I was still laying on top of her, partially on my side, my head against her breast, her hand on my back. I shifted and turned onto my belly, burying my face in her heart, just as I burst into tears.
I felt her fingers in my hair, then her arms wrapped around me, pulling me closer, holding me.
“Shhh,” she said. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
But I couldn’t stop crying. I calmed down a little while later, shifting back beside her. She took my hand in hers, squeezing tight.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
I shook my head noncommittally. My face damp from all the tears. “I was back there. The night I died.”
She pulled me closer then, like she needed the contact and reminder I was alive as much as I did.
“You were remembering?” she asked, her voice breaking.
“Reliving it,” I said, managing barely more than a hushed whisper. “Auriel was there, too.” She stiffened.
“I think it was more of the connection forming between us. I don’t know. But after I … I died, I saw my first morning as an akadim again. Lyr, I—Fuck. I did something awful.”
She took a deep breath, paling, and even without my magic or my heightened senses, I could hear her heart thundering, feel her nerves on edge. “Did you—?” She closed her eyes, like she was too afraid to ask the question. The question I knew she had. “Did you rape anyone?” she finally asked, her voice hushed.
I shook my head.
Her relief was all over her face.
“But I wanted to,” I said.
She stilled, slowly shaking her head, her brows furrowed. “No, you didn’t.”
I swallowed roughly. “Not me, but you know what I mean. What happened when my soul was gone—when my body became akadim, I remember it all like itwasme. The akadim had my memories. And I have its. And in my mind and in my dreams now, I remember what I wanted to do. What I came close to doing when I had a chance. It was—do you remember that night on Gryphon’s Mount? When we opened your—Asherah’s—tomb? And that mage captured us, the one who brought us to Aemon?”
Lyr’s mouth tightened as she sucked in a sharp breath and nodded.
“Her name is Parthenay. She was a chayatim mind reader, now traveling with Morgana—she’s Aemon’s Second.”
Lyr pushed up onto her elbow, her gaze intense. “Really?”
I nodded. “Morgana doesn’t get along with her. And she makes it known.”
“Why?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know if there’s history between them. But there is one major difference in opinion. Morgana forbids rape. It was the first thing she told us—commanded. Except that first morning, I don’t know, she was making some kind of power play. Proving a point. She called me forward—told me to—commanded that I—well, you know.”
“What?” Lyr cried, her aura filling with fire and fury. “In front of everyone?”
I looked away, my cheeks heating, my stomach twisting. “I didn’t, in the end. But I came close. Morgana made me stop.”
“Morgana made you start,” she seethed. “I’m going to—Gods! When I fucking see her again?—”
“Lyr,” I said, “It doesn’t matter why now. All that matters is that it didn’t happen.”
She nodded slowly, trying to control her breathing. “I know.”
“But when I dreamt it, I remembered having her—” I turned on my back, closing my eyes, too ashamed to look at Lyr now. To admit how twisted my mind had become. “I was on top of her. And I hurt her. Because I wanted to. But in my dream, she was—she was you.”
“It was just a dream.”
‘No,” I said. “I mean, sure, that was. But it’s still real. Especially to me. I still know what happened to you when I was akadim. And it’s confusing. Because I half feel like it was me, like I can’t trust myself around you. And I want to throw up, and get away from you, to keep you safe from me. And a second later, I want to pull you close and kiss you and protect you. But I feel like it’s me I need to protect you from.”
