The others must have remained upstairs. I didn’t care about them.
I drifted to the bars to get as close to my mate as possible. Her posture was rigid, as though it took immense effort to keep her body upright. She moved slowly, too.
Her heartbeat was a drum in my ears. The sound was the most beautiful music—cleansing after how sluggish it had been in the forest.
She was nervous.
I made an effort to look less menacing, though I had no idea how I came off to her.
She didn’tlikeme, that much was obvious. She could hardly even tolerate my presence.
But somehow, some way, I knew she would come around. It was fated.
I just had to keep trying.
“You asked for me,” she said. Not a question but a statement uttered tersely.
My demands had clearly made their way to her.
“I did.”
She tilted her head to the side, waiting for me to speak.
But I didn’t know what to say. How could I explain that I couldn’t move on if I didn’t know she was alright? How could I explain that the thought of her death extinguished every burning flame in my soul? How could I explain that my happiness relied solely on whether she was okay, whether she had a smile on her face?
How could I explain that she was my life now?
Every breath I pulled into my lungs was for her and her alone.
The intensity would surely scare her away.
“Well?” she asked. “Let’s hear it.”
I swallowed past the tightness in my throat. “I was worried about you.” That was the understatement of the millennia.
“Worried? And why would you be worried?”
Did she not know? “I found you. In the woods.”
She nodded slowly. “That was you. I guessed as much.”
I waited for her to say more. For her to condemn me. To curse at me. To accuse me of poisoning her as the others had.
But she didn’t.
She merely examined my face.
“I wasn’t sure,” I started. “I didn’t know if you were going to make it. Your heart was beating so slowly…”
She nodded, but her throat worked on a swallow. “You can hear my heartbeat?”
“I can.” Was that not normal? Her heartbeat was a drumin my ear, something I was constantly aware of in her presence. My favorite sound. I couldn’t tune her out even if I wanted to.
“Okay. That’s… okay. Well,” she flipped her hand aimlessly. “I made it.”
“And thank the fates for that,” I said quietly. This realm would not have recovered from the destruction if she hadn’t.
“They think you poisoned me.”
