Page 75 of Of Blood and Banes
He’s facing away from me, but I would always recognize that dirty blonde hair and the cowlick sticking up near the back of his head.
“Aiden?”I call, but the words won’t leave my tongue.
My fingers tremble as I stretch a hand out, desperate to get his attention. The longing to see his face overwhelms every bit of my heart. To erase the memory of the last time I saw him: terrified, ashen, and frozen before he was swept into the freezing depths of the river back in Padmoor.
“Kit?” Aiden calls, though the rest of his body is eerily still, as if encased in stone.
His voice alone shatters something painful inside my chest. How long has it been since I heard his voice? Since he called my name? Aside from that fateful day at the river, I couldn’t recall what his face looked like. As if the painful flashbacks of his death created a dam, holding all of our other happy memories together hostage.
“Look at me!”I scream inside my head and out loud, the sound nearly foreign.
He still won’t turn to me. Instead, he takes a few steps away. I reach out again, swiping more frantically for him, but I can’t step any closer. My legs are locked into place.
He just needs to look at me. Just one. Simple. Look.
“Look at me!” I cry, tears blurring my vision of him. “Aiden! Please! Please, look at me!”
But the white creeps in like a hungry fog, disintegrating the sides of his arms, his legs, and spilling over his back.
“No, stop! Don’t go! Hold on!” My voice is raw, unrecognizable with the fear and desperation that has me in a vice grip. And there’s those two little words again. The two words that haunt me. The last words I ever spoke to him.
The rest of his silhouette is drowned out by white, and I’m left alone.
“Look at me! Please!”
As if all the white fog were sucked out of the room, everything snaps to black and a bone-chilling cold explodes through my body. At once, all my sensations roar back to life.
“Look at me! Please!”The words I said in my head in an unfamiliar tone repeat. But the fog of disillusion lifts, and the words ring inside my mind like a bell, each echoed repetition shaking off my uncertainty.
“Kat! Please, Gods. Kat!” Someone shakes me.
My eyes flash open, the black melting away to texture and shades of blue. A dizziness swarms my head like an angry mob of bees. The blurry glow of amber eyes, warm in the cold night, meet mine.
Cole.
“Look at me! Please!” His whisper is strained.
My vision sharpens. His broad torso is curled over me, my head resting against his chest. Even with the layers of his clothes deafening the noise, his heartbeat slams against his chest, dying to escape. One of his arms is tucked underneath my neck, holding me to him, while the other hand brushes my cheek with his thumb.
As our eyes connect, a fissure cracks through his pained expression, relief flooding his eyes. “You’re going to be okay, alright? I’ve got you.” He darts a look over his shoulder to where Marge is staring. “She opened her eyes!”
A shadow shifts behind Marge, and I recognize Daeja in the background. Her eyes lock onto mine, and she grumbles,“Perhaps the Spoiled isn’t the best person to be training you.”
“I have no one else,”I respond weakly.
Marge races toward us, shaken out of her awe and nearly falls to her knees next to Cole, her scarred, withered hand coming to slowly rest on my shoulder. “What did you see, Katerina?”
A severe chill drowns out my nerves, and my teeth chatter uncontrollably in response. I squeeze myself closer into Cole’s warmth, my muscles groaning in protest.Gods, I feel so weak…even keeping my eyes open is nearly impossible.
“I…” My head swims again, as if I’ll be lost to unconsciousness once more.
Marge squeezes my shoulder. “Don’t close your eyes. Tell me. What did you see?”
“My…my brother,” I manage between shivers.
Cole’s eyes flash wider, and he rips off his jacket and wraps it around me before drawing me closer into him. “She’s cold, Marge. We need to get her warm?—”
Marge shushes Cole and tugs at my arm. “What did he say?”
