“Losing you.”
Her expression was pained. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes. “I’m sorry, Cruxan. I’ll make it up to you. I’ll make everything up to you. Just give me the chance to.”
His breath hitched, hope filling his chest for the first moment since he’d seen her.
Immediately, he tilted her face back and kissed her hard. Her surprised gasp puffed against his lips but he deepened the kiss, holding her close when he felt her respond to him.
“All I care about,” he began, pressing the words into her lips, “is that you are here,luxiva. I do not care about the rest. Only that you are here.”
Vrax, he could not believe this. Did he dare to believe this?
But she was real. She was in his arms. He tasted her tears and felt her golden hair brushing across his chest.
“I missed you,” she whispered. “So much.”
He pulled back to look at her. Her eyes were shining and her lips were red.
“I tasted life without you,” she said softly. “And it wasmiserable. I can’t live without you, it seems. How was it only a little while ago that I had lived without you?”
Her words echoed true within him.
But the weight of the last five spans crashed down on him in that moment. He’d barely slept, had barely eaten. It was a miracle he was even standing at that moment.
“Cruxan?” she whispered, worried.
He stroked her cheek. A little ruefully, he admitted, “I need sleep. But I do not want to sleep now that you are here. I still cannot believe you are here.”
“Let’s go to sleep then,” she said, her tone light and soothing. She stroked down his skin. “I promise I won’t leave your side. Not again.”
“Tev?”
She smiled and he’d never seen anything more beautiful.
“Not ever,” she whispered.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Crystal studied Cruxan in his sleep, wanting nothing more than to trace the strong, sloping lines of his features. But she stopped herself, knowing that he needed sleep.
Judging by the way he’d promptly passed out, mere moments after pulling her into his arms, she knew that he hadn’t slept at all sinceKroratax.
From the moment she’d first seen him, she’d known that he had handled their separation about as well as she had. He’d looked tense, on edge, his eyes dulled of their usual vibrant color.
And it had broken her heart all over again, knowing that she was to blame for it.
She needed to sleep too, but she just wanted to look at him a little while longer, as if to assure herself he was there.
Her cheek was pressed into his forearm, which she was using as her pillow. Her hand was curled over his hip, her legs tucked between his. She breathed him in deep, letting him fill her lungs to the brim.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, Cruxan.”
Only then did she allow herself to close her eyes.
She woketo his touch and it quickened her breath. It made herwant,it made herneedas opposed to feel fear.
Early morning light—so early that she knew it was just the beginnings of dawn—filtered through the large window in his bedroom and through a skylight from above the bed.
Cruxan was lying on his side, his eyes bright and rested, stroking through her hair with the hand she wasn’t laying on.
