Page 55 of Born of Blood and Thorns

Soon, everything started up again, and Nyx's powers could no longer hold time still as the stars began to twinkle once again in the distance. It was time.

"I love you too," I gasped as I felt blood trickle from my lips, and the world around me began to grow cold as darkness seemed to fade into my vision. "Forgive me," I whispered.

I was weightless, the night air cold in my lungs. Lore's eyes widened in dawning horror as I threw myself between him and the cursed blade. His raw cry of anguish echoed across time as the sword pierced my heart.

Each beat of my heart slowed, and each breath became more labored.

I heard a roar erupt from the distance and thought someone held me, but I couldn't feel it. My limbs and my body no longer hurt, and I felt nothing. The world darkened and faded away forever.

As my eyes moved on their own, looking upward to the sky, to the stars, I was ready. In that suspended moment, I memorized each beloved detail of Lore's face. I wanted him to be my last sight.

"I love you," I gasped through bloodied lips. A blinding blaze erupted within me, scorching away the darkness. The last thing I heard was Lore's ragged sobs as oblivion claimed me.

I welcomed death.

CHAPTER 28

Lore

Iheld her limp and bleeding body in my arms as I felt pain like no other in all my centuries tear through me. Sobs wracked my body as I yelled for her to come back. To stay with me as I prayed, pleaded, and cursed all in one breath, the woman in my arms who saw the world no longer.

For the woman who had defied me, stood up to me at my worst, who had taken a curse that was not hers and tried to break it; to a woman who had once planned to kill me but instead had fallen in love with me, a monster.

"I love you," I cried, clutching her to my chest. Tears sprang from my eyes for the first time in so long. I had long believed myself incapable of crying, but now the tears came freely. I held her for what felt like an eternity as time stood still, as the goddess stood over me and screamed her displeasure. Because all around us, the castle was waking up from a long slumber, and people who had not moved in almost a millennia stumbled around, dazed and confused. I cared for none of it.

Only the pale-haired woman who was in my arms. I would take the curse back if it meant having her back. I'd never told her what the curse needed to break because I feared she'd do precisely what she had done: sacrifice herself for me, for my people. Because as much as she had tried to hide it, she was a good person. Now she was dead because of me. A part of me broke then. My soul splintered into two as I stared down at her, memorizing the details of her face.

I held her, rocking her, pleading to anyone who would listen to save her. I cursed myself to save her. I deserved it. "Allora, goddess of the sun. I call upon you. Take my life for hers," I pleaded as the night began to turn into day, and I clutched the body of the only woman I'd ever loved. The woman destined to love me, to be my mate, my one true love, Isabella.

I barely registered the coming of a warmth that burned like the sun until I felt her presence.

"Be gone. Your time is done," a soft voice said behind me.

"This—this was not supposed to happen!" Nyx screeched in her rage before I felt the coolness of the moon slowly dissipate as it no longer shone in the sky. Only then did I dare to look up from the face I wanted to burn into my memory.

Only then did I beg my goddess, who had not answered my prayers all these centuries. The goddess of my people who had forsaken me to my fate. "Please," I begged. Just then, I noticed the crowd gathering. The crowd of people I'd looked on in horror every day for centuries, frozen in place. Enchanted to all eyes but my own. Those who unknowingly suffered the curse crowded around us. I wanted to snap and snarl at them. Because my heart was gone, dead and growing colder, and pain was festering inside me. "Take me instead. Give her life back and take mine."

Allora shook her head. Then she paused as if listening for something. She tilted her head and watched the woman in my arms, a tenderness spreading across her features. "You should put Isabella down and step away."

I clutched her tighter, shaking my head.

"Then you will burn," Allora warned, her voice turning grave.

I felt it. The warmth emanating from Bella began to grow hotter. I turned to Allora, horrified at the thought of her burning Bella's body. She merely watched in curiosity. Something else crossed her face: the look of pride and a tenderness that I'd seen on Alysha's face when she looked at Billy or my mother when Lara and I were children.

The unconditional love of a mother to a child. That's when I saw it. The similarities. She had the same shade of moonlit hair as hers and Allora's twin sister Nyx. The same delicate features and dainty chin. Her lips, plump and shaped like a bow, were stretched in the same half-grin as Bella's when amused. Her frame and body were the same petite shape. Allora's eyes shone like the sun's reflection; meeting her gaze was like feeling its warmth on my face. Yet, if you stared too long, it would burn and blind you.

Bella's eyes were always like storm clouds on a rainy day, ready to flash with thunder and lightning at any moment. There was no denying the similarities. Though Nyx and Allora were twins, the only shared trait they had in appearance was the same moonlit hair. Touched by moonlight and the fierceness of the sun's rays.

My thoughts escaped me as I felt the heat from Bella's body turn into a painful blaze. I nearly dropped her but fought through the pain. I couldn't let her go. I wouldn't let her go. I'd burn with her.

Then, as if I no longer had control over my body, my hands slowly placed her on the ground, and my feet shuffled back to the side of the sun goddess, Allora.

"You'll thank me later," she said with a bemused smile.

"You, you are—" I said to her as I watched Bella with that familiar pain eating me away.

"I am," she cut me off before I could admit the words bouncing in my head. Bella was her kin. "Now, be patient, Lore. I made a mistake leaving her with her father. The kingdom of the sun isn't a good place for a mortal child and a mother that can only be there half the day isn't enough."

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