I slept.
And I dreamed.
I was at a lake, floating in the cool water. It was so peaceful. Tranquil. I was never alone.
A silver-white wolf sat on the bank of the lake, watching and always alert,
keeping guard while I floated and… Listened.
Someone was talking to me as I slept.
The voice was full of silky shadows and smoke. There were others, too. A raspier one. Softer, feminine tones. Quiet murmurings. But his, the voice of midnight…his I tuned into. It soothed me. Meant something to me.
He meant something to me.
“The first time I saw you—really saw you? You were just a child, but I didn’t look like this. I’d taken my wolf form.”
I looked at where the silver wolf sat. The wolf…it was him.
“Not that being in that form makes it…how did you say it?” A rough, low laugh traveled across the water, bringing a smile to my lips. “Any less creepy.”
I…I’d said that?
“You were this little thing carrying your weight in pebbles, your hair a
pale tangle of moonlight. When you saw me, I thought you’d scream and run away. Child or not, most sensible mortals would do that when confronted by a wolf. You did neither of those things.”
I didn’t think I… I was known to be sensible.
“You just stared at me with those big green eyes.” There were several
moments of silence, and I feared he wouldn’t speak again, but he did. “It was a long time before you saw me again. Not until the night you turned seventeen, but I saw you between then.”
I had the strange impression that the night he spoke about had once been important to me. Life-changing and haunting. A source of bitter failure that had once felt like it would never go away. But I also sensed the event no longer meant anything to me.
“I never told you about the dream I had of your lake before I even laid eyes on it,” he said. “I can’t even say it was a dream. It was…yeah, it was something else. But for years, I told myself that was all it was. Convinced
myself until I no longer could. It was a warning, one I heeded.” Heavy regret filled his voice. “But I did so in the worst way possible.”
He fell quiet then, and I was grateful. I didn’t want him talking about things that made him sad. I wanted him to laugh as he had before.
Time passed as I floated, and I heard other voices. Ones I didn’t recognize. Some I thought I would know eventually. They talked about the past and the future. They shared ancient knowledge, speaking of magic and power until his voice silenced theirs.
He spoke more, mentioning the night he saw me in a Temple. He told me how he tried to distance himself from me. Talked about how he saw me again when he stopped me from attacking some gods.
It sounded like a completely insensible thing for me to try, but it made me smile.
“I already knew by then that you were brave,” he said. “I just hadn’t realized how brave you’d become. How fearless and passionate you were.”
I liked that part.
“And I wasn’t prepared for how much I’d feel… How I’d feel alive just being in your presence.”
I really liked that part.
“After I had my kardia removed, I was still capable of feeling. Caring. I was still myself, I just didn’t… I don’t know.” His voice sounded closer.
As I floated, I felt the ghost of a touch on my cheek. My eyes closed. I really, really liked that.
It struck me then that I always liked when he touched me. Loved it.
“I just didn’t feel things strongly. I was no longer capable of doing so,” he told me. “Until you. You made me feel things strongly. Everything, liessa.”
Liessa? Was that my name? I didn’t think so, but my heart skipped at hearing it. And it wasn’t a bad feeling. It was pleasant. I loved when he called me that. It had a special meaning.
“From that very first damn kiss, I should’ve known.” He sighed. Known what?
Better yet… I wanted him to tell me about our first kiss. I wanted to remember it.
And he did, much to my happiness. “You knew I was, at the very least, a god, and you still threatened me.”
Well, that happiness was incredibly short-lived. Why had I threatened him? I had a feeling I’d been justified.
“You warned me that if I tried anything…”
Go for that weapon on your thigh again? I heard his voice—not then, but in my mind. He’d said that to me after I threatened him, and I had answered with a yes.
“When I shushed you, I really thought you were going to hit me,” he said with another low chuckle. “I never knew a mortal to be so…wonderfully belligerent to a god. It was refreshing.”
That was an odd reaction, but it still made me grin.
“I could’ve done so many damn things to make sure we weren’t seen.
Telling you to kiss me should’ve been the very last thing I suggested.” I felt that whisper of touch again, this time on my jaw. “But your threats provoked me, and damn…it shocked me. Even before Maia removed my kardia, I’d learned to control my temper. To not let things rile me. I knew better.”
He…he did. Because he…he’d had to learn that.
“But a few minutes with you and I was responding to your every word and every move without much thought. Just instinct. I wanted to challenge you. I didn’t think you’d kiss me. I figured you’d more than likely hit me. But you did.” His voice was a sigh against my skin. “And it shocked the hell out of me.”
But I… My brow wrinkled as I opened my eyes to the empty, dark sky above. I had…I had bitten his lip. Then he’d kissed me back.
“Fates, liessa, you tasted of warmth and sunshine,” he said. “Life. It left me feeling off balance for days. I was so damn pissed at myself for engaging you like that. I knew better. I fucking knew better. You didn’t realize who I was to you yet, and I knew the kind of danger I was putting you in. I knew
what could happen. But you were in my arms after all those years of avoiding
you, and you…you…you felt like you were mine.”
Mine.
Some knowledge arose that the idea of belonging to someone would enrage me, but not him. He was different. I did belong to him. And he belonged to me.
“I told myself it was because of what my father did. It made sense to me that I would feel that way since you’d been promised to me before you were even born.”
A deal…
One made between a desperate King and a Primal to save a kingdom… and the realms.
“It couldn’t be anything else, but I…I started to feel things strongly again. After that one damn kiss, I felt…I felt excitement. Anticipation. And damn, it had been a long time since I’d felt those two emotions, but everything was heightened when it came to you. Even anger and frustration,” he said with a dark, rich laugh. “And when you stabbed me?”
I…I’d stabbed him?
“I even felt alive then.”
What a strange man. I smiled.
“When you argued with me. When you smiled at me. When you had that
look of violence in your eyes. When it turned sensual. But especially when you laughed. I felt alive,” he said. “But I also felt fear again. And Fates, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt that. It was even before my kardia
was removed, but I felt real fear when I thought about how willing you were to risk your life. Terror at the thought of Kolis discovering you.”
That name…
My hands balled into fists. I didn’t like that name.
I felt the soft glide of fingers over mine. I looked at where my hand drifted in the water. Slowly, my fingers relaxed, unfurling. It was his touch. It felt as if he were mapping the bones and tendons beneath my skin. He spoke of our time at the lake, and how he felt more like himself than ever when he was there with me. He talked about how he’d finally taken me into the Shadowlands.
“That fear had me acting like a real piece of shit,” he said. “And when I learned what you had plotted?”
I’d…I’d planned to kill him.
My chest seized with agony. I hadn’t wanted to, but I’d believed I had to.
I’d been so very wrong, though. I knew that. “Yeah, it pissed me off.”
No doubt. Who wouldn’t be mad?
“But it shouldn’t have angered me. I shouldn’t have felt betrayed,” he said, and I squeezed my eyes shut. My heart hurt. I didn’t want him to have
felt that. I didn’t want to be the cause. “Not with my kardia removed. I couldn’t understand why, but what I did know, even then, was that I was angrier about the risk you took than your betrayal.”
My eyes drifted open.
“You wouldn’t have survived the attempt. You would’ve died. And for what? A fucking kingdom that didn’t know you existed? A mother who didn’t deserve such an honor? Fuck,” he spat.
His anger made me smile. It shouldn’t. Life was important. All life was, even those deemed unworthy of such. I knew that now. I didn’t think I’d known that then. Or cared. But it was now etched into my bones.
But so was the violence he’d seen in my eyes. Because…life was vicious.
When stolen, it became the ruin of realms, a wrath that even Death would hide from.
And Death would hide from me.
 |
Time passed as I floated in the lake, and the wolf sat on the bank, watching and waiting while the voice spoke of words we’d thrown at each other and
things we’d whispered. He spoke of regrets and wants, passion and yearning.
His voice always deepened then, roughening in a way that pulled forth glimpses of memories—of us, our bodies entwined and joined together. Those remembrances elicited sharp pulses of desire that left me aching,
yearning to feel him against my skin and inside me so badly, I fell into those memories of him taking control.
I remembered those moments so clearly. His large body caging mine, holding me in place as he took me from behind. And I knew I only ever allowed him to dominate me and my body, and it drove me wild that I could do so and feel safe. That I could let go of whatever inhibitions and
reservations remained hidden deep inside me and be so free. It thrilled me. It
empowered me. We could make love. We could fuck. And in the end, it was I who chose.
I had the ultimate control. I knew that.
I remembered that.
|
I floated some more, feeling less weightless and more solid. Later, when he spoke about his father, I remembered seeing the portrait of him. I recalled talking to him.
“Do you do that?” I asked, staring at the painting of the woman. She was beautiful, with deep, wine-red hair framing skin painted a rosy pink on an oval-shaped face. Her brows were strong, her silver-eyed gaze piercing.
Piercing like his. Her cheekbones were high, and her mouth was full. “Do you often accept the aid of others?”
“Not as often as I should.” His voice was closer.
“Then maybe you don’t know if that is brave or not.” My attention had shifted to the painting of the male, and I felt my breath catch then. And it did so now. His hair was shoulder-length and black…
But his hair wasn’t as dark. It was a shade of brown with red undertones.
A chestnut color. They shared the same features. A strong jaw and broad cheekbones. A straight nose and a wide mouth, but his was more defined than his father’s. He’d gotten sharper angles from his mother.
I could see him in my mind now as he spoke of following his father as a child, and he was striking. Had a beauty that bordered on cruel. Perfect to me. For me.
Later, he spoke of how he used to follow his father around a large palace as a child. “He never grew tired of my presence,” he said. “He wanted me with him. I think because I reminded him of my mother, even though I also resembled him. When he spoke about her, it was the only time I saw him smile—really smile. Fates, liessa, he loved her so much.”
Their story was a tragic one that had ended in betrayal and jealousy.
“He was so damn strong. He never completely lost himself to the agony of her loss,” he shared. His voice turned sad, and it made me sad. “He remained kind and compassionate, even though he’d lost a part of himself. I don’t know how he did it. How he continued on for as long as he did.”
A whisper of a touch brushed my jaw. “I wanted to be as strong as my father, but I wasn’t him.”
“It has nothing to do with strength,” that raspier voice of fire joined his, and I…I felt weight on my legs.
Frowning, I looked at where my legs drifted in the water. I saw nothing, but I felt a familiar weight I knew but couldn’t quite place.
“Eythos had many more years on him than you,” the other voice said, and images flashed in my mind of a tall man with copper skin and long, dark hair streaked with red. “And he changed, Ash.”
My heart thudded heavily. Ash. I knew that name. He was the nightmare that had become my dream. The calm in my storm. My strength when I was weak. The breath when I couldn’t breathe. He was more than my King. My husband.
Ash was the other half of my heart and soul.
“He was never the same,” the other continued. “And if you hadn’t lived?
He would’ve wasted away.”
There was a gap of silence, and then, “And if I’d lost her?” Ash replied. “I wouldn’t have wasted away. I would’ve destroyed everything.”
“I know,” the other said, the voice so heavy I felt the truth of it in my bones.
Because I was the other half of Ash’s soul. His heart. And nothing was more powerful than that—or more dangerous.
“But that will not come to pass,” the other said. “You saved her.” He had.
That other voice was right, and I knew his name, didn’t I? He had once
told me that not everyone can always be okay. He’d made me agree that if I… if I ever wasn’t okay, I would talk to him. That we’d…
We’ll make sure you’re okay.
Nektas.
That was his name.
Tears stung my throat and eyes, his offer meaning the world to me because Nektas knew that life was worth living, even when it was often
unfair and the injustices seemed to stack up. Hardships didn’t always happen
for a reason. Sometimes, the Fates didn’t have a greater plan.
But even when it began to feel like a chore one had to force themselves to complete, life was still worth living.
Even when it was unfair and heartbreaking, dark and full of the unknown, life was still worth living.
Because rewards could be found among the chores. Little pieces of enjoyment that would come to mean something. Darkness always gave way to the light if given time, and while some heartbreaks may never completely heal, living allowed there to be space for new sources of happiness and pleasure.
Life was worth living even when it was full of unfairness and injustice.
When the heart felt light and when the chest was too tight to breathe.
Because death was final. The absence of choice.
And life was a collection of new beginnings. Full of unending choices.
 |
Time passed, I slept, and Ash continued to speak. His voice would grow louder and then become a whisper.
Another voice came, one that was quiet and serious—always serious. “You need to feed. When she wakes…”
When I woke, I would be…hungry.
Ash was quiet, then I felt his touch again on my cheek. His hand was cool but a bit warmer. “I never felt alive until you,” he whispered, “And I
should’ve known then what you were to me. That you were the impossible.
The one thing that could return a kardia, scratching itself together from the wound its removal left behind. My heartmate.”
Lips curving upward, I dragged my arms through the water as I smiled. “Take as long as you need to rest,” Ash told me. “I’ll be here, waiting. I’ll
always wait for you, Sera.”
