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Partway up the ocean-facing side of Lithus Rock, Hunter stared across the water, his emotions in turmoil.
Determination. Confusion. Longing.
Impossible choices.
Hunter lowered his head and gripped his skull with his hands, trying to force order into the chaos. He needed to talk to Skye. To tell her everything. Ask her what to do. And watch the terror in her eyes as a total stranger told her unbelievable things and asked her to decide something that would affect the rest of her life.
He dropped his hands, head and shoulders slumped, lost. Near his foot he noticed a small stack of shells, balanced one on top of another. For a brief instant, he was in another time. He reached down and picked up the small fragile tower, and smiled. Skye had stacked these, one of those precious afternoons spent here together a lifetime ago. Hunter gently closed his fingers around them, the shells’ edges pressing into his palm. He knew what he wanted. He wanted Skye. And for Skye to want him again.
If she breathed ocean water once more, would he return to her heart and her mind? How would that conversation go? Hello Skye, want to come with me, and try to breathe underwater?
This was impossible.
But it wasn't just about him. Jarrod wouldn’t wait forever. If they didn’t return together, Jarrod would come for her himself. And he wouldn’t come alone. Hunter was almost certain that no other Nemaro could pass their boundary. But the human court Jarrod had gathered, who shared the minds and wills of the Nemaro who sustained them, they could.
A cracking sound broke into his thoughts, and opening his palm, Hunter saw he had shattered the fragile shells in his grip. He felt a wrench of horrified regret. How appropriate: an excellent example of him in Skye’s life. He slowly stretched out his arm and let the shards fall. It seemed symbolic, but he knew he could never let Skye go. Even if she sent him away, leaving them both broken, he would never stop loving her.
Unable to bear looking at them, he stepped over the scattered shell fragments and jumped to the next ledge down. His action nudged the strange box in his jeans pocket. A gift from Morgan; her blessing for his quest to win Skye back.
‘Help her remember you. Take this,’ Morgan put the small device into his hands. ‘It plays music. Ask Skye to listen, and stay with her while she does,’ she’d instructed, her face solemn.
‘But what am I supposed to do?’ he asked. ‘Walk up to her uncle’s front door and ask to torture his niece? Or ask Skye if she minds experimenting with blinding agony while I talk nonsense she won’t believe? When she tries to remember, it hurts her too much,’ he’d argued, feeling helpless. ‘Do you still think I should find her?’
‘Maybe she’ll find you. And Hunter?’ Morgan’s gaze was intense, ‘Sometimes the only way to reach your happiness is walking through pain first.’
She was right. But was he strong enough to watch Skye suffer? He’d convinced Skye of what he was once. Could he do it again? The memory of her terrified expression when she’d fled from him, not once, but twice already that day, hurt.
Suddenly he realised that while his thoughts distracted him, the void inside him had been lessening.
That meant only one thing. His pulse raced.
He loped over the high, uneven rocks to view the beach below. His heartbeat rose to a wild tempo. The slight form nearing Lithus Rock was unmistakeable. She had found him.
Skye.
