“Kaisa,” Zhoric warns, stepping towards me.
“Fine. Keep it to yourself,” I seethe and spin on my heel, moving away from him. I’m trying hard to be angry and I know it. I think he does too.
I come to a sudden stop as something warm and firm wraps around my wrist. I spin, shock zipping down my spine. His hand. I can feel it, as surely as if it were real. I snap my gaze up to meet his eyes.
“Can you feel that?” I ask, breathless.
His jaw is tense, his eyes burning into me. “I can.”
Stunned, I rear back a bit. Still, he doesn’t let go. “So when…when I choked you? Did you feel that too?”
He doesn’t answer for a long moment, his nostrils flaring as he regards me. “I did.”
“You couldn’t breathe?” He didn’t react at all then to my touch. It would be impossible that he didn’t breathe for all that time I clenched his throat in my fists.
Zhoric doesn’t let me go. He pulls and I let myself be tugged closer. “I haven’t taken a single breath in your presence since I saw you at your selection ceremony.”
A rush of angry heat burns my chest at his admission. “You don’t deserve to lose your breath over me, and even if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be fit to share the same air.”
Zhoric doesn’t look away. He stares longer, deeper, seeing me, and in his eyes I recognize his utter anguish at feeling anything for me. “I know it. And yet, I cannot stop it.”
“Why?” I demand, my own anguish reflecting back at him—sharing this feeling. A feeling that isn’t fabricated, because the bond can’t do that. It can only bring to the surface what already exists. “Why me?”
Finally, Zhoric lets go of my hand, only to step closer into my space. “You think I know? I can tell you that your unique mix of attributes draws me to you. I can tell you that your beauty keeps me ensnared. But it’s beyond that. Others have had the same before you and more will after, but there has never been anyone I was certain of the way I am certain of you. It’s not a thought or even a feeling. It is the very essence of my heart that speaks to yours, even if you cannot, will not, or wish not to hear it.”
I stare into his eyes, realizing how lost I feel. I’ve discovered this intrinsic part of myself, one that he took away, and my heart wants to give itself over to him. What is wrong with me? How can this be where my heart wants to go?
“When I came to the beach, I thought I’d finally scared you off for good.”
I’m shaking. I don’t know when it began, but I can’t stop it now. “It did. It scared me.”
His smile is sad. The kind resigned to some fact that I don’t want to hear. “I was afraid of that.”
“Why?” I step closer, and the distance between us is paper thin, ready to rip given the right pressure and angle.
“Because if you’re scared, you’re feeling what I’m feeling. And I cannot promise to keep your heart safe.”
The heart that he speaks of beats wildly and even though I’m not physically here, I feel it as sure as if I were. I try to swallow down the words creeping up my throat. Try I as might to keep my tongue pressed to the roof of my mouth, a question tumbles out. “Would it be loved?”
His answer comes without hesitation. “Entirely.”
My heart flutters and my eyes close. They’re hot and ready to shed tears that I desperately don’t want him to see.
“Leave, Kaisa,” he tells me again, gently this time. I cannot count the number of times he’s said this to me. “Don’t return. I’ll find some way for you to visit with your sister, but you will not bind yourself to me to do so.”
I’m already shaking my head in protest.“I—”
“You can,” he says, cutting me off. “You did stay away and now you will continue to do so.”
I’m losing him and that means I’m losing my chance to bond with him and end this. I’ve ruined everything. “Zhoric, please—” I start to beg, I don’t know what for though.
He holds up his hand and the pressure of his power pushes against me, but I’m too weak to take it from him. Or maybe I can’t in this form. Or maybe, I don’t have the willpower to resist him any further. “I have work to do.”
With the gods eyes looking so bright, I know that’s not the work he means, but a moment later, my eyes widen. “The ravaged.”
His mouth turns down, eyes so sad and forlorn that I can’t make out what he means to do, with me or the information I’ve inadvertently given him.
“Leave, and never return.”
