“What is happening on this island does not connect to what happened before you left New Orleans,” I said with certainty. “No one unknown to us is allowed access to this island. He would have been killed on a boat halfway here.”
I stepped out of the car, shutting the door without a sound, though the rage inside of me could have torn it off its flimsy hinges. Every instinct ordered me to kill for her, the lion pacing, drooling, ready for the blood in the battle. In her honor. The situation in New Orleans would be settled soon enough, however, how does one go about killing a ghost a man cannot touch?
On this island,shewas the only threat.
Opening Amora’s door, I offered her my hand, and she took it. I took the bag, slinging it over my shoulder, then picked her up, carrying her in my arms.
“Perhaps it might have been symbolic,” I said as I walked the beaten down path to the grotto. I stepped over a dry rotted branch. “However, there was never a war. A war is only fought when something vital is at stake, even if this reason is greed. You have always been the victor of my heart, as I have always been the victor of yours. This is why no man was allowed to touch what is mine. You knew this.” My eyes went to hers, and she was gazing up at me as if I had created the sky for her.
She had created an entire world for me the moment my eyes found her. A world for only the two us—even my loyalty to the family was locked out. I would turn on them for this woman with only an accusing point of her finger. In her simple truth, I only found her love for me.
As we approached what looked like a cave set in the side of a mountain, cracked steps with wild ferns growing through thefissures on each side, her nose scrunched up and she tilted her head, looking at me. She stuck her fingers in the openings of her nose.
“Whatisthatsmell?” It sounded as if she were pinching her nose.
I exploded with laughter. “You will see.”
“I’ll see it.” She sounded nasally. “But I’m already smelling it. It smells like rotten eggs. Is this purgatory?”
“No.” I placed a chaste kiss on her lips. “But some do call it the opposite side of hell’s bath.”
“Oh, goodie, I can’t wait,” she said, sticking her nose into my chest, breathing me in, as I ducked underneath the rock and darkness swallowed us whole.
“This is not purgatory, at all,” she said, her eyes adjusting to the darkness, then the broken light filtering in through an opening in the ceiling, where a blue stream emptied into a deep, dark, blue pool. “Though it does smell like there are a bunch of boiling rotten eggs in that water.” She nodded toward it.
“Hot springs,” I said. “It is the scent of the sulphur you are smelling. Tell me what you are thinking.”
Her face was as expressive as water when the light shifts. When an idea came to her, it was reflected by the faces she would make.
She grinned a little. “I’m just thankful you didn’t bring us here after our time atCastelloBurranea.I would have thought it was me who smelled like boiled eggs, and I would have died of embarrassment.”
“This cannot cause death.” I shifted her in my arms, pulling her even closer.
“I know, not literally. But. You are—” She stopped herself again.
“I am,” I prodded.
“You,” she said. “And…I’mme.”
“I am not following.”
She smiled, smoothing out my eyebrows. They had grown rigid with confusion. “You are…I’m not even going to lie, even though this is going to make me sound so pathetic…an Italian god. And I’m just a mortal woman trying to keep up.”
I exploded with laughter, and her eyes widened, then narrowed. Looking into her eyes was like looking at the gates of heaven. Her eyes were a spectacular color of sage green with a faint mixture of sky blue, and closer to her irises, streaks of golden honey oozed out. Her dark hair and tan skin seemed to make the color glow, as if a soft light emanated from behind them.
“Now I’m confused,” she muttered.
“You are the most powerful between us,” I said. “You are almost killing me—the ah,Italian god. I am the one who craves love—you are love incarnate. You drain me.”
“Is that a compliment?” Her face scrunched up.
“Sì.”I sighed, kissing her lips—over and over. “Sì.You drain me of the nothingness while you also fill me up with life. It is impossible to sum the feeling up in words, however, that is it. You make me feel everything on a level that I have never experienced before.”
I set her on her feet, but before she could turn from me, somewhat dazed, I took her wrist in my hand. A little birdie landing on the head of a lion, making a nest in his hair. That was only her physical bones. Her heart. She was my mate. My lioness.
“I am your cure in this life. Nothing can kill you if I am with you, ah? Least of all what makes minemine. Perfect as you are.”
“Ah,” she breathed in acknowledgment, then turned toward the hot springs.
