He stilled, listening with everything in him.
“I was unraveling.” I clung to his shoulders. “Memories kept overwhelming me. Some weren’t even mine, I think. And the ones that were—” A shudder ripped through me. “They were frozen. Like the most jagged parts of me had wormed their way to the surface and carved themselves into my skin. I screamed. Over and over. But I couldn’t hear the sound.”
Lore stroked the base of my spine.
“I pretended you were there. That your voice could still reach me.” My eyes ached to seep, but no tears fell. “You kept me together, Lore. Even if you weren’t there at the time.”
Gently lifting my chin, he kissed my forehead.
“You gave my hope back to me,” I said.
“It's always been yours.”
I shook my head. “It's always beenours.”
He nodded, his lips curling up on one corner.
“There, nothing felt rational. I was afraid hope was a lie, but I knew you'd never give up. Through it all, your love protected me. It gave me a shield to fight off the pain.” My hands shook now. “I would still do it again if it meant youlived.”
“Wildfire—”
“I would.” My words came out stronger this time. “For you? I'd die this instant.”
He tightened his arms around my waist and tilted my face toward his. “No.” He said it so gently it hurt. “Don't say that. I want to bear it all for you. Every torturous memory. Every scream. I swear, I felt you breaking. I felt your soul tear.” His eyes held mine, daring me to look away. “I’ll carry it. All of it. For both of us. I'd give anything for you to unsee what you endured.”
He lifted a cup and trickled hot water over my shoulders. Down my back, soothing me with the heat and the loving touch of his hands. When my hair was wet, he worked lather through the strands so gently, it made me want to cry. Then he rinsed.
“I held you in our bed,” he said after my hair was clean. “And you weren’t moving. You weren’t there.” His voice rasped like it hadn’t been used in days. “When you fell, I thought you were dead. I started dying as well. I would've laid down beside you and let the curse take me, but the dragon that helped me inside the labyrinth came. It’d saved me there, and I begged it to save you. I told it I'd give anything if it healed you.”
“What happened?”
He lifted his arm, and my breath caught as I stared at the gorgeous dragon tattoo. “This happened. It flared, hot silver, and tendrils of light shot through my chest. The dragon did it somehow. It lowered its snout and touched you, and a pulse like a thousand heartbeats erupted from inside the beast. The physical injury Prager gave you with magic knitted together, but you didn't wake up.”
I ran a fingertip across the pattern.
“The dragon spoke in my head, saying that you'd saved me and now I must save you. I would've given anything to bring you back, Wildfire. Still would.”
We were the same, eager to sacrifice ourselves forthe other.
“The dragon said you were locked in shadow and pain, that your spirit slept, and was mortally wounded.”
“It was right. I felt the best parts of me slowly leaching away.”
“I asked it how to heal you, and it told me to enter your shadow, that only a true soul mate could save you, that I needed to fuse shadow and love together. It told me to ask Valera for clues, and it was right. She had a book about dreamcraft chains, and I was able to use it to find you, to bring you back.”
“To heal me.”
He drew in a breath, and when it came out, it trembled. “I screamed into fate’s mouth, and it heard me.” His hands fisted along my spine, but I sensed despair, not anger in this man I loved more than any other. “I thought I'd lost you. And some part of me…” He shook his head. “A part of me was dying with you.”
I stroked his face. “Lore. Love.”
He kissed my palm. “Even when I didn't know if you could hear me, I still spoke. I told you everything. Who we are, what you mean to me. You’re my life. My only love.”
“You came for me.” My voice caught. “You brought me back. And now I’m here with you. I’m not going anywhere, Lore.”
A shudder ripped through him.
“What happened to Prager?” My hands stilled against his chest.
