Page 52 of Alien Knight Blind Date Disaster

“Bella.”

“Falden.” Isabella smiled. She’d actually managed to say it out loud this time. And he was touching her, stroking her cheek like he loved her. Like she was beautiful.

Wait, he did say that he loved her, didn’t he? Had she imagined that?

“Bella, look at me.” She did, and Falden’s heart was in his eyes. “Do you yield to me? Will you stay with me?”

“Yes. Yes, I yield.” Her voice was sure. Confident, even if full of pain.

Yield. What a funny word. But then, he was an alien, after all. And she was dying. Maybe she hallucinated that, too.

At her words, one-half of the ancient runes on the blade began to glow with an eerie blue light. An arc of lightning lashed out from the pommel and struck Isabella in the heart, holding the connection between her body and the sword like a continuous flash of lightning. Her small body convulsed, arching back from the electrical current.

“Isabella,” Falden spoke the ritual words he’d never believed he would speak and willed the woman he loved to hear him. Believe him.Feel him. “I yield all that I am to become something more with you. I yield my heart to you. My mind. My soul. My life.”

The second half of the ancient runes lining the pommel lit up with the same eerie blue light. A second arc of lightning lashed out from the pommel and burrowed into his body, into his heart, holding the connection between him and the sword…and her. He convulsed, the electrical current running through his body contorting his muscles.

A third arc of lightning lashed out from the Lumerian crystal in the pommel and struck the top of the orb, spreading jagged fingers of lightning throughout the crystalline shell. The heat from the energy made the air vibrate all around them. Deafening thunder cracked within the sphere.

Falden and Isabella rose, as if by an unseen hand, to hover in midair. Forks of lightning wrapped around their bodies, binding them ever more tightly together.

Their spirits lifted. Soared. Connected, just for a moment of pure bliss. “Falden,” she whispered.

My Bella.

Isabella felt rather than heard the words.Falden!She reached for him with her mind. This was Falden. At once, scenes of another world flashed through her consciousness like memories. But he wasn’t hers. They were his. His loss. His pain. His love for her. His every sacrifice. She cried out.

I can’t live without you, my Bella. Don’t leave me.

It’s too late.Her body would not obey her. She could not speak,could not open her eyes. She was too weak.I’m sorry.

No. Yield. Show me who you are. Yield all that you are to me.

It hurts!She wasn’t sure if her thoughts would reach him as she screamed, her breath crystallizing in the frigid air inside the orb.

Bella, love. Give me your pain. I can make it all go away. Yield, Bella! Yield!

Blood suddenly gushed from Falden’s nose and ears, and he heard his Knights bellow in outrage as he gave his life to her. Breathed for her. With her. Linked his life force to hers.

She would stay, or she would go.

Where Isabella went, he would follow.

Chapter Fourteen

Falden was dying.

She felt him fading, the vibrant light of him flickering around her heart somehow, or maybe her soul.

Fire connected them. Hot. Burning. It hurt, striking at her body again and again, trying to get in, to break her, to get through her walls. That fire wanted to inside her, everywhere. Her spine. Her heart. The beat of her pulse. The little sparks of thought inside her mind. It was like a wall of water trying to break over her, swallow her whole, leaving nothing behind. It would consume her. Every bit of her.

She fought like she always did. That was her life. Fighting. Struggling. Never give up, that was her motto. That attitude was what got her through life, through work, through loss and pain and all the bullshit in the world.

She knew the fire was in Falden, too. She could sense it. But he accepted the pain. Welcomed it. The fire seemed to be in some kind of circuit, moving through him and back to her, pounding at her skull, at her soul like a giant fist pounding down a small wooden door.

Except she wasn’t made of wood. She was steel.

Unbreakable. She would not surrender. She would rather die than be consumed. And she would not let him die. She would take the fire away from him, take it all. She would save him if it was the very last thing she did.

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