Page 50 of Flame and Starlight

over.

But I felt rage in that moment. Rage that my mother wasn’t my mother. Rage that everything I grew

up knowing was a lie. Rage that I was taken from my friends and family.

He took you away, it whispered.

I pushed back at it, forcing it down and hidden. I had to sort through my own thoughts and my own

feelings. With Asher’s skin against mine, his own self-hatred free flowing into me, and the thing

inside me swelling with hope it would be freed again, I couldn’t breathe.

“I don’t know why,” he murmured into my hair. “But I know I was supposed to save you, Alys.” I

swallowed against the tears. “And you were supposed to save me.”

“Save yourself, Asher.”

I pulled out of his hands and stalked off to the bathroom where I slammed the door and threw his

shirt on the ground. I stepped into the empty bath and turned on the water. It was so hot my skin

instantly began to turn red. I pulled my knees to my chest and hugged them tight. And then, resting my

forehead on my knees, I cried.

I mourned my easy life that I had lost back in England. I cried for my mother and for my friends. I

let all the anger burn off my skin and melt into the water. This was never Asher’s fault. Deep down, I

knew better. I knew that if it weren’t for him, I would have probably been dead by now, or worse. I

kicked myself for being an asshole, and then because I didn’t want to face him, I laid my head back

against the bath and cried again.

I was thoroughly waterlogged, and the water had turned ice-cold by the time he knocked on the door, two soft little raps that brought me out of my haze. I furiously wiped at my eyes.

“Yeah?”

“May I come in, please, Alys?”

I started crying again at the gentleness in his voice, and without waiting for my word, he slowly crept in through the door and knelt next to me. I shivered against the chill in the bath.

“My princess,” he whispered as I reached for him and he reached for me. Completely unfazed by the water sloshing out of the bath and all over him, he scooped me up and let me sob into his neck while he somehow wrapped me in a towel and carried me to the bedroom.

He shushed and murmured against my sodden hair and ran his hands over the towel, trying to warm me up. Even his shadows seemed to know I was cold and kept their distance. We sat on the bed like that, him staring into the fire and me staring at his chest, until the silence became unbearable.

“You should sleep,” he said, cutting through the silence like a blade. “I’ll let you change and get some rest.”

He began to stand, but I threw my arms around his neck.

“Do not leave me, Asher. Never leave me. I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I’m so, so sorry.”

He let out a breath and pushed me away from him. My heart dropped.

“Hey,” he said, grabbing my chin. “You’re a pain in my ass, you know that, right?” I laughed, and he caught it with a kiss. “I will never leave you, Alys.”

---