Page 135 of Visions of Darkness

The promise I’d made to Ellis echoed through my mind.

“Protect her while awake. Stand at her side until we see this through. We will find it and destroy it here. But you must leave her then. Once this is finished. And you must never give in to what I see in your eyes.”

Aria peeled herself back.

It felt like I was being cut in two.

Both hurt and understanding were etched into every line on her face as she looked at me for one second before she rolled away, and the bed creaked as she sat up on the side, facing away from me.

I flopped onto my back, and I turned my focus to the ceiling like it might be able to staunch this ache. Soothe the way it felt like my chest might cave.

Or maybe ... maybe if I looked hard enough, I might find a cure for who we were and who we were supposed to be.

When Aria’s words broke into the tense silence, they were so low, so quiet. “I was meant for you, Pax. We might have been told it’s wrong, but I know all the way to my soul that it’s not. How could you ever be wrong?”

Energy swirled around us, that connection that followed us into the deep. Into the darkness, and now into the light.

It crashed as it crested.

Wave after wave.

“I don’t know how many days I have left, but I do know that I don’t want to spend them in regret.” Her words were so quiet that they barely broke the air.

I was on my knees behind her before I had given myself permission to make the move. I wound one arm around her left side and across her chest as that hand went to the right side of her jaw.

I had her boxed against me, but it was Aria who had me caged.

My mouth dropped to her ear. “Don’t speak in days, Aria. Not when I will give it all so you have a life. A real life. A future. Peace. Love. A family, if you want it. Whatever makes you happy. Whatever brings you joy. It’s the only thing I want for you.”

She shifted enough to look back at me from over her shoulder. Gray eyes glimmered, a sea of glittering silver in the slice of sunlight that cut through the slit in the drapes. “I already have love, Pax. It’s bold and bright and never-ending. It’s always lived inside me, hidden in my dreams. It’syou, where you’ll be forever written inside me.”

Then she unwound herself from my arms, and through the shadows, I watched as she walked into the bathroom and locked the door behind her.

It felt like she was trying to put a barrier between me and her confession.

There was no chance of that.

It whispered on the connection that bound.

Rode on the tether that tied.

One so fierce, I was sure it was going to follow me into death.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Aria

Hot water pounded against my skin, close to scalding, where I stood beneath the spray with my face tilted toward the steamy fall. I was hoping it might erase the need that blistered through my body. Burn it away. Eradicate the ache that consumed—body and soul.

I wanted to know his touch so badly that I felt it as a hollow cavern carved out in the middle of me. An empty space that throbbed and moaned and begged. A match to the pulse of my spirit.

Because I wanted him everywhere, pressing in and taking over. Beneath my fingers and gliding through my veins.

But I also understood. Understood his reservations and why he held on to the fear.

But that didn’t mean I didn’t know with every beat of my heart that what I felt for Pax couldn’t be wrong. How could it when not loving him was an impossibility? There was no piece of me that could ever accept that he could turn against me.

Blowing out a sigh, I used the shampoo that Pax had placed in the shower with the rest of the things we’d picked up at the store.

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