A sense of loss and loneliness so profound, I couldn’t handle that, either.
A sob caught in my chest, too sharp and hard for me to force out. I wanted to scream when that feeling of deadened resignation worsened. I could feel a kind of despair on him, mixed with a self-hatred so intense, I groaned aloud.
By the time the wave crested, it felt like my body was on fire.
My throat hurt, my lungs, even my blood seemed to boil, but I didn’t push him away. My hands clung to him harder instead, one wrapping around the back of his neck, clutching his hair, the other holding his bicep and fighting to bring him even closer.
I couldn’t see at all when everything peaked.
I had no awareness of whether I said anything to him, or he said anything to me. My vision just whited out, until, at the very end, I lost consciousness entirely.
When I could see again,both of us were lying there, breathing hard.
He had his head on my shoulder, his face nuzzled up against my neck under my jaw, and he was gasping, his arm wrapped around my upper body and still half-under the long shirt I wore. He’d slid partly to one side of me at some point after his magic finished expending itself, but his weight still pinned me down, bizarrely heavy, but strangely comfortable now, like I needed the extra grounding it provided.
It struck me that the fingers of his other hand were entwined in mine. He held my hand and arm down by the other side of his body, gripping me tightly.
It also hit me that the long white shirt and workout shorts I wore had to be his.
I was wearing his clothes. When had that happened?
He burst out in a low laugh.
The chuckle was low and vibrated my neck and chest, and it sounded so relaxed and unlike him I could only lie there, bewildered, as he stroked my bare skin under the shirt.
“Do you remember anything from last night?” he asked in a murmur.
Before I could answer, he shocked me, kissing the side of my neck.
His fingers stroked my ribs and side, pausing to grip me tightly now and then, maybe even compulsively, before his thumb and fingers resumed stroking my skin. I felt an aftershock-like wave off his magic, and briefly, nothing but his relief and contentment and gratitude washed over me, mixed with what might have been… affection?
He held me tighter, even as I felt it, and I fought not to react.
Unbearably, some part of me wanted to cry again.
I wrapped my free arm and hand more tightly around him, and realized my fingers were still clenched in his hair. I was practically holding him against me. He didn’t feel like he was inany way trying to get free of me, or like the thought had even crossed his mind yet, but I still felt oddly guilty about it, anyway.
He’d been trying to get me to leave him alone for a year.
Yet here I was, again.
I’d practically forced him to come save me. I might’ve even aimed my cries for help at him on purpose. And he’d probably felt obligated, given he was likely the only person who could hear me screaming into the void like that.
“How much do you remember from last night?” he asked into my neck.
I swallowed, grew conscious that he’d felt me do it, and cleared my throat.
“Not enough, probably,” I admitted.
He grunted. When he spoke next, his voice grew deeper, harder. “Do you remember enough to know I’m going to murder Graham Strangemore?” he asked coldly.
I considered answering that, hesitated, then decided to shift the topic, maybe in the hopes it might redirect some of his murderous instincts.
“Where’s Alaric?” I asked. “Do you know?”
He raised his head slowly. When he looked down at me with his gold eyes, I couldn’t help noticing they looked nearly normal again. His face had lost that gaunt, deathly-pale look. The dark circles under his eyes were completely gone. It was bewildering, seeing him look so different from so close, in the exact same morning.
“Are you really asking me about your boyfriend, Shadow?” he asked drily. “Now? Right now? Really?”
