Chapter 48
Chapter Forty-Eight
We researched until our eyes became bloodshot.
Trained until we couldn’t physically take anymore.
The fighting ring is laid out, the stands ready to hold thousands.
The news has spread, and trickles of people are already arriving.
I’m so tired I don’t even bother to light the candles or the hearth in the bedchamber as we enter.
All that’s left to do now is get a good night’s sleep before the diplomatic gauntlet we have to run tomorrow. We’ve changed our wedding to a small private ceremony where we’ll be surrounded only by our close friends and loved ones.
I make a mental note to compensate Odessa well for the countless hours she spent planning. I couldn’t tell whether the wedding coordinator was more relieved or disappointed when I told her about the shift in our agenda.
“Stop worrying, love. I can see your wheels spinning.” Sterling’s voice is husky. Deep. He knows what this voice of his does to me. “Dance with me.”
The words almost undo me. My eyes sting. My breath catches. A startled sound escapes my lips. The last few days have been nothing but a slog.
Training. Planning. Researching. Eating just to survive.
Now, despite the fact that he’s been working just as hard as I have, Sterling offers me joy.
How can he think of dancing at a time like this? We’re standing on the edge of oblivion, one slip away from losing everything. My chest constricts, hot and tight. My mind races. We need to continue planning. Preparing. We need—
“Lark.” Sterling’s fingers brush mine. “Come here.”
His touch ignites me, body and soul. It’s warmth and hunger and every reckless impulse I’ve ever had.
I grab his hand as if I might drown without it. “I’m here.”
The small distance between us disappears.
He pulls me to him, his lips brushing across the corner of my lips. “I love you.”
My arms circle his neck while my heart pounds a frantic beat against his chest.
“Dance with me.” With the way he’s gazing at me, dark eyes boring into my soul, there’s nothing I would deny him.
Though I think exhaustion just might kill me, dying in his arms doesn’t sound so bad.
We move slowly at first, tentative as new lovers. The room spins around us. My fears and doubts spin with it. “Don’t let me go.”
“Never.” He steps backward, dragging me with him. “Not even if the world burns.”
“Or drowns.” That hits way too close to home and shouldn’t be funny but somehow, we both laugh. Laughter gives way to sensual kisses.
Sterling rears back, the smile on his face pure mischief. He knows how that boyish expression of his disarms me. “We’ll be fine. Trust me.”
“I do.”
“Then close your eyes.”
“I don’t—” The words don’t have the chance to leave my lips.
“Close them.” He gives me no real choice by pressing a kiss against my eyelids.
I expect him to sweep me off my feet. Instead, the softest, gentlest chime surrounds us. I open my eyes just as Sterling wraps his arms around me.
Cold, silvery light that shimmers like ice fills the room.
Tiny droplets hang suspended in the air before falling slowly, beautifully, impossibly. Each one reflects us—two small figures caught in a vast and uncertain world—a thousand times over.
The droplets fall, glistening in the dim light. We’re alone beneath their glowing cascade. Alone in the universe. Alone and together. Nothing else matters.
We begin to move, turning in slow circles. The motion is awkward at first, a jerky kind of swaying. But as we find our rhythm, my heart does a terrible thing. It dares to hope.
Then we dance.
We dance like this might be our last night of peace.
My lips tremble, straining against the weight of my own need. How can something so gorgeous hurt so much? “I don’t want to lose you.”
His grip tightens, drawing me closer. “You won’t.”
But he can’t promise that. I can’t promise that. We can’t promise each other anything except this moment.
We’re spinning now, fast and out of control. The air glistens with uncertainty. My dark fears twist and curl, looming in the periphery. I catch glimpses of them between the droplets, reflections of all the ways this could end. Reflections of what happens if we fail.
Reflections of who I am without him.
The tears I didn’t know I had start to run freely, each one a fragment of longing, of fear, of love too big for me to hold. Sterling wipes them away with his thumb, and warmth blooms in my chest.
I love this man more than life itself.
Our bodies move as one, the way they always have. But this time, there’s an urgency that neither of us can ignore.
The water brightens his face. It’s so fucking gorgeous that I can’t breathe.
Without a thought, little flames dance with us through suspended water drops. A thousand reflections spin around and around and around, blurring into a single, shining truth.
I love him.
I love him, and I’m not strong enough to let him go.
Like music from another world, the droplets keep falling.
The fires continue to burn, beautiful and bold.
And my heart keeps breaking until it’s not breaking anymore. Until it’s so full that it can’t be anything but whole.
The water and light surround us, the music of it all softer than the sound of my heart. We are wrapped in this glow, this cocoon of impossible love and unthinkable need. The droplets kiss our skin. We kiss each other.
We kiss like we’ll never have the chance again.
We kiss like nothing else in the universe matters.
We kiss until I don’t know where I end and he begins.
There’s a thousand-pound weight on my chest, a bone-deep fatigue, and anxiety splitting me in two different directions. But I’m with Sterling, close and warm and for the moment, very much alive.
That’s something I refuse to give up.