Page 148 of Creatures that Breathe

“Alright,” I repeat, dread making ribbons of my guts. “No sugarcoating. I found you choking to death in the arms of one of Draven’s sentries on the docks in Tallinn. I killed the Gorgon responsible the second I was in range. Cut straight through his heart. It was storming, attackers were inbound, and I wanted nothing more than to wrap my arms around you, to inspect every inch of your body for injuries, and inhale the honeysuckle on your skin, but there wasn’t time.” My lungs feel scratchy, and suddenly I have to rip the words from my throat. “I had to let go of you to fight. I put you behind me, unleashed my power, and you ran. You ran away from the shore, and you didn’t jump, you threw yourself into the ocean.”

I swallow a lump in my throat, heart pounding. “I almost caught you. Almost.” A bitter, angry laugh. Almost is death in war. “The waves swallowed you whole. You vanished instantly.”

A polite retelling. The black water hadn’t swallowed her, it’d devoured her, sucking her down forcefully. I’d felt every part of my body shatter apart. “I was so …”

“Worried?” Icy eyes lock on mine.

I shake my head, unable to look away. “Worried? No, I was fucking terrified. And furious. And proud.” My hand reaches out instinctively to cradle her chin, keep her looking at me, needing her to hear this. “I lost myself. I went rabid to hunt you down. I dove in after you without a plan, without a thought. I wrecked my gun, lost my boots, destroyed my phone. I’d have given anything to get you. All that mattered was getting to you.”

My Fated.

“It was so dark.” My hoarse tone turns broken, distant. “I searched. For so long. I couldn’t find you anywhere. I thought you might have hit the rocks, or maybe you were floating onto shore. I kicked to the surface. Minutes kept passing. It was too long.” I have to pause, clench my jaw, widen my eyes to keep the tears at bay.

“I would’ve forced Poseidon himself remove me from his waters without you. I dove again, thoughtless and desperate, and there you were. Eyes closed, unmoving, just … floating.” I hold a trembling hand in front of me, smooth, rock it. “So beautiful, and fragile, and still. Too still.” I clamp down on a shudder and push off the image as hard as I can. Blue hair a crown around her face, lashes settled gently against her cheeks, her veins had glowed silver with ichor, the will of the Gods the only thing keeping her alive.

“And I snatched you like you were mine,” I tell her, raw, hoarse, a wholly possessive primal energy thrumming through me. She was mine, even then. Before then. “I tore off your coat, and hauled you to the surface. Your lips were the same ice blue as your eyes and you were so quiet, so cold. It felt like I was freezing over too.”

Dark vitriolic emotions wrack me. The damning weight of fear, anger, and devastation claws a hole in my chest and nesting there, branding the inside of my heart. I shut my eyes against it, yank back on my gift. “You feel like that in my nightmares, skin like ice, you’re too cold to shiver.”

The nightmares follow the memory exactly.

Me cradling her limp body in my arms as storm waves surged over us, lightning cracking across the sky in great bursts of white. The dock too far away … too far to make it alone, impossible to reach with her. Us bobbing in the surf. Me begging her, begging her with all the air left in my lungs for her to fight.

I’d thrown so much of my power into her, so much of me that my skin had blistered instantly, heat had swallowed me whole, deafened me.

We shouldn’t have made it back. She should have drowned or frozen. I should have charred in her blast.

Against the Fates, we made it, as if one of the Olympians themselves guided the tides just for us. For a nameless male and his heart.

Aching and brittle, I clear my throat. “I thought …”

“I could’ve killed you,” Leni interrupts, eyes wild, features ravaged. “You were holding me. If I’d died, you would’ve—I would’ve killed you.”

As if I wouldn’t happily burn for her. “I would never leave you.” I rasp, not caring how reckless or foolish I sound. “I got you out. I cleared the water from your lungs. I warmed you with every miserable speck of my power until you finally …” I laugh harshly, a hard drumming in my chest. “You finally looked up at me and Gods, you hated me.”

Her brows slam down. “I couldn’t.”

“You did. You hated that I killed Draven’s men, that I didn’t regret it for a second. You hated that I stole your choice, hated that I was exactly the same as the male you were escaping.” I set her free from me, take two steps across the sand, ignore the horrible knot in my stomach. “I didn’t care. I’d let you hate me forever if it meant you were safe.”

I am monster.

No better than her dead prince.

Arms wound around her middle, Leni turns to face me. Why is it she only looks at me to cry? “I’m sorry,” she chokes out, tears spilling down her cheeks.

Needing to comfort her, I rub warm palms over her shoulders. “You don’t apologize for anything, Leni. You—”

“I can’t remember,” she blurts, pushing me away, voice cutting like a knife. “I can’t remember any of it. I can’t remember you and …” Her palm stretches forward to touch me, but she pulls back. Always pulls me.

Tears prick my eyes and I blink them back, shove my hand deep into my pocket. “No one remembers me, pyro. It’s okay.”

If possible, Leni becomes even more distraught. “I’m sorry! I don’t mean to … I see things. And they scare me.”

“That’s my fault,” I say, too sternly.

She flinches, frosty eyes darting to the sand.

Fuck. “It’s my fault,” I try again, softer. “Not yours. That’s my fault. Now, what can I do? What do you need? I’ll do anything.”

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