Rise waited, weapon ready, for it to reappear, but like the heliskrat, it seemed to have retreated as quickly as it had arrived. Once again, he had to wonder how it had even gotten here in the first place.
But, with Liv nowhere in sight, he couldn’t spend time worrying about that. Instead, he began diving down beneath the water, searching for any sign of her. After the third time, hespotted her unconscious body lying prone on the bottom, and his heart nearly stopped.
Without sparing a moment, he swam for her, wrapped her in his arms, and wasted no time getting her out of the water and onto the shore.
He laid her gently onto the sand and brushed her hair from her face as he knelt beside her.
“Liverity!” He shouted her name as if it would return the pink back to her cheeks and the life back to her body, but her chest remained still and her lips were a terrifying blue. “Dammit, Strongwill, live up to your name!”
A moment of panic took over. He couldn’t lose her. And if he was being honest, it wasn’t because of some damn plan. Somehow, he knew, deep inside, that she meant something to this world. She needed to live. She meant something…to him.
Most likely, it stemmed from their shared childhood. Though she didn’t remember it, he couldn’t forget it. It was the best and worst time of his life. It was a time when he had felt hope in a hopeless situation. He couldn’t let her slip away now.
He couldn’t waste any more time. He gently pinched her nose, took a breath, and lowered his lips to cover her entire mouth. He blew two breaths into her mouth and pulled away. He placed his hands together just under her breasts and began to pump his hands, arms straight, up and down to make sure the blood continued to pump throughout her body. After about thirty, he pulled away, prepared to breath into her mouth again, but he didn’t have to.
A gurgling cough erupted from her lungs, and he helped her turn to the side slightly so she could expel the water from deep inside her chest.
She vomited water for a few moments before falling backward once more and lifting a hand to her forehead. Her gazesearched for his, and the minute they looked at each other, she reached for him.
He wrapped his arms around her and held her as she sobbed. He relaxed into the familiar embrace, but, more than anything, he was relieved she was alive.
She pulled back from him, muttering apologies, and he let her, knowing that she had just experienced something he understood all too well. Being that close to death changed a person in ways that were irreparable and permanent.
“You…you saved my life. Why?” As she spoke, he noticed the state of her clothing, or lack thereof. She had been bathing. What had he expected? At least she had kept on her underwear and bra, though they left nothing to the imagination. He could see her hardened nipples, round and tempting through the scant cloth that passed as a bra, and a dark triangle of hair was a faint shadow beneath her soaked underwear.
Suddenly uncomfortable, Rise cleared his throat and lifted his gaze to the cliffside looming overhead as he slammed a foot onto the ground and stood up with stilted movements. He turned away from her as he tried to remember the question.
After a moment, he got himself under control enough to answer, “I couldn’t lose my leverage. You’re my means to an end.”
Yet, even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t true. He had saved her because the loss of her life would have mattered greatly.
He heard her get to her feet but only realized she’d closed the short distance between them when he felt her hands on his back.
“Wings. You had wings.”
He jerked free and turned to face her, grabbing her hands in his. His rage built to a wild blaze, but he took a deep breath and said, “Once upon a time, yes. No longer. Thanks to your father.”
He knew what she saw there now. Blackened, jagged remnants of his once beautiful, cream-colored, arching wingsthat spread wide and were weapons as much as they were tools to fly. The pain of their loss came rushing back, and a red-hot anger took over his body.
He could feel the pity that rounded her eyes. Full and suffocating, it was the last thing he wanted to see.
“Stop looking at me like that! The minute I see him, he’s dead. Do you understand? I will have no mercy. Not for him! And, you can bet, I will have zero mercy for his offspring.”
“My dream! You used to wrap me in your wings, and I would sleep. I used to call you My Dream.”
Now, finally, she remembered him. “Don’t say that. Maybe once a dream! Now, I’m your nightmare.”
9
His grip was painful, but not so much that she couldn’t take it. She let him hold her hands as she watched the emotions play across his face. His eyes burned with hurt and anger. So much made sense now.
Memories came flooding back. She recalled more, things she had blocked out, she was sure. It hadn’t been an umbrella he had used to protect her from the acid rain. It had been his wings. And the soft feel of silky feathers returned, leaving tingles of memories on her skin. He would wrap them around her until her anxiety would melt away, and she could finally sleep.
“You were always nearby. Then, out of nowhere, you disappeared from my life. I cried for days for you. For My Dream.”
“You don’t remember what happened?”
“I have some recollection, but I don’t recall why you left.”
