Page 89 of Payne's Envy

She leaned forward to meet my lips. The first touch was like a straight shot of ecstasy. It was the softest, most exotic thing to finally have a mere taste of her mouth on mine. My skin burst apart, and I felt like my skin could melt from the bliss.

I pulled away to stare at her. To make sure I wasn’t dreaming. She panted as she opened her eyes, smiled, and threw her arms around my neck. I lifted her off her feet, holding her body against mine, and the second kiss was less soft. All passion and pent-up need.

She whimpered. The sound got louder. Something about it wasn’t right. Then I smelled it. The smoke. The stench of burning. Joy jerked away from me as she screamed.

Her mouth was open. No! Her lips were gone. All that I saw below her nose was… blackened and charred as flames poured out.

“Joy!” I shouted, and flames blew off my lips. I covered my mouth as the horror churned my insides. The fire came from me.

I tried to grab her, to help her, but she stumbled back. She kept staggering away from me.

My head spun. I was dying. Truly dying. My brain couldn’t understand what was happening. I didn’t know what I saw. But it was wrong. All wrong. It was like my lungs were locked up because I couldn’t breathe.

She gripped her neck as she shrieked. The flames kept pouring out, melting through her skin in several spots.

I kept yelling her name. It wasn’t until she went limp and the flames burst through her chest that I could scoop her up. She had died and stopped backing away from me.

What happened? What had I done?

The flames kept going. Traveling inside, outside, throughout her charred skin even as her body fought to repair and revive her.

Tears leaked from my eyes as I ran to the castle. Melanie had healing powers like her daughter. She could save Joy. She could stop that madness.

The flame engulfed Joy completely in my arms and burned away the clothes on my body, but it didn’t hurt me.

It. Didn’t. Hurt. Me. The flames belonged tome.

Staggering out of the memory, I stood in the room with the young adult me again. My heart felt battered and ran over as I struggled to catch my breath. I understood. The dark circles I saw underneath my eyes as I looked at that version of me. The heartache. My self-loathing. I got it. I remembered everything.

And it hurt. To know I hurt Joy. I didn’t know that I was in a heat cycle and would place my mark upon her when I kissed her. I had always loved her, so of course I would have chosen her. How could I have known the pain it would put her through?

Joy would wake and have no remember of that encounter. She’d never recall that pain I put her through. But I would, and as much as it killed me, I understood my hatred for myself.

“Do you see what we did to her? The woman we love?” he asked me.

“We’d do it again.”

He dropped his arms to his sides.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and re-opened them. “We areDeathraka.That kiss was the only way she would ever withstand our touch after my turn. Joy is strong. She would have chosen that flame for me a hundred times over.”

Even if I didn’t know that for a fact, my faith in Joy and her love for me was absolute. She would do anything to be with me, and for us to touch and love each other. I would do the same.

I remembered more than what I had before I forgot everything. Like the little boy who knew from the beginning Joy was his. There were so many things I forgot while running from Joy and searching for the answers. My mistake was not trusting those feelings I had as a child. I was fortunate to have a gift to love Joy so deeply and profoundly.To bond with someone so beautiful, kind, and lovely.

But how could I have known I wouldn’t hurt her again? I couldn’t have. I didn’t know I had to wait another century to understand. All I knew was my world burned to ashes with Joy that day.

“You mean we won’t hurt her anymore?”

I sighed. “We hurt her a lot more after that because we thought staying away until we figured it all out would be best. It wasn’t, but I forgive you.”

Forgiving meant accepting my mistakes and learning from them. I promised to never fucking betray myself or her foranyoneagain.

Hope shone in his eyes. “We can touch her?”

“Yes.”

His shoulders shook as he cried. When he stopped, he asked, “Is she ours yet?”

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