Page 86 of Of Night and Blood: Special Edition

“Orfelia fultoni,” Bellamy rasped to me. “Glowworms.”

I looked again at the lights on the wall nearest us. I had seen drawings of worms that could be found on the isles, especially Isle Healer. But this did not appear to be any type of insect. They looked like demon light, glowing a different color, but still the same uncanny bright sphere.

Bellamy looked down at me, a soft smile on his lips, dimples hidden away. I wondered if he might have been making things up to distract me. While my curiosity was piqued, I would not be worth trying to please. Sorrow felt permanent at this point. As if it were a core piece of who I was now.

Right on cue, I felt my body begin to shake violently, the lack of sleep and the loss of control both fighting to break me.

I was spasming still as horrific thoughts of hemlock and Mia’s smiling face bore down on me from memories and conjured nightmares. It became hard to distinguish reality from fantasy while the weight of the world crushed me beneath it.

Time passed both slowly and quickly, the cave becoming lit by nothing save for the glow of creatures around us. All the while, Bellamy held on, arms keeping me together while everything within me fell apart. I cried endlessly, begging to know why. Why did they betray me? Why had I not been smarter? Why was I always poisoning what I touched?

Bellamy brushed his hands through my hair, moving us to a sitting position and holding me in his lap. I felt every beating I had ever taken from Xavier. I remembered their warm embraces, the sound of their voices when they told me they loved me. I saw Mia’s silencing looks and listened to her scathing remarks. I thought of each life I had been told to end. I recalled every ounce of joy that I had felt.

Honey eyes and blue-black hair materialized in my head then, finally pushing me over that edge I had been on for months. Xavier had burned him alive. He had tortured him as I sat naked against the wall, curled in a ball and begging him to stop. He had forced me to end the life of the male I loved, stole him from me, made me sleep in the room where he was murdered.

He blamed me, and in turn taught me to blame myself. And after, as I sobbed beside the charred remains of the male I had thought was my destiny, he beat me into unconsciousness.

And I had loved him like a father.

Everything I did was for them, always. They were my family.

Now I was alone.

I was alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone.

And I deserved to be, because as much as I now knew that what Mia and Xavier had done to me—to Sipho—was wrong, I also knew that I would always hold blame. No matter what excuses I made for myself, there was still fault in me. So I chanted it over and over again, unsure if it was only sounding in my head or if I were uttering it through my lips.

Likely the latter, as Bellamy responded to my cries.

“You are not alone, Asher. I am here. I do not care what I said before. Any piece of yourself that you will give, I will take with honor. I will treasure you, hold you, and support you. My heart belongs to you, Princess. Never will you be alone again,” he said, his voice a doting whisper.

Firm hands heated by the fire within grazed my cheeks, then guided my head towards a pair of icy blue eyes. All at once my shaking ceased, sobs slowing. Bellamy was staring at me like he never had before. Determination and devotion lit his gaze, sparkling in his eyes like the stars in the sky.

I shook my head, trying to free myself from the feeling that had been growing over the last couple of weeks, months really. The emotion I had rejected. Because I knew those who I loved, left. Always.

Pushing away was impossible while Bellamy held me like this, trying to force me to understand. I refused to see what he was attempting to convey, refused to believe he was being honest. Yet, the demon merely waited. Pinning me with that stare.

“Please, do not do this,” I begged, weak from the months of torment and constant pain. I could not take another loss. Could not bear one more heartbreak. Surely I would not survive it.

His hands pulled my face closer, our breaths mingling in the small space between us. He smelled of smoky cinnamon and snow, and felt wonderfully warm. Everything I ever wanted, he had promised me before. It seemed now he was prepared to give that to me without any vows on my part.

“I love you, Asher Daniox. You are the breath in my lungs and the beat of my heart. And I am yours. I was yours yesterday, I am yours today, and I will be yours every day after. Even if you do not choose me, I will spend the rest of my life choosing you. I will love you until my final breath and long after. I would crawl from my grave to find you once more if it meant even a single moment with you.”

My own breath hitched at his words.

They hurt just as badly as I thought they would. Another to love, another to lose. Every bit of happiness he brought me from here on out would simply make the inevitable pain that much stronger. Yet, admitting the scope of his feelings forced me to acknowledge my own. Which left me unable to do anything but let them swarm me.

Every crack and fissure that the days, the months, the years had created in my heart felt as if they were being cauterized. A painful burn and ache that came from being re-fused, remade. All with the fire that coursed through Bellamy’s veins. That fire that he seemed to wield stronger than any of the other elements. The fire that I could feel radiating from him now, as he held me tighter in his arms. Skin of fire and eyes of ice burning me to my soul and freezing me in his grasp.

Before I could second guess my choice or over think, I closed the space between us. He reacted slowly, surprised at first, but then with eagerness to meet me with as much force as I was giving. And he did, tenfold.

The kiss was claiming, full of pent-up need and the high of his declaration. Without a moment of hesitation, I pushed his body down onto the cave floor, placing my knees on either side of his hips to straddle him. He moaned as I ground myself on top of him, desire driving me and leaving caution behind.

I gripped his shirt with one hand, pulling him further into me and lacing my fingers through his thick, dark hair.

“Asher, I do not think you are in any state to be—”

I kissed him harder, fiercer, wrapping my tongue around his and drinking him in. He moaned, but I could feel him slowing down, thinking far more than he should be.

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