“I’m going nowhere,” she had said, as she picked him up into her lap. Instinct had taken over. The last strength in his body demanding he feed. “I vowed to follow you straight into the void, Serpent. One way or another. So I need you alive.”
He’d torn her neck open like an animal.
She had been willing to die to save his life. But why?
Nadi.
He loved her.
And he had never told her.
Now he never would.
He hoped he would dream of her more. If the moons were kind, he would dreamonlyof her.
Moonlight overhead. The silhouette of a siren, a tail, like tattered black lace.
Lips pressed to his.
Air filled his lungs.
And his mind went blissfully empty.
Raziel woke up, retching water from his lungs.
Someone held his hair back, their other hand gently on his shoulder. They were talking to him, though he wasn’t listening.
He was too busy attempting to breathe.
Collapsing onto his side, he coughed a few more times, wheezing, before finally his lungs seemed to want to obey him. Air.
Air.
Blessed, underrated, undervaluedair.
Opening his eyes, he stared at his hand in front of his face.
His wrist had the handcuff still attached to it. The linkage that was meant to run to the other was severed. The coffin.
He was?—
Where was?—
What had?—
He tried to sit up. And failed spectacularly. He wound up sprawled on his back with a groan, his vision spinning.
Someone laughed quietly beside him. “Be smart and stay down for a minute, will you?”
He knew the voice. He reached for them, needing to know that they weren’t a figment of his imagination. Needed to touch them.
She caught his hand and placed his palm to her cheek.
“I told you, I’m following you into the void. You don’t get to die until I say so. Leaving you chained up at the bottom of the ocean wasn’t an option.”
“Nadi—” he choked out between gasping, shuddering inhales.
“Focus on breathing. I’m here. You’re all right.”
