Chapter 44
EVER
Never.” Eli shakes me. My teeth clatter. “Wake up.”
My eyelids slam open. The wind picks up.
I’m lying on the ground under the blue-gray evening sky, purple dusk falling all around.
It’s cold, Sonnet cold that settles in the bones.
He sits at my side, still only wearing the brown pants from the Underbroke.
His face is over mine, tense and eager. So I speak. “Hi.”
That pulls a small smile into existence. “You were having a nightmare.” He unsticks a lock of hair from the cold sweat on my forehead and tucks it behind my ear. His fingers linger on the lobe, tugging it softly.
Maybe everything is okay.
Trees surround us, standing straight and unharmed. The quiet thrums my nerves. “None of it was real?” I sit up sharp, the memories rushing back in tidal waves. A few hundred paces away are the felled trees, the web of branches.
And the bodies.
Eli lets them answer for him.
Shame clogs my airway. Guilt stings my cheeks.
Those were lives. Mothers. Fathers. Friends.
People with fears, with secrets and stories.
I hang my head and stare at my hands in my lap, at my fingers, each decorated with multiple rings once again.
Gusts of wind toss bits of the forest brush about.
“How?” I gasp quietly. “Is this my gift?”
I thought gifts were meant to help, not to kill. I thought my link was supposed to be here with me. Isn’t that the whole point? Kelter doesn’t even want to see me.
“I don’t think so,” Eli answers. “Gifts require touch.”
“What’s happening to me?”
He tilts my face up with two fingers under my chin. “Your father’s side is coming out.”
Great—the god of death is coming out in me. “Is this what it’s like for…” I choke on the words.
“Demigods?” he asks. I try to look away, all the courage and confidence I built up now trampled by guilt, but he grips my jaw. “No one would know. They’re not common or even heard of. You may be the first.”
“Then I’m something else. Something less confusing, less… lethal. I don’t want this.”
“You can’t embrace it, then panic and deny it until it goes away.”
I tighten my jaw muscles against his fingers, a silent message that he let his strength get away from him again. But I don’t want him to let go. I don’t trust what I’ll do, don’t know who I am. His touch is grounding. Dependable. Real.
“I can.” I can deny every bit of pain, the death, the fear, the unknown. I can deny the loss and guilt, even my fragile state of mind. But him, this man of strength and smirks, of hidden heart and songs and suffering—he’s undeniable.
“How can you control it if you refuse to believe it’s real?”
The outer layer of my heart cracks. Violent gusts of chilled air tear branches from limbs. “Look what I did.” I wave a hand at the sea of bodies.
“You were protecting and defending.” He grins. “Only with a little darkness on your sleeve.” His fingers press harder. His eyes unlock new layers of emotion, both unsettling and alluring. “It was perfect. You were perfect.”
My heart thumps. Again and again. Trying to escape his hold. But a shadow enters my chest and shoves my feelings down to unreachable depths.
“You’ve got my heart.” I cover it with my hand, the beat hammering into my palm. The wind whips my hair from cheek to cheek.
“Always.”
“I mean you’re controlling it. You stopped me from reacting.”
His eyes fall shut, and he drops his hand from my face before reopening them. “It’s safer that way.”
I scratch dirt from my corduroy pants and pretend I don’t care. “Is Atom okay? Where is everyone?”
“Safe. No one has tried to attack again after what you did.” He hands me a canteen.
“And the kid is fine. He wouldn’t stop hovering over you and asking me questions.
And Milo kept checking if you were breathing every five minutes.
Kaleida was lecturing me about how cold you were.
Then Sypher complained about the bodies—even though they’re preserved by the cold—and the fucking Hollow looked at you, so I sent them all to Milo’s house for more bars.
They’ll sleep there tonight if it’s safe and come back in the morning. ”
“It’s almost like they’re your friends,” I tease. “And why so much fuss while I slept?”
“You’ve been out since yesterday afternoon.”
I tense. “A whole day?”
“Longer. You woke up a few times for things. I’ve been feeding you and giving you water, but you weren’t there. You didn’t speak or look at me.”
It seems my brain has mastered unconsciousness. And left me out of it.
“You fed me?”
He smiles, a sharpness to it I don’t recognize. “You chewed with your mouth open and bit my fingers.”
His words are innocent. Even the way he helps tip the canteen against my lips when my hands shake is thoughtful.
But beneath the surface lurks a darkness, a desire.
It’s unmistakable. It’s not his dark aura—I rarely see it now without his lightness.
They’ve merged, like him and Kelter, like a warm breeze and a kiss of rain on the coldest, darkest night.
But this? This is new. And dangerous.
“Your curse is fading. I can hardly feel your light and dark sides anymore. They’re mixing together, turning gray.”
Fear flashes through his eyes. Fingers skitter down my neck as his breeze wisps over my cheeks, nothing like the cold wind striking the rest of me. He has no response, only unfeeling glances and tense hands.
It seems every step closer is a step away. With Eli. With getting answers. With the elixir. The border. The curse. Magic. I’d rather be going backward than nowhere at all.
Eli said I have to choose what matters to me, that I have to give it purpose, but how?
What if I choose him? How can I do that with my heart locked up, without taking risks?
I can’t. I’m directionless, lost in my own map of endless dead ends.
Picked up by a storm and dropped again. But I’m tired of choosing nothing and going nowhere.
I want to be the storm. Like I was when I fought the Vaile. How do I hold onto that?
I beg my heart not to get out of line. One normal beat at a time, please.
I swallow a swig of water and put a hand on his knee, choosing kindness out of caution, even though it feels clumsy coming out of my mouth. And maybe I still care, even with how he commands my heart. “Did you recover from drowning and get some rest while I was out?”
I don’t miss the almost imperceptible upward flick of his eyebrow, the tilt of his head. He’s struggling to maintain control. But of what? “No. I watched you sleep.”
That explains it. He’s exhausted. “You can’t keep going like this forever.”
“I can.”
“That’s—”
“I told you. I don’t sleep.” He cracks one knuckle at a time, the pressure building inside him, pressing at the seams of his facade.
“I don’t require it and physically can’t since merging with my father.
I was a regular kid before all this. Or thought I was.
I slept and bled and had senses like everyone else, but I was cursed with my dark and light sides all along and didn’t know what was wrong with me. Then I had to deal with the merge.”
My mind seeks the comfort of logic. “You have a bed at the castle. Or had.”
“Have. I’m going to repair the whole place and take you home with me. And people would question it if I didn’t have a bed.”
Home. With him. Because he wants to keep me forever with my heart locked away. Maybe he could lock away the pain too. “Don’t you get tired?”
“Yes. But not sleepy.” He pulls his lucky stone from a pocket and holds it end to end with his finger and thumb, spinning it with the pointer of his other hand. Even that action carries an edge to it.
“Are you linking?” I ask.
His head snaps up. “What?”
“You’re not yourself.”
Like I flipped a switch, he curls his hand around my throat and shoves me back to the ground. “Of course I’m not myself. I’m thousands of other people. And part Kelter!”
He presses harder, eyes so vicious and focused—and eerily dark green—that he’s nowhere to be found in them.
I swallow against his hand. Air. I need air. The wind dies down to the point of eerie stillness. I scratch at his arms and plead with my eyes. Let go.
But he doesn’t. He squeezes tighter, heavy breaths rolling through him as he speaks, the wind fluffing up his curls into a wild mess.
“I don’t link either. I mature and become fertile and receive a gift without anyone else involved.
In thousands of lifetimes, no one has ever needed me like they do when linking, never craved my presence in the most primal way, never suffered my loss.
I shared every woman I had with her link, dead or alive.
I’ve never been ‘the one’ for anyone. And never will be. ”
He releases my throat, a horrified look on his face. He stares at his hand. Then me. And back to his hand. Then scoots away. “You can’t be around me.”
I cram as much air as possible down my throat and wipe away tears. The wind whirls again. “I crave you.”
He shakes his head, a merciless scowl slipping over his concern. “Don’t.”
“What’s going on, Eli?” I grab his arm before he can put more space between us.
He shudders, and the way his eyes flutter closed, only for a moment, tells me it’s the pleasurable kind.
I run my hand up his bicep, then in, settling on the firm muscles of his chest. My fingers tap. “I’m not afraid of you. Don’t you know that by now?”
He pulls me onto his lap in a single swoop. “You should be.”