Chapter 28 #2
Kaden’s eyes were closed, and he was paler than I’d ever seen him. Rain pattered the ground as I crawled toward him through the mud, my hands roving over his chest.
He was cold. Too cold.
“Kaden?” My voice came out high-pitched and shaky, but he didn’t respond or even open his godsdamned eyes.
Hands shaking, I touched his face, and a cold vise clamped around my heart when I realized he wasn’t breathing.
Slamming the side of my face to his chest, I strained my ears for the steady thump of his heart, but it was as still and silent as the rest of him.
A choking panic clawed up my throat, and I racked my brain for what to do.
“No,” I mumbled, placing my palms on his chest and reaching for that familiar Coranthe magic. I could feel it hovering on the edges of my awareness, but it felt so far away.
Vaguely, I became aware of Sorsha moving nearby, but I closed my eyes and searched my memory for a rune that I could use to heal him.
It wasn’t the same as when I’d regrown Adriel’s arm. Kaden bore no physical wounds. I didn’t even know what was wrong with him.
A horrible sense of hopelessness crept in as I stared down at my mate, whose face was so pale I could see the veins through his skin. Raindrops splattered his high cheekbones, sliding down his face and over the bridge of his nose.
He couldn’t die. Not now. Not when I was so angry with him.
Angry that he’d hidden the truth of what he was.
Angry that he’d hidden what we were to each other.
Angry that he’d likely known what the sire bond meant, and he’d made me agree to kill him.
But most of all, I was angry that Kaden had made me love him. Despite everything he’d done, everything he’d hidden, I was fucking in love with him.
The realization had tears clogging my throat and snot running down my nose.
Furious, I grabbed him by the front of his leathers and gave him a hard shake. “Kaden,” I growled. “You lying sack of shit. You don’t get to keel over and die. Not when I fucking love you.”
I wanted to scream. I wanted to pummel the bastard for having the gall to leave me like this. Without the chance to say what I felt.
Instead, I yanked him closer and pressed a hard kiss to his frozen, lifeless lips.
As I pulled away, Kaden sucked in a gasp. His eyes flew open — no longer the cold black of a demon but the swirling silver-gray that invaded my dreams. They were staring at me with a mixture of shock and awe, and my heart gave an erratic thump.
“You love me.”
“Is that all you heard?” I rasped, nearly choking on my own relief.
“No,” he croaked, studying my face as if he’d never seen me before. “But let’s pretend it was.”
And then, Kaden was moving — rolling me onto my back in the mud and slamming his mouth onto mine. His tongue deftly parted my lips, drawing a soft, shuddering moan from my throat.
Rain mixed with my tears as I kissed him back, still gripping his jacket for dear life. Part of me was afraid to let him go — afraid he’d slip away.
Kaden kissed me with a desperation that matched my own, pinning me to the ground with his weight. I welcomed the crush of him against me — the hard bar of his erection driving into my stomach as he rolled his hips. “I have waited five hundred years to hear those words.”
“Damn, you’re old,” I moaned, dragging my fingers through his sodden hair and tugging him even closer.
A low, wicked chuckle rumbled up his throat, vibrating through my chest. “You fucking love it.” Kaden captured my bottom lip between his teeth and bit down just hard enough to elicit a sharp tingle of pain. “It makes me patient with the gorgeous little huntress berating me on my deathbed.”
“Immortal asshole,” I hissed, lifting my hips as my body sought his.
“You love me,” he repeated, his cold lips ghosting down my neck.
As his tongue chased an errant raindrop down my throat, I wrapped my legs around him and savored the solid thump of his heart against my chest.
He was alive. He was mine, for however short a time. It filled me with a desperate urgency to rip his clothes off and fuck him right here in the godsdamned mud.
“Get a room, you two,” came an annoyed female voice.
Relief and irritation flared through me, but in the end, relief won out.
Shoving Kaden off me, I looked up to find Sorsha staring down at us in annoyance. Her leathers were filthy, her face flecked with mud. Her golden hair had mostly tumbled out of its braid, but she looked unharmed.
“Yes, yes, I’m alive,” she said with feigned grandeur, holding out her arms.
“And Adriel?”
“Here,” he grumbled, emerging from the trees with his blades sheathed and scarcely a hair out of place.
His gaze lingered on me sprawled in the mud for half a beat before he tore his eyes away. Still, it was long enough for me to realize that I was lying on the forest floor, jacket unbuttoned and undershirt hitched up beneath my breasts.
“How did they find us?” Sorsha asked as I hurried to right my clothes.
“He didn’t use the bond, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Kaden, rolling to his feet and pulling me with him. “Now that he knows what Lyra is, he must have guessed that this was our plan. To restore the Death Bringer’s hands so that he could be killed.”
Sorsha looked distressed at this information, and Kaden glanced at his royal guard.
Adriel’s expression was hard as always, though he seemed especially grim.
“If he knows we’re coming for him,” said Kaden, rubbing the back of his neck, “then we must find a way to regain the element of surprise.”
“How?” I asked, glancing between him and Adriel. But the royal guard did not offer his input. He merely scowled.
“Perhaps we do not need to surprise him,” said Sorsha, looking thoughtful.
Kaden’s brow furrowed.
“Perhaps we only need a way to tip the odds in our favor.”
“What do you propose?” Adriel asked. “Semphrys has an entire army of demons guarding the Dark Palace.”
“I suggest we bring an army of our own,” Sorsha countered, meeting his gaze with a challenging glare. “And I know just where we can find one.”