Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Corynne!”
I lunged, boots slipping on the mud as I reached out to catch her, but I was too late.A guttural cry tore through my lips as I leapt over after her with nothing other than the single blinding need to reach her.
Though I could not die, she could, and it wasn’t something I could bear to watch.
Air roared past my ears, rain needling my skin as the white chaos of water rushed up to meet us. Corynne pushed away from August, sending his body slamming into the cliff, blood smearing on its jagged edges.
I tore my gaze away and locked my eyes on her right before she struck the water with a force that stopped my heart. Her head lurched forward and her body arched inward. Her blue dress pooled around her until the white waves swallowed her whole.
I plunged in a moment later, but she was already lost to the current.
Cold closed over my head hard enough to drive the air from my lungs, saltwater forcing its way into my throat as the weight of my coat and boots dragged me down. I kicked hard, fighting the undertow, searching the black water for any sign of her.
I couldn’t lose her again. A faint light sparkled just beyond.
The small beads of sea glass reflecting the moonlight dancing in the waves might as well have been a beacon against the crushing depths.
I propelled myself forward, each stroke a prayer to whatever god would listen that I reached her in time.
Through the waves of hair, I noticed a dark trickle that melted into the current around her.
Blood.
My heart lurched, a raw, animalistic fear seizing me.
When I reached her, she was limp, her face pale, a cut weeping at her temple.
I gathered her into my arms.The weight of her dress held us down, but I pushed through, fighting tooth and nail to get us above the water.
When we finally crested the surface, I dragged in air greedily and swam us to shore.
I kept her head above every surge, one arm locked around her ribs, the other cutting through the water. “Stay with me,” I ordered against her wet hair. “You do not get to die on me tonight. Fight, Beastie. Open your eyes.”
The nearest stretch of rock that looked wide enough to hold two bodies was just up ahead. When my boots finally scraped stone, I shoved her up first, careful of the wound at her head. I climbed up after her and rolled to brush the wet strands of hair covering her face.
“Corynne?” I wheezed, a cold sheet of dread falling over me as I looked her over.
She wasn’t coughing, and there was no rise or fall to her chest. The only thing moving was the blood still rushing down her temple thinned pink by the rain.
“No,” I shook my head and sat up fully so I could use both hands. “No, no, no, no—”
I pulled her farther up the rock and away from the water trying to consume us. Leaning down, I pressed my ear to her lips in search of breath. There was no air against my skin.
I’d watched men die across a hundred years, many of them by my hand. I was all too familiar with death.
“Don’t you dare leave me!” I shouted, tilting her back and rolling to my knees to press my hands against her sternum, pushing once, twice, three times and counting under my breath.
“You have to breathe,” I whispered, my voice hoarse.
I cupped her cheeks for a moment, willing her back to consciousness, to life, before.
The curse was creeping up to take what was mine all over again.
“No!” I snarled at the sky. “I don’t want it! Do you hear me? I don’t want the ship or the crew; I don’t want another hundred years if she’s not in them. Take it, take it all! Just give her back, please!”
I bent and breathed for her, pushing air into her water clogged lungs in hopes that it would rouse her body to act. When nothing happened, I pushed again and again.
“Don’t,” I said, tears slipping free down my cheeks. “I can’t do this without you. I can let you go. Please don’t leave me.”
I gathered her into my arms, holding her dead weight close to my chest as I rose carefully to my feet. Her head lolled forward, and I adjusted it against my shoulder so that the wound at her temple was protected before beginning the slow climb back up the path we’d fallen from.
Though the storm was easing, mud and rainwater still sucked at my boots, but I didn’t stop.
I didn’t stop to look at August’s broken body on the rocks below, or the tempest still whirling in the sky.
I climbed until the ruined cottage came into view, its white stone covered in moss and rotting wood crumbling from the roof, with a single shutter hanging from one hinge.
The door gave way as I shouldered past and inhaled the musk of old wood smoke and mildew. The familiarity sent a shiver down my spine. It felt like home.
There was nowhere to lay her other than on an old oak table that still stood near the hearth.
I laid her down as gently as I could manage, cradling her head as I did.
Tears blurred my vision as I smoothed her skirts and brushed wayward strands of wet hair from her forehead.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her, so beautiful and radiant even in death.
Death.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Beastie,” I whispered and ran my fingers through her hair before leaning down to place a kiss on her cold lips. “It’s you. It’s always been you.”
In every lifetime I had left her on a shore or a cliff and walked away telling myself it was the only choice I had. I thought of every version of myself that had stood on this island with her and chosen the sea instead.
This time, I would not abandon her.