as she held out a wet hand to me.
I couldn’t do it anymore.
The wanting, the longing, the pain.
Shaking hands went to my wolf pelt.
Runa dropped her eyes to my hips, a sudden flush appearing on her cheeks.
I fumbled with the tucked furs, catching the fang as it fell out of its imprisonment. With a jerk, I yanked it away and threw it onto the shore with her deerskin. The fang glinted in the sunlight as it landed softly atop it.
We were both as naked as we’d been when we walked a forgotten, lonely world. The sorrow and hollowness of that time returned, twisting my insides. My heart wept for finally finding what I’d been missing, only to lose her all over again.
We didn’t speak as I waded toward her.
The river continued to glow, and a faint song serenaded us, but Zetas didn’t try to stop me. No wind gust or fire blaze prevented me from snatching Runa in my arms and pressing her bare flesh tight against mine.
We groaned.
We shuddered.
Her face nuzzled in the crook of my neck as I hoisted her buoyant weight into a suffocating embrace.
Had I ever hugged her before?
I couldn’t remember, and I desperately needed to remember. I wanted to remember the past when we’d loved each other before we’d lost each other. I wanted to know why we’d gone our separate ways and why we’d commanded the very universe to keep us apart.
I pressed my face into her sweet-smelling hair, gasping beneath the rapidly building hum, burn, and spark. Our bodies came alive, our blood racing, hearts thundering.
Something clawed inside me, something black, something ancient, and the raw truth that Runa still found so shocking torrented from my tongue. “It’s taking everything I have not to slice open a vein and have you drink from me at this very moment—to have you swallow my blood like I swallowed yours last night—desperate to bind you to me all while your Fire Reader says it’ll only make you sick.” My voice thickened as shadows curled out from my shoulder blades. “I want to tell you about last night. How I travelled through air and darkness to a forest far from here. How I collapsed in pain only for power I didn’t know I had to escape and steal so many innocent lives. I want to tell you how the air element, Rivoza, keeps calling me Moon Master, and...and I’m beginning to recall why that is. I want to tell you about the web in the stars and how I can walk every strand and see worlds and wars, clans and cities that I didn’t even know existed.”
I groaned as our bodies slipped and teased. More shadows spilled out of my skin, wrapping us in a smoke-velvet shroud. I embraced her harder, choking on emotion. “I want to tell you that I’ll never leave. That I will never be far from you. Regardless of whether you’re mine or not. I don’t care what others might say or what they’ll do to me. I will never leave the Nhil as long as you are there. I won’t hide how I feel about you. I won’t stop wanting you or doing whatever it takes to make you mine.”
Our hips wedged together as I unwound my arms and cupped her cheeks.
Her lips parted with rapid inhales.
I shuddered as my hardness pressed against the softness between her legs. Her eyes were aflame as I bowed my head and grazed her mouth with mine. “I want to tell you that one day, we will be together. That one day, somehow, someway, we will be free and not haunted by things we can’t recall and curses we cannot win. And...and I want to tell you...I love you. That I loved you before I remembered you, and I’ll love you through every life after this one.”
