Chapter 4 #2
“Stop being such an idiot.” He chuckled. “Just finally get what you came here for and stop torturing me over it, will you? Then you can go on with your life once I stop weighing you down like an anchor.” He smirked.
“I am not an idiot! I love you!” The words escaped before she could stop them, bursting forth now that the dam was broken.
“What?” His eyes widened.
“I love you.” Now that she’d started, she couldn’t stop.
“I hate that I do. I’ve tried not to. I’ve reminded myself every day of what you’ve done, who you are, why this is the worst idea in the world.
But somewhere in this stupid mess of everything, I fell in love with you and I can’t stop it.
And now the thought of you dying—it terrifies me. ”
It was panic.
She was so afraid.
“You can’t leave me, Raziel. You can’t. Please.” She pressed her forehead against his, feeling the unnatural heat of his skin. “We’re the same. And I see you, Raziel Nostrom. All of you. The monster and the man and everything in between.”
“Nadi—”
“And I love all of you. Mother moon help me, I love all of you. Raziel Nostrom. The Serpent. Whoever you choose to be. Whatever is left when all this is said and done. But you have to live.” The tears were flowing freely now.
“So you don’t get to die. Do you understand?
I forbid it. I’ll make a deal with the lords of the deep if I have to. I’ll sell them my soul, if they’ll—”
He kissed her then, pulling her against him with surprising strength.
It was desperate and gentle at once, tasting of poison and the metallic tang of blood.
His lips were too hot against hers, his hands shaking where they held her, but she didn’t care.
She kissed him back with equal desperation, trying to pour all her love and fear and determination into the contact.
When they finally broke apart, they were both breathing hard.
“We’re impossible,” he whispered against her lips.
“So we’ll be impossible. Together.” She pulled back enough to look at him, memorizing his face—the sharp cheekbones, the unnatural glint of his eyes, the way his dark hair fell across his forehead. “For however long we have.”
He smiled in a way that she remembered her mother smiling at her when their family pet was dying and she insisted it wasn’t.
Nadi bit down a sob and settled beside him. His arms wrapped around her waist, holding on like she might disappear.
“Tell me about your mother,” he said quietly.
So she did. She told him about the lessons in herbs and poisons she’d thought she’d never need. About how her mother had been patient with her, even when she was more interested in learning to fight than to heal.
“She would have hated you,” Nadi said, running her fingers through his hair.
“Most mothers are suspicious of their daughters’ suitors.”
“Yes.”
“And most mothers would hate the person who murdered them.”
“That too.” She felt him smile against her shoulder. “But I… think she also would have understood how we wound up like this, somehow. She always said the heart was the stupidest and wisest part of any person. That it would lead you wrong and right in equal measure.”
“Which is this?”
“Both. Neither. Does it matter?”
His breathing hitched, and she held him tighter.
“Stay. Please.” His voice was getting weaker again, the brief reprieve the incomplete cure had given him fading. “I don’t want to be alone. Not again. Not at the end.”
Fear gripped her heart. “You’re not alone. You’ll never be alone again, I promise.”
They stayed like that, holding each other in the purple-lit darkness as the poison began to overwhelm him.
She sang to him—old fae lullabies her mother had sung, songs about the sea and stars and impossible love.
She told him of the Ancient Grove, the heart of the Wild and the old fae grandmothers who kept it alive.
“Nadi?” His voice was barely a whisper.
“I’m here.”
“Can’t see you. Everything’s dark.”
She was crying again, hot tears falling onto his face as she held him. “I’m right here. I’ve got you.”
“Love you,” he mumbled, the words slurred. “Wanted to say it again. In case…”
“I love you, Raziel Nostrom. Too much.” She pressed her lips to his forehead, tasting salt and fever.
But his breathing was getting shallower. The black veins had spread across his entire torso now, reaching for his throat like strangling hands.
“Te’eilim, ish wu’iel. Drustish, ish wu’iel.” She whispered an old prayer to the lords of the deep to come and claim his soul. She’d failed. The one person she’d chosen to save in her life—irony be damned—and she’d failed. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
His hand twitched in hers, maybe trying to squeeze back, maybe just a reflex. She couldn’t tell anymore.
The sob that escaped her echoed off the cave walls, raw and broken. She’d been a fool to think they could have this. That two killers could choose each other and somehow make it work. That love could overcome the blood between them, the impossibility of what they were.
But she’d do it again. Even knowing how it ended, she’d save him from that coffin again. She’d choose him again.
“Please,” she begged the Wild, the gods, anyone who might be listening. “Please. I’ll pay any price. Just don’t take him. Not like this. Not when we just found each other.”
Raziel’s breathing grew weaker, barely visible now. His skin had gone gray beneath the web of black veins.
She was so focused on him, so lost in her grief, that she almost missed the sound of footsteps.
Almost.
Instinct kicked in a second too late. She looked up to find three figures standing at the entrance to their small cavern, guns drawn and pointed directly at them.
Fae.
“Well, well, well,” the one in front said, his mouth pulling into a lopsided, sarcastic smile. “What’s this, then?”
Wait.
She knew him.
Like a brick to the face, memories crashed over her as she recognized the fae pointing the gun directly at her.
It had been decades. An image of him tugging on her tail, yanking her backwards as she tried to dive deeper to escape from him.
Laughing as she caught him off guard and pushed him into a tebit shrub.
He’d picked the tiny green fuzzy sticky seeds out of his hair and clothes for days, turning them into tiny projectiles he’d flicked at her over dinner.
He was no longer that boy.
But she’d know him anywhere.
The name burst from her lips before she could stop herself.
“Kalo?”