66. CHAPTER 66
Zayne
The Capital
Kallum, Ciondo
Zayne and Kira stumbled deeper into the woods while the weakness and pain kept growing. It wasn't possible to continue, but he did. He gave everything to each step.
Until the strength fled his legs, and he crashed onto his knees, knocking Kira down with him. Pain quaked through his entire body and blacked out his vision.
Kira fought to hold him up as he regained his hold on his body, but he was teetering. On the verge of falling the rest of the way and crushing any hope of rising again.
“Water and medicine, no arguing.” After digging through his bag, she helped him drink and injected him with another red cap.
The pain clouded him more than sedation from pain medication at this point. He didn't fight her.
Zayne closed his eyes and rested his head atop her silken hair.
Her arms came around him carefully, hands gripping him. “Brock is coming. Hold on.”
He smiled. “Get on that jet when it's time.”
“Don't you dare say goodbye to me.” She drew back, anger papering over her terror.
“I need you to be free…” He said. “It's the only ounce of joy I can find…”
Tears broke as she heard her own words echoed back to her.
“That's how wars are won.”
“I won't leave you here.”
For the first time since Zayne saw Kira drowning in her prison uniform, he pushed nothing away. The force tying them together tugged, and Zayne followed it, wrapping his arms low around her where it didn't take much strength. He held Kira and eased the edges of their suffering.
“I'll fight with all I have to get on the jet with you.” His cheek slid against hers. “If I can't…”
“You can. You will.”
Shock and denial kept Kira from seeing the obvious. Zayne didn't have long. How was he going to survive the trip to the territories? “I'll try to walk farther… But next time I fall, run.”
A sob shuddered her body. “I can't do this. You survived the north. You survived reprogramming. You can survive this.”
He nodded, so tired of making her cry. “I'll take every step I can.”
Her warmth consumed his freezing body. He needed her closer.
Kira's gaze fell to his lips and ignited the night with the taste of their kiss. This was when Zayne normally ran, but he could hardly move.
“You're really done with Mellie?” she asked. “What if she'd come with you to the territories?”
“I left her…” Zayne would sign divorce papers this moment if he could. It wasn't real. Or it didn't matter that it was real. He couldn't keep right and wrong straight, only that he didn't have the strength to carry Mellie and the guilt with him right now. “It has to be possible… to be free…”
“Then you're free.” Kira cupped his cheek.
“I know you think you're going to die. So, if you fall again, and if I run for help, you say goodbye.” She wafted a breath against his lips just like he'd once done to her.
Her scent tangled his senses and dismantled months of self-control.
Of denial. “I'll say I'm coming back for you.”
The entire time she remained in the Phaedra's captivity, he refused to look at her or think about her.
He spent so long beating what he wanted out of himself that he no longer knew how to feel it.
The way his body craved hers overpowered that.
Whether it was because she was no longer his prisoner, or because there was no future—because what could be more final than death—Zayne accepted the heat crawling up his chest. Beautiful eyes stared into his, glossed with moonlight and heartbreak, a window to the soul of the bravest person he'd ever met.
Her lips hovered agonizingly close to his.
Habit commanded him not to look, but they had abandoned the prison walls between them, and the wife who loved the Phaedra too much for him to love her, and there was no longer any excuse or honor holding himself back from Kira.
Especially not the laughable lie that he didn't want her.
That he didn't want to nip her pouty bottom lip or plaster her soft body against his chest. Because all the thoughts forbidden to him these last few months raced through his mind at the hint of her breath on his mouth.
Kira had broken so many parts of him. Now she melted what remained together, so he had no hope of putting himself back together. And what did it matter when he would die today? She could have it all. Whatever of him she wanted. He had no use for anything any longer.
“Zayne,” Kira whispered.
He stared into her eyes, for once not hiding behind a mask. Not hiding the fear of wanting to kiss her before he died, when it could hurt her.
“You said I wouldn't want to kiss you if I knew you.” More breath against his lips. More of her. “You've never been more wrong in your life.”
Every second of holding her and kissing her seared his memory.
Every time they'd touched since. When he lifted her from the tank, took her hand to help her up in the tree, held her hand at the prison.
When she cleaned the blood from his face in the office, and when he cradled her in the shower.
Embracing each other on the prison balcony with their broken hearts between them.
He remembered every tantalizing graze. Every time they were close enough to feel the wretched space between them.
Kira slowly brushed her lips across his, inviting him. Asking.
Her breath intoxicated him.
Zayne didn't just want this. He couldn't die without kissing her again.
The first time was an unfinished sentence. Back then, he thought he was saying goodbye, and now he actually was. The remaining words were dangling in the air.
Kira deserved better than his farewells. But she wouldn't fault him for that. In her unending mercy, she understood and accepted him.
Zayne couldn't give her perfect. He couldn't give her anything she wanted. But he could give her this kiss—a broken, bleeding kiss goodbye. A kiss that spoke all the words he couldn't say or think. That could unearth the buried things inside himself he didn't know how to discover.
He smoothed his hands against her, treasuring every touch, and squeezed the love handles that had been driving him insane.
“Fuck it,” he breathed against her.
Zayne captured Kira's lips and devoured her kiss, the starving man that he was. Three years of her taste haunting him, and now her sweetness flooded his senses.
She held his face, worked her hand down his throat, beneath his collar, and into the flesh where his neck and shoulder met. Her tongue raked down his, lips demanding.
They both groaned into each other's mouths.
Heat flamed inside him.
Hunger.
All that he'd buried overtook him, his body's demand for her stunning.
He ceded control. Those thoughts he'd fought against—the impulses and wants—were only the faintest flutter of what grew within the hidden places of his soul.
Each day he'd watched over her all these years, every look, word, and touch festered inside him.
But he felt so much more than hundreds of days of caring for her.
It was Kira.
She was in him now, and she was everything.
Alone in Kallum without any family, she hurt the Phaedra in ways few managed to. But she was also so tender and gentle, so smart and wise. He'd never met anyone like her.
There wasn't anyone like her.
With his remaining strength, he eased her closer, destroying every speck of that damn, fucking space between them.
Not even the pain of her body settling against his wound overpowered how terribly he needed her.
Zayne gladly suffered for her softness melting against him, even with the throbbing in his chest freezing him, breaking their kiss.
“Zayne—”
No stopping. He'd recover.
Riding out the wave of pain, he kissed her again. It wasn't possible to draw in a breath with how it hurt, but he didn't need to breathe to kiss her.
She hesitated, and he reassured her with his tongue toying with hers, until she wilted once more, and he coaxed the most perfect moan from her. Swallowing the little sounds she made. Ravenous for more.
She felt wonderful against him. He hated his hands for lacking the strength to roam her, but he could happily spend forever on her love handles and hips.
Desperation and years of longing bound them together, their kiss consuming enough to banish the rest—the grief, the helplessness, the lethal wound.
There was no fear or death between them.
Only all the promises they'd never spoken.
The promises to fight for each other, to never surrender, to care for one another.
Promises Zayne himself didn't know but simply felt bursting inside.
“Zayne.” Kira gasped his name in the middle of a kiss, hand sliding up his neck. “Please.” Tears mingled with the taste of her lips. “Please, don't leave me.”
He didn't try to talk. Knew he couldn't and didn't know any words to capture what he wanted to say.
Fine, before this, he didn't care if he died. Only preferred staying alive to one day kill the Phaedra.
This time it was different. This time he held her heart, and he didn't want to crush it.
But he felt strange. Cold. The weakness and pain stole more of her from him when he wasn't ready for this to end.
Zayne couldn't promise not to leave her, but he'd given these last few minutes of strength to be with her. He hoped she could hold onto this memory as long as she needed it.
A few more seconds.
He begged for each moment.
Fought for it.
Pain and weakness won the battle, and his hands fell from her.
“Zayne,” she whispered, between kisses, hand slipping beneath his jacket, along his collarbone and chest. “I… I—”
A familiar metallic tang stole her taste from him.
She froze in the middle of their kiss.
Lifted her fingers to her lips.
Drew them back red.
Shit.
Panic flared in her eyes, and now she looked at his mouth.
His image of her blurred. She wiped desperately at the blood filling the corner of his lips.
“It's okay…” Zayne tried to lift his sleeve to clean her face, but there was too much blood on his uniform, and weakness tethered his arms to his side.
Finally, Kira seemed to understand what she hadn't wanted to accept.
Zayne was dying.
She hid her face from him, burying it in his neck as sobs took hold of her.
He was so sorry. He spared her from saying it, knowing she would accept no apology, because she didn't believe it was owed. But he was.
Then, she pulled back, wiped his lips, and stared into his eyes with the same strength as when she defied the Phaedra. “I'll find Brock. You keep breathing. That's your only job. Then we'll go home.”
Home…
Why didn't he stay with Kira the night the United tried to kill her? Why didn't he wake up and eat breakfast with her and Mom? There was nothing in this empire he wouldn't give to sit with them at that table in the morning light. To be home.
Kira might reach Brock faster without him, but he didn't know what waited for them. What watched them. The end might be coming for them both, and he didn't want her to face it alone.
“I promised… to take every step… I could…” Zayne started to rise, and Kira gripped him tight to help him.
He knew pain. Knew it too well. This was much more than that. His body revolted against him.
But somehow they got him to his feet. Quietly, they struggled down the path, exposed and defenseless, but together. He wouldn't even be able to shoot his gun in this state.
Thoughts fled. Life fled. His entire purpose became walking through these woods with Kira.
“A little further.” She'd said it for minutes.
Always a little further. No matter that he knew how much further they needed to go—too far for him to last—he made himself believe her.
Only a few more steps. He could take a few more steps.
His thoughts slipped in and out of control.
“A little more.” Kira shouldered more of his weight. Too much. She trembled beneath his arm, struggling forward with him. “Another step. Come on, Zayne.”
He took that step, and then another. More. It was too hard. Impossible. But he dragged his feet forward, bowing to gravity, wading through darkness.
Eventually, his strength snapped, and he hit the ground so hard he lost consciousness. Or maybe he'd lost it before he fell. When he woke to Kira holding his face, he didn't know. Only that he couldn't leave her, and that he was. That he couldn't stop this.
“Look at me.” Her voice found him, guiding him back to the world.
He lay on his back, the woods so blurred he only saw smears of green and brown in the night. Blinking, his vision righted itself enough for him to make out her eyes.
“I'll be back. I'm coming back.” She sobbed and kissed his lips despite the blood.
He wanted more.
Why didn't he kiss her sooner?
Kiss her every time he saw her?
He moaned, wishing his arms worked, so he could drag her back to him.
The pain locked up his body. He was trapped within himself, fading, shivering violently from water far colder than Dr. Cooper's tank. When he tried to speak, nothing came out.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth onto his cheek.
She squeezed his hands, kissed his cheek, and wiped the blood one final time before standing. But Zayne saw something shift in the shadows, and he didn't know whether it was the dead coming after Kira, or whoever trapped them here, but he found the breath to say her name.
“Kira…”
She looked down at him, missing the figure that walked out of the shadows toward them. Zayne struggled with a spinning world and bleary vision to see if hope or death came for them.
Long legs and squared shoulders sharpened into focus. The face that shared Mom's high cheekbones. What remained of Zayne's heart broke as he looked upon his own brother raising a gun to him.
“Don't move,” Luke said, his unflinching stare on Kira.
The devastation that crushed Kira's blood-smeared face hurt more than anything else in his life ever had.
Their path always ended here with Luke, hadn't it?
From that moment, his brother sat beside Kira on the train and promised he was always watching.