“No,” he continues. “If your system is correct, he was drugging me with more than that. If not him, it was someone else. It would explain the blackouts, the fragmented memories. I can’t tell you what I did during those times, and God help me, I probably don’t want to know.”
There’s a raw vulnerability in his voice, a crack, a quaver, something I’ve never heard from any Aurelian. They always hissed about like a wriggling amphibian, a creature lower than the dirt. Robotic almost in how they conducted themselves. There was no passion, no anger… nothing.
With Ethan, there’s everything. His barely concealed rage simmers in each punctuated syllable. The hurt and pain of loss drip from his lips like acid to burn my ears. No… this is a man who feels, a man who might get it… A man who might actually understand.
Turning, I blink up into his gaze as I study his glassy green eyes. Emotions flit over his face, each of them as strong as the next. No way the government would allow someone free who couldn’t control themselves. Unless they’re lulling me into a false sense of security?
The way he looks at me, however, the way stares into my very soul, is unlike anything I’ve experienced before. As much as everything screams out that I can’t trust him, the stupid hope that keeps blossoming every time I think of just quitting the farm burns in my chest.
Perhaps it’s merely desperation. Perhaps I’m just so tired of carrying it all myself. Either way, if this is the government's doing, they almost deserve to win. They finally whittled me down to the point where I honestly can’t keep fighting anymore.
As much as my heart breaks at the thought of giving up everything, soul-weary exhaustion beats at me, demanding I give into the calmness radiating from this human. “Please,” I whisper as I bring my palm up to his flushed cheek. “I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t.”
Even if he’s an operative from the government, I’m only speeding up the inevitable. Besides, part of me wants to know what it’s like to be wanted, desired, and craved like I see in his expression. No other Icorian has looked at me with such raw devotion, such yearning.
Even if this is my last night at this farm, at least it will be in the arms of a man who seems to want me more than for my family, more than for the obstinate pillar I symbolize. He may break me, but it will be for pleasure and not to teach me a lesson.
May the Celestials prove me to be right.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ETHAN
My heart nearly cracks in two as I see the utter misery on her face. Granted, I’m pretty sure it’s not about me. This is definitely not something I could have brought about in the short span of time I’ve been here. Though I have no way of knowing much of anything happening behind the scenes on this odd planet, I can easily see the sheer exhaustion as it ripples through her body.
Hell, even now that I’m clean, it still beats at me as well. Not nearly as strong, but it’s that phantom longing for nothingness, that desire to slip into oblivion. Like recognizes like. Yearning recognizes yearning.
You’ll never be clean.
Still the voice torments me. Not nearly as loud, but it’s an itch under my skin, a delirium that haunts me with every breath I take. Even here on this pristine land that feels so much like home yet so different it physically hurts, I find myself wanting that pill, just one more slip into nothing.
With Zilara in my hands, however, it feels almost manageable. The raw, sizzling need shining through her eyes is almost enough to make me forget that gut-clenching desire.Maybe with her, it will finally be enough. Not that I believe in fated mates or some such shit, but maybe, just maybe, the ragged edges of my soul can mesh with hers until we’re a semblance of a whole.
Not forever.
Certainly not as long as the government conspires to keep us apart.
But for now. We can be each other’s need, each other’s drug of choice.
Pulling her curvy body into mine, I crush her underneath as I lower us both to the ground. As I close my eyes, fragmented memories pour through my skull, threatening to yank me back under. It’s not the drug. It’s something else.
Hunger.
I’m so desperate to taste her, to fuck away the pain and anguish, that I can’t think straight. It’s all too familiar, all too close to that core wound. Every breath is laced with that familiar scent of home. Every deep inhale drugs me on the land until I finally let her go and lay my palm against the earth.
There. Just under the surface. No one else would probably feel it. No one else would even know it’s there. But there’s a hum, a vibration, an energy that surges through me, connecting me to the dirt and further below where roots scream out, begging for water.
It isn’t literal, of course. Those who live in the Appalachians, especially the older people, always say the land has a hum… an old pulse you feel more than hear. Maybe I’m just one of the people who can feel it. Maybe Icora hits the same damn frequency.
In this one moment, I’m back at the feet of the elders, listening to their stories, feeling the earth as it sways and pulls around me. It’s mystical, almost, as if in this brief span of time, we’re all one—me, the elders, my family, Earth, and Icora.
The land has always called to me, even as a child. It honestly hurt worse to be apart from the dirt, the grasses, the plants, the produce, than it was to be parted from my parents. They never listened to me, never heard me.
But the trees did. They listened to every cry, every scream, every whispered secret that couldn’t stay locked in my heart. They took my words deep into the ground and buried them for me.
In New York, it wasn’t the same, not until I was able to leave the confines of the city. Even then, the trees were different. They didn’t hear me, didn’t care. Maybe it’s the Appalachia. Maybe it’s the magic that’s drenched the land.
Honestly, until now, until touching the ground and feeling it sing, I never thought I’d find it again. I never thought I’d feel the magic flowing through me, never thought I’d hear the grasses whisper to me in words no modern tongue can understand. Until now, I had forgotten what it was to belong.
