Page 375 of Alchemised
“Helena …”
His voice snapped her out of her reverie. She looked back at him.
He shook his head. “Let’s not do this,” he said. “I’ll come back tomorrow, and I’ll—try to—”
“No.” She shook her head. “I need to get used to you again. I need to remember it.”
He exhaled and sat on the edge of her bed, as he so often had before, her hand laced in his, staring across the room.
His fingers kept spasming. He was trying to keep them still, but tensing only made it worse. She couldn’t understand why he’d have tremors.
“Why don’t you heal anymore?” she asked.
He didn’t look at her. “With so few of the Undying left, Morrough pulls more heavily on those remaining. Regeneration takes longer now. But—I don’t know why my hands won’t stop. Price of hubris, I suppose.”
All these months, she’d watched him crumbling. He’d been slowly eradicating the Undying, despite knowing that with every kill, the punishment he’d be subjected to would grow as his ability to recover from it diminished.
“I’m so sorry, Kaine,” she said softly.
He flinched and nearly ripped his hand away from her.
“Don’t apologise to me,” he snapped, glaring down at her.
“But you’re angry with me, aren’t you?”
He looked back across the room, throat working. “That doesn’t mean you have any reason to apologise.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” His voice failed him, and he looked down. “I have to apologise first and I—I … don’t know how to begin. I’d hoped you’d never remember any of this. If I’d just lied to you about how I got Bayard out. If I’d just let you go, none of this would have happened.”
Helena sat up. “It would have killed me. If you’d sent me away and I’d found out later you were discovered because I made you go back for Lila, it would have killed me. I’d do it all again, every second, to save you.”
He turned to look at her, shock and rage sweeping across his face.
“You didn’t save me,” he said when he was finally capable of speech. “You just put us in hell for two years.”
If he’d struck her, it would have hurt less. The blood drained from her face, her body going ice-cold.
“I tried to come back—” she said, her voice shaking. “I really did.”
His expression had turned regretful. “I know. I didn’t mean—”
She drew away from him, feeling like she might throw up if she looked at him then.
“You shouldn’t have assumed I’d be willing to lose you,” she said. “Did you think I cared less because I had other obligations? That I don’t feel things as much as you? I did everything I could to keep you safe. You don’t know all the things I did.”
“I just meant—”
“Every time you asked, I promised I was yours. Always. There aren’t any exemptions or expiration dates on always.”
HELENA WOKE TO A CRUSHING pain in her head. She lay in the dark, trying to find her bearings. She could feel Kaine’s fingers, still entwined with hers. She searched for him and found him on the floor, sitting beside the bed, his head slumped to the side.
She shifted closer, studying him in the dim light.
It was the in-between spaces she struggled with, when her memories spun like a flipped coin, warring between past and present. But this close, despite the alterations of time, he was hers. Still. Just as he had been.
He’d loved her, even though he never expected them to be anything but doomed. He’d loved her all the same.
