“I wanted to kiss you,” I whispered. “You’d turned my day from rotten to beautiful in a span of seconds, and I wanted to bridge that gap so badly. But I was scared.”
“I wanted to kiss you too,” he whispered back.
“Don’t you see, Aspen? You were my light—my moon.”
His face dropped, reflecting the twinge of sadness threatening to snuff out the small bit of hope I’d garnered. “Were.”
“That’s…”
Not what I meant? I couldn’t say that. Not after screaming at him only days ago about wishing I had never met him. Not while feeling hurt and confused about what he’d done to me under Lilith’s control. No. I meantwere.
Still deep in the hallucination, Aspen tilted his chin in my direction, resting wearily against a tree on the opposite side of me with his hands in his pockets, waiting for me to complete that thought. His resignation and acceptance struck me with their bitter claws. I hated it.
He watched his mom desiccate in front of his eyes. His cordistella had been smashed against cement. He serviced Lilith as her supposed son. He lived for years in a numb shell, forgetting and unable to process, until now.
He wanted what I wanted—relief from the stone fist squeezing every ounce of strength from our chests.
Everything we’d been through was unfair. It didn’t make sense, and I didn’t know how to help myself, let alone him. But I had to try. Truly, I had no choice in the matter. The guardian bond had eased its control, hovering at the edges of my mind. Yet the mere thought of leaving Aspen to suffer had it creeping forward.
I walked over to him, staring him dead in the eye. “Yes,were. I can’t promise we’ll have what we used to. I’m no longer that young girl blinded by what she didn’t know and seeking an escape and a handsome prince to come save her.”
“Save her,” Aspen mumbled, disheartened.
“You still don’t get it.” I laughed in disbelief. “Aspen, youdidsave me. From this.” I swept my hand around the earthly forest, then pointed at the memory of me still straddling him. “She hoped and dreamed again because of you.”
“Then I captured and almost killed you.”
“No. You were what I needed. You gave me the push to become who I am now and opened my eyes to the world I was born for. You always fought to protect me—or pushed me away in hopes it would save me.”
His humming sliver of light grew to the size of a beautiful pearl. Still small, but I hoped it’d be enough when we opened our eyes.
“Before I pull out of your head and we face the Shard Storm, I need you to understand something. Your life—it’s not something you get tothrow away. I will not let you.” I pressed my hand to his chest. “Your pain will shape you, Aspen, and you can either let it haunt you or empower you.”
“Wise words.”
“Ones I can’t take credit for.”
He hummed, a frown crinkling his forehead before smoothing out. “Now what?”
“Now we go face the Shard Storm and survive.”
He entwined his fingers with mine. “I did promise you the day.”
“And you’ll be promising me a lot more of those too.”
Chapter
Eighteen
Lucille
Ipulled out of Aspen’s head only to find chaos.
Red flames whipped around us like a fiery tornado. Interspersed within MJ’s powers were Ronen’s shadows, twisting black within the red. It was a barrier of heat and hardened darkness—until the wind shrieked and a spray of ice punctured our protection. Ether shoved up my nose, and then there was a flash of blinding lightning, blasting apart the ice shards.
Stinging registered across my face, and a fiercer pain throbbed in my arm. I wasn’t alone in my wounds either. Alexei’s bandaged wings bled from puncture holes. An icicle protruded through MJ’s palm as if she’d tried to bat it away. Rune, besides her bloody snout, seemed okay. Then there was Ronen.
The stupid male standing directly in front of me with shards lodged in his legs and cuts sliced across his neck.
