My fingers curl against his chest, my throat thickening, so painful beneath the bruises. “Lachlan, I?—”
He shushes me, those low soothing tones, my very favorite in his vocal repertoire. “I know. It’s alright.”
My vision blurs as drops plink into the bubbling water. “I wish we had more time. It wasn’t enough.”
He smiles, and there’s no sadness in it this time. Only the purest, most profound joy. “I’m grateful for every minute.”
“Even the minutes I was teasing you?”
He laughs, cupping my face. “Especially those.”
“I cannot live without you.”
“You have before.” He kisses my forehead. “You will again. As soon as you walk through the archway, you’ll forget all about me.”
I shake my head. I don’t want that. Not at all.
I would rather carry this grief until the end of my days than forget a single breath I took beside him.
I surge forward, and he meets my fervor. I kiss him, burrow into him, tangling my arms around his waist. I want to take him with me.
How cruel the gods, both his and mine, to offer me a man who’d choose me and not allow me to choose him in return.
He pulls me into his lap, parting my thighs around his waist, and I brush his hair back from his face. Chest to chest, I hold his gaze as he pushes into me.
We flow together, whispering devotion onto each other’s flesh. It’s precious and fleeting and all the more painful for it. We try to make it last because it’s the final?—
No, I will not say it. Will not think it. I’d rather die here in his arms as he moves inside me, savoring the taste of him.
“Lachlan,” I pray against his lips, and he squeezes me closer, burying his face in my neck, as close as I am to letting go. “I love you. I will love you always. Even when I have no name to give my sorrow.”
I don’t let him say it back. Penance for my rejection. Instead, I claim his mouth as he shudders up into me and we tip over the edge together.
As we’re drying off and I’m slipping on my chemise, there’s a crunching pop behind us. A thick root by the base of the trunk bends and stretches upward. Here in the Otherworld, it fills in the opposite manner—the sparkling golden glow blotted out by a spot of darkness that expands until the entire archway is limitless black.
An ice-cold burn sears my finger, and I hiss as the ring starts slipping off. Lachlan takes my hand and offers me the vial. I swallow the liquid; it’s cool and flavorless.
My lungs seize, and I clutch my chest as agony rips through me—the novillum seed tearing the magic from my veins as the supernatural pressure of the Otherworld bears down. I stagger into Lachlan, who guides me toward the archway.
The ring nestles between our clasped palms, as if he’s fighting to hold it there, to keep me alive until we reach the door, and I can’t breathe can’t breathe can’t breathe.
I want to tell him again. That I love him. I want to tell him so many times that he saves each utterance, buries them beneath his skin so he can cut one out whenever he needs to hear it.
But the words won’t form, my voice is gone, and the archway is about to close.
He pushes me backward and I know the moment my back crosses between our worlds. Soft relief spreads through me, easing all my pain. Even the pain of leaving him. Once again, I am a formless spirit floating through an endless pocket of warmth and peace.
It closes around my body, crawling up my outstretched arm as I cling to his hand.
He gently unwraps my fingers.
“By the life in my veins, by the will in my heart, by the persistence of my soul, I choose you, Charlotte Emilie Fitzroy. I am yours, forevermore.”
He kisses my hand, then pulls the ring off. Swirling in the center of it is the tiniest speck of light, like a crumb from a shattered diamond.
He hands me my sketchbook as I fall back through the archway.
Back to the human realm.
