Page 38 of Prince of Storms
“Mia!” he barked, grabbing my chin and lifting my head. “Mia, are you okay?”
“Tor,” I whispered, staring past his square jaw. “He … he’s dead. He’s dead. Oh, my god, he’s dead. He hit the tree.”
My stomach started to churn as the sound of Tor hitting the trunk replayed over and over again. It was the sound of someone dying. Shivers racked my body. I should have been crying, but the tears refused to come.
“Mia! Snap out of it! Are you okay?”
“He’s gone,” I whispered. “I lost him. I lost him. I lost him.”
I steeled myself against the pain I knew would come, both physical and mental. I had to be hard. Harder than I was the last time someone died in front of me. There was nothing between Tor and me. Just some physical interactions. Nothing.Nothing.
But he was still gone, and I was there. Why was it that everyone had to die around me? What kind of sick joke was the universe playing on me? Who would be next? My father? Ally? Maybe I should move to the hills and live the life of a hermit to ensure nobody else would die by being around me.
“Mia!”
I knew Ty was trying to tell me something, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing.
A hand grabbed my jaw, pulling my head around to stare out the passenger side back seat window. The door was open. How had that happened? And who was standing in the opening? There hadn’t been anybody else in the truck with us.
“Snap out of it,” Tor growled, sticking his head in through the door, his silver eyes ablaze with unnatural light. “Get a grip, Mia.”
I stared.
“Great,” I heard myself say. “I’m such a fuckup that not only did I get Tor killed, but now he’s come back to haunt me.”
The light in his eyes faded, and his face split into a wide grin. “I’m a ghost, am I?”
“I saw you die,” I whispered.
“No,” he corrected, coming closer, wincing as he bent to get into the back seat. “You saw me go through the windshield.”
“You hit the tree,” I said. “Your body … you’re dead. I’m talking to a ghost. I can see dead people.”
“And quote cheesy movie lines, too,” he said dryly. “Tell me, if I was a ghost, could I do this?”
He leaned in and kissed me. Despite everything I’d tried to do that morning to stop any further physical interaction between us before it could develop, my body betrayed me. It longed for more of his touch, and I whimpered in pain through the kiss as I strained toward him, the seatbelt pushing down against skin that was probably already bruised. I didn’t give a shit. Tor wasn’t dead.
Tor. Wasn’t. Dead.
“H-how?” I gasped, finally breaking away for air. In the front seat, Ty just sighed and muttered something about “him being fine, too.”
“Luck, I assume,” Tor said.
After his kiss reset my brain and pulled me from the shock, I saw how gingerly he moved and the tightness of the muscles in his neck. He was in some serious pain. But alive.
“No broken bones?” I asked, inspecting him.
“I don’t think so.”
“I saw you hit the tree,” I said. “I saw it. Iheardit. Oh, god, that noise was so sickening. I never want to hear anything like it again.”
“I’m fine,” he said, taking my hand and holding it in his. “Mia, how areyou?”
“I’m alive,” I said. “Seatbelt bruises. Hurt. But alive.”
Tor growled. “I am sorry you got hurt.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, a warm fog descending over me. “I saw you die, though.”
