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Her body dropped to the ground and remained there. The silence when she fell was louder than any of the feral screams that had filled the night. Her long hair was usually the color of roasted chestnuts, and seeing it now caked with dried, coagulated blood did something to me. Something that could never again be undone.
I drew her into a fierce embrace. Flames of heat licked at her skin from the inside. I had to lower her body temperature quickly before it was too late.
In my several hundred years of life I had taken more lives than I'd saved. Fear was not an emotion I was accustomed to feeling. Like guilt, regret, and love, it was saved for rare moments few and far between. But as she slid precariously toward the dark powers inside her, I felt fear grip me with the force of a million suns.
My fingers dug into her shoulders as I squeezed them. "Lorelei. Come back. Do you hear me? Come back."
Nothing.
No movement.
No sounds.
No signs of life.
Then slowly, her eyes peeled open, and she climbed to her feet. She looked tall and steady, like a warrior princess, yet she was not herself. She drew the cold of my touch into her, but then it overtook her. It was too much. Her dark powers were feeding on ice instead of fire.
Cold traveled through her veins, turning them blue beneath her deep skin, as dark powers surged within her. Icy winds kicked up, flinging leaves and dust around us. Her hair whipped like serpents in the gale force. The fabric of her skirts lashed at my legs. Icicles formed on her lashes and her lips coated with frost.
If this did not stop, she would be lost, swallowed up by the darkness that had grown with tremendous speed inside her.
"Listen to me." I shook her. "You have to fight. Fight your way back to me."
Her eyes darkened. A wicked smirk tugged at her lips, and her head rocked to the side.
I was losing her. I shook her once more. "I know you can hear me." My voice raised and the temperature dropped.
She didn't answer. There was nothing. No response to the sound of my voice. Her eyes closed briefly as her smile grew darker.
There was only one thing left to try. One last resort. When her dark eyes opened and her frozen lips parted once more, I kissed her. Just once.
I felt the darkness inside her subside as it flowed from her into me. But I couldn't stop. I didn't want to stop. My mouth closed down over hers, and I walked us backward until we hit the tree. My hands traveled up her thighs, over her hips up to her shoulders. For a moment she kissed me back, but then I felt her hands slide onto my chest and push against me.
Our lips broke as my own lack of control started to break apart. The winds calmed. Errant stray flakes of snow settled, and the world appeared normal, even if we did not.
Her chest rose and fell rapidly with her racing pulse— mine did the same.
"I'm sorry," I told her. My eyes narrowed. How could that not be a lie? I was not sorry. Not for kissing her. Not for bringing her back from the darkness.
It took a few moments before I felt her body relax in my arms. The moisture I had felt as I pulled my lips from hers meant she was thawing and the worst of it had passed. I stared at her tangled hair, expressive eyes, moist lips.
She kept her hand taut against my chest, as if in fear that I might kiss her again. I was studying her, waiting for a reaction...any reaction. I had kissed her to bring her back to herself, but I'd continued kissing her, because I'd wanted to. She had to know that, and there would be consequences for it.
When her features returned to normal, and her skin no longer looked like she'd spent decades encased in ice, she stepped back, pressing her fingers to her lips.
"You kissed me." Shock registered on her face.
I gave a stiff nod. "I did."
I was still uncertain what, if anything, the ramifications of that would be. She had a stiff right hook from what I recall from that time with the dragon, so I was prepared for anything.
But her reaction was not what I had expected.
"Thank you," she murmured. "That was—"
"Necessary."
"Nice."
"Liar." I smirked. "But for what it’s worth, I enjoyed the effort."
She shook her head slightly. "I meant, nice of you to—help me." Her cheeks flushed.
I leaned against the tree, letting my head drop back against the rough bark a little too hard. As if I needed any more pain.
The corners of her lips quirked up, but then she seemed to think of something—or more likely someone—and her smile faded.
Her head angled to the side and she inhaled sharply, as if she were remembering. Remembering him. In that moment I wanted to pull her to me, kiss her again, and wipe every memory of him from her mind forever. Make her forget him. Forget all of this. Forget everything, except me.
She glanced over at the desiccated bodies, still smoldering on the ground. I wish I had removed them. Or removed us.
Dark eyes—saddened by the lives she'd taken, not by choice, but again by twist of fate—turned back to me.
"Why am I here, Zanthiel? You said you had news, and I came. What is it?"
Her hands were still trembling, but I didn't want to chance touching her again. There was no telling what I might do after that. I'd kept my self-control this long. Now was not the time for it to fall apart. I licked my lips, tasting her still.
My needs did not matter. It was what she needed...and that was food and water. Shelter. Rest.
I reached for a fallen, cup-shaped leaf and held it in one hand, forming a loose fist over it with my other. Liquid light poured from my hand into the leaf.
"Here. Drink this." I cupped her chin and pressed the drink to her lips. It would help soothe the damaging effects of her dark magic, but only for a time. Darkness was stronger than light and it would eventually take her over if she continued to use it. And to stay alive in this world, she would be continually forced to use it.
When she had drunk every drop, she looked up at me. "How did you do that?"
I gave a crass smile, understanding the implication behind her question. How did someone so full of darkness and shadow have access to light? "You could say I have a surplus of light on reserve, since I do not use it often."
Her dark eyes shifted to the forest behind us, then to the smoldering pile of cinder of our attackers. "How long do you think this will continue? Us on the run, having to fight—" she swallowed, "— to kill, just to stay alive?"
"I don't know. My guess is that it will be indefinite, unless you agree to come with me."
"Come with you?" She lifted her head. "Come with you where?"
"Not to the Winter Court." I read her fears. My mother's three-ring circus wedding plans were not going to see the light of day. "I have a way to get you home."
"What do you mean, Zanthiel? Tell me everything." Her fingers gripped my shirtsleeve and clung to it as a drowning girl would a floating log. How ironic to be cast in a role I was so ill-suited for.
"There is much to tell you, but first you need to rest. You're still shaken and weak."
A small frown creased her forehead. "This isn't easy for me. I still sort of feel like a superhero who's just discovered her super powers."
I raised my eyebrows, but my expression remained impassive. "Sure, if that superpower was self-mutilation," I said. "You spend too much time beating yourself up over having to use them."
She brushed the melted icicles from her cheeks. They looked like tears. It made something inside me tighten. Perhaps she was not alone in her need to self-inflict pain.
"I would kill to protect you, Lorelei. But it brings me no measure of comfort to know you would do the same."
For a moment we both fell silent. Tension circled on the air, mingling with our steady breathing. We were close enough that if I leaned in a little, I could close the distance between our mouths and taste her lips once more.
She pressed her hands to her eyes for a moment, inhaling deeply, slowly. A soft smile played on her lips. "Thank you. For playing the hero tonight." She shrugged lightly. "And always."
Her voice was whisper-soft and tinged with something I could not place. Sadness maybe. Or longing.
I smiled in return. "Even a superhero can use a little help now and then."
My gaze gravitated of its own volition to her mouth as she bit down pensively on her full lower lip. Were my thoughts as open to her now that she'd awakened such dark magic? Impulse took over once more as I pulled her to me in a firm embrace, one meant to convey how relieved I was she had survived.
As it often did, it occurred to me how wrong this was. She wasn't mine. She'd chosen him—I'd let her go—and it only made me want her more.
There may be a special place in Hades for wanting someone the way I wanted her.