She raised a hand, lamely gesturing at him. “One of them,” sheswallowed, “it was just like this. This cave. You and me standing here. But we were different.” She wouldn’t tell him how it had felt when they’d embraced. How it had seemed the most natural thing in the world.
Daris remained silent, his gaze fixed on her, cautious yet filled with a heartbroken expression that pained her.
“You tried to kill me,” she whispered.
He winced and turned his head away. She could see from the way he took a step back she’d hurt him. Again.
She didn’t—couldn’t—speak for a long time.
Daris was still looking away when he spoke, his voice hoarse. “I would never hurt you. I cannot.”
There was a pause, but she didn’t speak.
He looked back at her and started toward her. She stiffened. He dropped his arms at his sides, defeated. “I’ve had many chances, Terena. I could have let Bethana do the job if that was what I’d wanted.”
Daris leaned forward, his face a mask of despair and passion; the power radiating off him should have scared her. The glowing blue light around them limned his pale face, and the scars across his left cheek and ear moved as he worked his jaw.
Considering everything in the past few minutes, that slight movement should have made her run as fast and as far as she could get from him—indeed, it had been her first and only instinct when realization had hit. She had power, too, but she hadn’t used it against him. Even in the dream, she hadn’t used her power and now she thought about it, she wondered why that was.
Emboldened, Daris took another step closer, his jaw tight as a muscle ticked. He narrowed his eyes. “Since I saw you in Aurora, I can’t,” he held a hand up to his chest and exhaled. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Her mouth opened and her heart slammed into her ribs.
“I don’t know what your vision showed you,” he said through gritted teeth, “but it couldn’t have been me. I know it. When Bethana attacked you, I swear to the gods, Terena, it was as if I was dying. Idon’t know how I even breathed, seeing her mouth on your arm, the pain on your face, I?—”
He turned his head. Closed his eyes and took a breath. “I know it couldn’t have been me in your vision because I would give my life for you.”
Terena exhaled raggedly.
When she’d seen him at the duke’s palace, she had experienced it too. At the time, she’d thought it was an attraction simply because he’s handsome. But she remembered that feeling of… knowing him. Deep in her bones.
In her soul.
Since she’d fled Metilai and come to know Daris, the guilt ate at her for what she was feeling for him while she should have been mourning Lerek. Whom she’d loved. The man she had wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
And a voice in her heart plagued her, telling her maybe she hadn’t loved him at all.
Terena looked at Daris, vulnerable and overwhelmed. They had spent little time together, but she somehow knew more about him, who he was as a person, than she ever did about Lerek. There was no rationalizing it, and she had the sudden thought that if she had done this before, that if she was reliving this life somehow, she had, in fact, known him in that past life.
Had loved him.
That thought hollowed out her insides, and she became dizzy.
Her mind screamed at her to stop, to turn and run, but she took a step closer to him.
“Me too,” she said. “I mean, I can’t stop thinking about you, either.”
His head snapped up, his eyes blazing. But still wary.
She swallowed and waved a hand at him. “Obviously,” her laughter hitched, and she took a deep breath, “since I have dreams about you.”
That acknowledgment unlocked something inside her. The pain in her chest eased and her mind settled.
Terena wasn’t sure which of them moved first. Daris crushed her in his arms, and she wrapped hers around him, grasping, finding hishead, and threading her fingers through his hair. Their kiss was wild and desperate.
Liberating.
He consumed her, greedy, her mouth opening, wanting to taste more of him, all of him. He slanted his mouth and swept his tongue inside, finding hers, teeth clashing, mouth devouring.
