Chapter twenty-two
“Ready?” I ask.
Aris tears his eyes from a breaking wave, standing from his normal spot on the deck. “Ready to be your pack mule?” he asks, passing me to retrieve my backpack on the table.
“You’re just so good at it.”
“My one talent.”
I smile, pulling up dark hair that’s grown back from when I cut it in the U.K., the dye completely faded. He isn’t really sour, but he doesn’t enjoy leaving the villa, even to get supplies. When I’m not actively giving him attention, Aris is almost always looking at the ocean or trees.
Something about this place has softened him. He will often close his eyes to feel the warm breeze, and, when we’re on the beach, he buries his hands in the sand, raising them to watch the grains trickle through his fingers. When we swim, he stays underwater and ventures far into the ocean, returning with exciting stories of aquatic creatures and sometimes a beautiful shell or pearl he abashedly offers as a present.
I’ve found him a few times in the canopy of trees, where he watches brightly colored birds keenly and learns to mimic their calls. He can even summon them now, like a fairytale princess.
He is in love with this world.
Some moments, a black mood overcomes him, where he rants about how he can’t understand why he would have destroyed any of it. And I will touch his face or his hands and his displeasure is abandoned; he is easily distracted.
Joining Aris at the door, we leave hand-in-hand, taking our usual, overgrown path in companionable silence. It’s a fifteen-minute journey to the main hotel, which we’ve visited several times over the past few weeks for food. Luckily, it’s like the place was stocked in preparation for an apocalypse—or for thousands of guests. Their freezers are still fully functioning and packed with large slabs of meat and produce. Most of what’s in the fridges has spoiled, but there is a huge pantry with preservatives and cans that will keep me going for a long time .
Like the villa, the hotel is completely abandoned. People were here once, which is obvious from the overturned suitcases, but they’re long gone. Something happened, though it’s unclear what; the lobby windows are smashed, chairs and couches overturned, fountains switched off. Some of the overhead lights twitch, and others have burned out entirely and will remain dark without maintenance. Beyond that, there’s no indication of what could have taken place.
Maybe a monster came through and gobbled up guests and workers whole. Perhaps pausing to belch up a femur, it continued hungrily to the next resort. Then to the next and the next.
Still, though the emptiness is uncanny, it’s a beautiful building. Glassy and modern, it’s contrary to the rustic feel of the villa. The only thing connecting the two is the hotel’s insignia imprinted on our towels.
Once inside, we navigate toward the kitchen, where Aris plops onto a counter while I look through the pantry. I start to pull out things for next week, the task so familiar that it’s almost robotic at this point.
“There is a waterfall I found that I want to take you to,” says Aris while I examine the expiration date on a jar of marinara sauce.
“Did your dolphin friends show you it?” I ask with a smile. Aris saw a dolphin once and made a big fuss about how it led him to a hidden cove. Truth be told, if it had been me with a dolphin familiar, I’d never stop talking about it, but I just love teasing him.
“I found it on my own,” he says with a laugh. “It isn’t too far off, actually.”
“Let’s go today,” I say.
He nods, and I finish up soon after. Aris shoulders the bag, the two of us heading back.
I am happy here. We are happy here. But, sometimes, I wonder what the future holds. The far-off and true future.
Aris is immortal, and I am decidedly not. What happens when my skin wrinkles and my back hunches? What happens when I die? Jaegen altered Silva’s mortality—will Aris do the same to me ?
Do I want that? And what if I don’t? Will Aris accept it?
His hand snug in my own, presence recognized and close, it feels impossible to imagine his face twisting with rage, how he might glare and demand that I live, insist that I am his . Forever .
To be fair, he is different now. He calls to the birds and seeks out waterfalls while I sleep. He brings me coconuts and has even learned to cook a little, surprising me in the mornings. Maybe I have assigned too much importance to myself and he will be fine to see me go.
Soon, we make it to an absolutely stunning lagoon and shed our clothes down to our underwear to use as swimsuits. For as many times as I’ve seen his body, the hard confines of Aris’ muscles always take me aback. His frame is not bulky like Jaegen’s, and certainly not like Ryan’s, but he isn’t wiry either. His body is capable, his chest thick but not brutish, with defined abs I often trace.
When I’m treading in the lukewarm water, Aris stands atop the thirty-foot waterfall he correctly assumed I’d love, a huge smile overtaking his face. His pale skin glistens with dew as he bunches his body, about to cannonball in and join me below. He has the body of a swimmer, like depictions of gods in the Louvre, but it’s his smile that makes my breath catch.
“Geronimo!” he yells, and jumps.
I cover my face to fend off the splash from his landing, giggling as he swims over to me. “Your turn,” he says after kissing me on the lips. “Give me a dive.”
Though he’s asking me to get out, his arms come around me, fixing me in place. I wrap my feet around his waist, pulling myself against him as he keeps the two of us afloat.
“I have to climb the rocks to jump,” I say, grinning at the sight of his wet hair plastered to his forehead. He is so classically gorgeous.
“Oh?” He perks a brow.
“You’d have to let me go to do that.”
His hold adjusts, tightening as he jostles me higher against him, fingers digging into the fat of my thighs. “Is that so?” murmurs Aris, bringing his mouth to the bottom of my ear. “Well, we can’t have that.”
He would let me go if I asked, but there’s no reason to ask such a thing.
I place my head against his shoulder, letting out a quiet, happy sigh. The temperature of the water is such that the natural chill of his skin adds a well-suited juxtaposition, my hindbrain satisfied by the sureness of his round muscles and how easily he keeps us afloat.
Part of me wants to strip our remaining clothes and have him pin me to the rocks and take me, but, more pressingly, I want him to hold me just like this, where it feels like I’m a normal girl on a normal trip with her normal boyfriend, so frantically, stupidly happy.
When I pull back to study his face, I find him looking at me. He smiles. “This is enough,” he tells me, kissing the tip of my nose. “You are enough.”
And I believe him.
Aris cannot read my mind or sense my emotions, and I lack the words to express how his words make me feel. All I can do is act.
I grab his chin and guide his lips to my mouth, and he meets my movements with equal passion. Desire drives the two of us from the deep end of the lagoon until my feet find purchase once more and I back up as Aris marks my neck with his teeth. Finally, I end up against the rocks I pictured him taking me against—almost inevitably.
I laugh at the thought, and he pulls back with his own wild and full-blown grin. Aris’ eyes comb over me. He doesn’t ask what made me laugh; he doesn’t need to. Sometimes, you’re just so deliriously content that laughing is all you can do.
And, at this moment, with Aris on my neck and trailing his lips lower—to my breasts, my navel, my thighs—worry is beyond comprehension. Thoughts of the future evade me entirely as my clothes turn to smoke under his touch and I am undone by a creature that adores me, in a tropical paradise reserved for us alone.