Four tents were pitched in the frosted grass, a small fire burning in the center. Two rabbits on a spit roasted over the flames, the smell mouthwatering.
An unfamiliar man emerged from one of the tents, strange shoulder-length indigo hair shining in the setting sun. There was an otherworldly aura around him, as if this clearing was simply too small to contain him. Beside him walked a womanAndrian vaguely recognized, all black hair and violet eyes and brightening smile.
A second man stood beside the fire, turning the spit. A man with short brown hair and hazel eyes who Andriandefinitelyrecognized, his bow tossed carelessly at his feet.
But Andrian wasn’t focused on any of them.
No, his attention had locked on the dark-haired woman standing in the center of the clearing. Brokenness and strength were written into the set of her shoulders, desperate stubbornness carved into all the beloved, perfect lines of her face. Everything swirling up inside him—all that anguish and heartache and soul-shattering longing he’d been battling for weeks—looked back at him through shimmering, forest-green eyes.
Andrian nearly went limp as he slid from Kodie’s back, feet touching the ground with a soft thud that could have splintered the earth.
His soul shouted at him.Screamedat him. Every fiber of his being focused on this one moment, this one person. He was nothing more than a lost soul caught in her devastating orbit.
He forgot his fear. He forgot why it ever mattered. He would gladly let himself crash into a dying star, crash into everything, if it meant he hadher.
The moon of his life drew in a breath that sounded like a scream.
“Andrian?”
Chapter 28
Mariah’s world tilted and cracked. The man slid from the back of an achingly familiar horse, feet hitting the ground with a thud that shuddered through the earth.
Crushing tanzanite eyes lifted to hers. A sob wracked her chest, a whimper of disbelief.
“Andrian?”
He’d made it. He’d gotten out.
He’dfound her.
Her feet were moving across the frost-cracked grass. For the first time in so many weeks she felt something stir in her soul—not quite awake but rumbling with recognition.
Andrian held himself still, arms slack at his side, as Mariah raced across the clearing. Her lungs drew their first true breath when she collided into him.
Her arms wrapped around his torso, nails digging into the skin between his shoulder blades. Her face buried in his chest, inhaling lungful after lungful of that heartachingly perfect rain and sandalwood scent.
Home, home, home…
They stood like that for what could have been a second or an hour; Mariah never would’ve known. He was tense and unmoving in her arms, but she didn’t care. She didn’t let go.
“You’re here,” she whispered. “You’re here, you’re here, you’re here…”
Her words seemed to unlock something in him. He melted, relaxing like pliant heat in her embrace. His arms lifted from his side, wrapping around her.
With a near-silent sob of his own, Andrian clutched her head to him and buried his face into her neck. His hair tickled her cheek, his breath coasting across her skin.
“I’m here,nio,” he finally said, his voice hoarse—from disuse or exhaustion or emotion, Mariah couldn’t be sure.
Did it really matter?
She pulled back, just enough to see his face. His eyes met hers with a look written from the same desperate longing that had almost consumed her, that same subtle disbelief that this was real.
Even if it were nothing but a dream, it was perhaps the best one of Mariah’s life.
She searched the rich purple blue, reaching for a bond that didn’t answer her. But it didn’t matter; none of it mattered, not anymore, because he washere.
His grip on the back of her neck tightened. Shadowed fire flared in his eyes, and he pulled her forward, his lips meeting hers in a heart-stopping, soul-claiming, all-devouring kiss.
