“So said Judas.”
“I thought you didn’t believe.”
Valteri scoffed. “I believe in all traitors.”
And that broke her heart. “And what if I promised you that I would never, ever betray you?”
“That would require the greatest act of all faith on my part.”
“Would you not give me that?”
“I don’t know if I can.”
And how could she ask it of him when the truth was that she no longer even knew what her own true nature was.
Aye, she’d been born an Arel, but she’d been tainted by this mortal flesh. Had lived as a mortal being. Like the Atlantean god, Acheron, who’d been cursed to live a mortal life, it would leave a scar on her.
Forever.
She would never again be the same.
Any more than Valteri was.
Half god. Half human.
Like Acheron.
He wasn’t what he would have been had Jaden claimed him.
By being together these last few weeks, they had changed each other.
In numerous ways. She now understood emotions and felt for others. He was no longer alone. He craved her company.
She could no longer imagine a world without him.
What are we going to do?
Wishing she had the right answers, she traced the embroidery on his cloak. “I remember flying. The air fluttering against my cheeks, but that air never felt as it does now.”
She let out a heartfelt sigh. “Am I Arel or human? There are times when I feel myself going mad from the strain of trying to decide.”
Ariel raised her right leg and encircled it with her arms. With one cheek pressed against her knee, she looked up at him.
Valteri swallowed hard as he watched the shadows play across her sad countenance.
Rubbing his jaw, he wanted to ease the ache in her eyes, but for his life, he could think of nothing. “But even if you are human for now, what of the morrow? Do you know when you will again retake your true form?”
“Nay. The crone never told me that part.”
Would she be transformed as soon as he died, or would she live out a normal human life?
“Then you’re more human than you know.”
She frowned as if confused by his words. “How do you mean?”
Sighing, Valteri returned to sit beside her, but he didn’t look at her. Instead, he studied the fire. “None of us ever know how long or how short a time we have. Most people spend the whole of their brief lives afraid of death. It’s the one true demon that stalks men. The one demon they can fight for a time, but in the end we all must fall beneath its brutal fist.”
“Except for you. You court him.”
