Page 41 of The Weaver

He slid his hand down her neck and settled it over her chest.

Please. Please…

Her heart beat under his palm, a faint, weakthump-thumpthat echoed through him like a peal of thunder.

“Ahmya, please.” He patted her cheek. “Please,vi’keishi.”

Nothing.

Heat and cold raced through Rekosh in waves, shredding him from within with scorching, stinging thorns and frigid lashing tendrils that spared no part of him.

No, she will not—cannot?—

All the anger and fear he’d felt during the kuzahks’ attack returned eightfold. It was strong enough to rival the fury of the storm, intense enough to challenge the river’s rage. But it had not been enough to protect her.

Rekosh lowered her legs onto the ground, braced a hand on the back of her neck, and shook her. His words came out in a jumble of English and vrix. “Ahmya, do not leave me. Wake! Breathe!”

But she would not move, would not rouse, would not breathe.

Again he peeled open one of her eyes. She did not look at him; she didn’t look at anything.

“That fire in your heart must burn. Burn for me, Ahmya. You are mine, and I will not let you go.”

Rekosh halted himself before he shook her again, and his limbs trembled with the exertion of that restraint. Any more force would only do her further harm.

He had woven too many death shrouds in his time. He would not weave another this day. Could not. Not for her.

He curled over her, shielding her from the rain, and drew her chest against his. Body shuddering, he whispered her name again. Whispered it with sorrow and guilt, with fury and longing, with desperation and need.

“Broodmother,” he whispered, “Rootsinger, Protector…whichever of you may listen. Do not take her from me. I will not allow it. You cannot have her. She is mine and mine alone.”

All existence pressed in around him. The raindrops, the air, the clouds, the moisture on his hide, the entire Tangle. The pain wracking him, dull but insistent, added to the weight. And his spirit was collapsing on itself as he did all he could to deny the possibility that… That she…

Ahmya coughed. It was a small sound, insignificant against the roaring of the waterfall and the storm, but it stilled and silenced everything within Rekosh. She jerked, and that cough built into a hoarse, wet hacking from the depths of her chest. Her entire body spasmed, and her fingers raked his hide. She twisted in his grasp, bent over his arm, and vomited water onto the muddy ground.

He gathered her hair and pulled it out of her face as she clutched at him and coughed up more water. She was shaking as fiercely as a lone leaf clinging to a branch through a raging storm, drawing in one ragged, rasping breath after another between wet coughs.

But she was moving. She was alive.

Despite everything they’d just endured, everything they’d just suffered, a tiny, relieved spark of warmth ignited in his chest. A flicker of happiness.

Even if everything else was shit, as the humans might’ve said, Rekosh and Ahmya werealive.

Rekosh gently rubbed her back. His voice was barely steady when he said, “Breathe, Ahmya. Take many breaths. I am here.”

A sob burst from her. It was followed by another and another, broken by more wretched coughs. Helpless, Rekosh crooned softly and held her, continuing to run his hand up and down her back. The small bumps of her spine reminded him just how fragile his little human mate was.

Reminded him that he’d nearly lost her.

Again.

Rain continued falling upon them, mingling with Ahmya’s tears. Would that he could’ve cried with her. Would that he could’ve produced even a single tear to fall alongside hers. Closing his eyes, he lowered his head and nuzzled the back of her neck.

She shook with her sobs, with the cold, with the strain of the ordeal she’d just survived. As much as Rekosh hated those tremors coursing through her, they were far better than the feel of her unmoving, lifeless body in his arms.

A soft, trembling touch upon the side of his face coaxed his eyes open.

“I’m…okay,” Ahmya said quietly. “I’m okay.”

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