Chapter 32 Borrowed Breath #2
Her body wrapped around his. His heart thundered beneath her cheek. And then—her breath hitched. But it wasn’t pleasure this time. A panicked sound. Distressed.
He pulled back instantly, still lost. Still reeling.
“What is it—?”
Her eyes were glowing. Her breath faltered. And still—she reached for him. Coaxed him down for one more kiss. As though without him, she would wither. As though without him, she knew not how to breathe.
When she broke it, her voice was changed. Still his Auryn. But echoing with ancient sentience—something that remembered stardust and silence, long before the Shattering, or gods, or ruin.
“Breathe into me, Silari.”
The title rang through him like a strike of thunder. Just like before. Just like the Moores.
“Breathe into me so I may rest…so that the price of choosing you does not take all of me.”
He didn’t understand.
Didn’t need to.
Blind—adoring—he obeyed.
She could command me to kneel, to destroy, to die—and I would. For her. Always.
Cradling her jaw, he coaxed her mouth open wider with his thumb on her chin. Their breaths melted into one another, and he poured all he was into the kiss. His strength. His will. His soul, even the pieces that were broken. Even the shards he’d thought he’d never allow to see the light of day.
Azure mist passed between their lips. Breath given form and voice and purpose. She took in all of it, gasping, clutching at him as though it fed something that had hungered far too long. At last, she pulled away, still not his Auryn, still something else.
“When I wake…” she whispered, voice unraveling with light, “you will take me as your Sokar…and we will go together into the Endless Dark. Bound. Bonded.”
She went limp.
Her eyes closed, silver tears slipping from their corners.
Kailorien cradled her, stunned. Staring. Trembling.
“Auryn?” he whispered, hands shaking as they hovered near her cheek, her throat, her chest.
No black veins. No chill in her skin. No ragged breath.
Her chest rose and fell—slow. Measured.
Alive.
She was alive.
He exhaled a choked sound and gathered her against him, pressing her head to his heart. His fingers threaded into her hair over and over, needing to feel her warmth beneath them. Her breathing matched his now. Perfectly in sync. Like she was borrowing his rhythm. His breath. His heartbeat.
Because she is—something inside him whispered.
Because she’d asked him to.
Breathe into me, Silari.
And without knowing how, without understanding what it meant—he had.
He rocked her in his arms, forehead pressed to hers. “Whatever breath is left in me—all of it belongs to you.”
She didn’t stir. Didn’t answer.
And in the silence, he kept breathing.
Kept guiding her.
Trying to memorize this moment.
Immortalize it.
In case she needed him to do this very thing again.
Because she would.
She would.
After all, she’d chosen to follow him into the Dark.
And he, in turn, had chosen to take her as his Divine.
Kailorien didn’t move for a long time. Wouldn’t dare. Not while her body still curved so perfectly around his, her breath fluttering against his throat—in and out. A rhythm given... and a rhythm borrowed.
His arms wrapped around her like a second skin, and he refused to loosen them—not when he’d only just found her. Not when the world still felt like it might unravel if he let go.
He had dipped his hands into the Nine Rivers, and something had swum into his grasp—divine, perfect, fragile. Now, standing on that impossible shore with his arms full of light and hope and wonder, he feared to move lest it slip through his scarred, brutal palms.
“Auryn…” he whispered, brushing the backs of his fingers along her temple, gentle as starlight. “I can still feel you. What is this miracle?”
I don’t deserve it.
Yes, you do.
She didn’t stir, but the Bond gave shape to all her heart would say. A whisper of trust. Of safety. Of stay.
He shifted only enough to pull the furs over them, tucking her into his side, mindful not to jostle her. She was warm now—warmer than he’d ever felt her. Like she’d taken in his heat and made it her own.
One hand found hers beneath the blanket. Their fingers curled together, palms pressed, as though they were still inside one another, still echoing.
“You’re safe,” he promised. “Safe, and warm…and mine.”
My everything, embodied.
The next breath she took matched his exactly. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. Then another to her cheek. Then a third, worshipful, to the swell of her shoulder. Each touch, a vow. A mark of devotion, etched with lips and the fervor of a man at prayer.
“I’ll wait,” he promised, brushing flyaway strands of silver back behind her ear. “Even if you sleep for a hundred years. Even if you forget this… I’ll remember. I’ll carry it for both of us.”
Her lips moved, hand tightening in his.
He nuzzled her hairline, rested his forehead against hers, and whispered like a mantra, “You are not alone. Not anymore. Not ever again.”
He held her through the hush that followed. Through the Bond’s softened glow. Through the shaking in his chest that finally eased into stillness. If he’d been bred with the capacity to shed a tear, he might have in that moment. So profound was it. So soul shattering.
Because it wasn’t just Auryn that was no longer alone.
It was him, too.
The Resh’Agar, no longer wandering the world in empty solitude, built only to conquer and never to mourn.
She’d given him purpose and asked only for a breath.
And he would spend a thousand lifetimes making sure she never lost it again.