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Hunter stared at Skye, waiting for him in the shallows like his own personal miracle. Bathed in early morning sunlight, she was so utterly lovely his chest didn’t seem big enough for his emotion. He could feel the missing part of himself heal in her presence. He yearned to hold her. To never let go. Ever. He smiled, anticipating her smile that would set him alight.
She had never looked more beautiful. Or more afraid.
The laugh of delight on the verge of ringing out choked him. Her blue-green eyes were like shadowed rock-pools. Cautiously he waded closer, searching her frightened gaze for recognition. Seeing none. He stopped within arm’s reach of her, feeling as if he’d woken into a suffocating nightmare. Rocks tumbled through his chest, crushing his lungs. He tried to say her name but couldn’t form words.
Her eyes widened and her forehead puckered as she took in his cuts and bruises. It seemed an unconscious act when she reached out a tentative hand towards his injuries. It took all his strength to stand his ground, not to pull her into his arms, to whisper comfort and hold her close.
His heart hammered as her trembling hand hovered above his skin, and flame threatened to blister him where her fingers almost touched him. She jerked her hand away. He felt like she’d cut his heart out when she stepped back, away from him.
He saw the effort she made to speak, heard the words catching in her throat. “Do I – should I...know you?”
The same words as those she had first spoken to him weeks ago. He blinked rapidly, another kind of emptiness filling him as everything they’d shared melted into nothing.
He sensed movement behind him in the low waves, but held her gaze, willing her not to see anything but him. Willing her to remember him. He took another step closer. “Do you know me?” his voice was thick with pain.
“I don’t – I can’t...” it was a croak. Her hand crept to cover her chest in a gesture he knew. A flicker of hope stirred. She must feel more complete near him, just as he did so close to her.
She seemed to rise on her tiptoes, leaning towards him as if hoping to draw who he was from him. Impossible. If her heart didn’t know him, his words could not fix this. A strand of her hair strayed across her cheek. She was so close, he could reach out and smooth it behind her ear, or run his hands down her arms, take her shaking hands in his.
A chasm opened between them as Skye took another step backward. And another.
His legs, his chest, his body felt like stone. The back of his neck crawled with the consciousness of watchful attention from below the water behind him: clan waiting to see him return with Skye to Lithus. But he was a stranger to her now. How could he ask her to go anywhere with him? Least of all to the bottom of the sea? Jarrod would expect him to mesmerise her, make her want to agree. Never. Not even in the hope that water filling her lungs would make her earthly life as forgotten to her as he was right now.
At a sudden faint shout from the road, she turned towards a distant figure that Hunter recognised at once. He spun away, putting his back to Ethan, who stood at the top of the stone steps. Uncertain if Ethan would know him, and what recognition could mean for him and for Skye, he was unwilling to risk a confrontation for fear of damaging Skye further.
Just beyond him in the deeper water, shadows and faces stirred just beneath the shifting surface; his attentive audience watching him fail. Would they intervene and try to force his hand?
Behind him, he heard Skye stumble from the water. He turned his head enough to see her running. Away from him. At the dry sand near the stone wall, she struggled with her footing, but paused only to scoop up some belongings. Then she was at the top of the steps, and he watched her climb into a waiting van with Ethan. She was gone.
He staggered from the shallows onto the wet sand, but couldn’t make his feet keep going, or make his brain function as he stared after the vehicle. The hollow widening in his chest was nothing compared to the pain in his heart.
Behind him, the surface of the water erupted, and he turned to face Jarrod.
