Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 84072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
“We do,” Aengus answered for me. “We’ve just been separated a really long time, me and Benjamin, which means I should thank you.”
“For?” She was smiling at him.
Which meant I was killing him later.
And penciling it in right now.
“The fire.” His eyes glowed. “Had you not touched it, I wouldn’t have been able to be reunited with this gloomy son of a bitch.”
I growled.
“See?” He shrugged. “All gloom.”
“I’m not all gloom. I’m just… worried.” I reached for her hand but jerked away just in time before I did something stupid like touch her.
She reached for me, though.
I fell back and stood leaning against the bedpost in agony, wishing I could comfort her, knowing that it would always need to be from afar if I didn’t figure this curse out.
“Benjamin?” Her eyes filled with tears like I was hurting her like I was abandoning her when all I wanted was to hold her close and keep her there forever.
“I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “So damn sorry.”
Aengus looked between us and said softly, “He can’t touch you, Luna.”
“Why?” Her voice cracked. “He did before?”
“Yes, and you broke your arm,” he pointed out. “Almost drowned.”
Another mark against me.
“Because you didn’t have the strength to even swim—each touch makes you want him more, each touch makes it harder to stay away, each tough steals your strength unless…”
She gulped, tears in her eyes. “Unless what?”
He flickered his gaze to mine. “Well, if you have sex with the touching, then all it does is slowly kill you, but you’ll stop breaking bones. So, isn’t sprouting gray hairs and wrinkles better than a broken arm? Decisions, decisions.” He rubbed his hands together. “On that note, I’m going to go see about some dinner.”
He left us in the room.
Alone.
Luna staring at me like she was waking up from a long dream, finally seeing me for me, finally understanding what this was, even though she couldn’t truly comprehend how crazy it was. Fear all but dripped from her features. Fear that she was right, or maybe fear that she was possibly going crazy.
And wrong.
“You’re not human.” She looked away when she said it like she was afraid to look into my eyes. “He isn’t either, is he? Your brother? Something feels… otherworldly about you.”
Of course, she could sense it; any true Fae could.
“No,” I whispered. “We’re not.”
“Are you…” She bit her lip, sucking it between her teeth. “Are you vampires?”
I burst out laughing. “Sorry to disappoint, but no.”
“I’m not disappointed!”
“Sure, okay,” I smirked.
“You’re not like some terrifying wizard either… you lack the power.”
“Thank you?”
She shrugged. “I have one guess left, only because of the story I heard today and the fact that it felt like I knew it like it was somehow tied to you, tied to me, tied to the dreams at night…”
I held my breath.
“Are you Fae?” she barely whispered.
The room trembled around us. Inhaling. Exhaling.
All I could do was give her one single nod.
She gulped. “Am I?”
The room crackled with tension as silence descended between us. I flicked my wrist and snapped my fingers as a blue flame lit above them, and very slowly, the flame grew and snaked toward her good arm, wrapping around her skin like it was flirting with her.
The silver snowflakes around her wrist flared to life, creating tiny icicles that blocked the would-be burn from the flame.
She gasped as the icicles created the barrier, and when I pulled the flames back, her skin was as it had been.
Perfect.
“Ice,” she said in awe. “I created ice?”
“You did.”
“Why is this happening?” A solitary tear slid down her cheek. “I think you owe me answers now.”
I sighed. “I owe you more than that, but for starters, you need to know one thing…”
“What?”
“If we don’t figure out the curse together, you’re going to die—and soon.”
“Die?” Her eyes widened. “What the hell? Who kills me?”
I swallowed the thickness in my throat and whispered. “Me. I kill you. I’ve killed you over and over for centuries. This will be our thirteenth time, and I hope to the gods that this time it doesn’t end with your blood staining my hands. Again.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Luna
You know that feeling of rightness you get in your chest when someone says something that completely resonates with your psyche? When your eyes tell you one thing but your soul screams for something else?
His words, even his terrifying truth—I felt it in my soul.
My heart beat a little bit faster.
My breaths came a bit quicker.
And when he continued to stare me down like I was a ghost he could never get rid of—the world suddenly righted itself.
For my entire life, I’d felt like something wasn’t right in my world, in my mom’s world. While everyone around me was content to just exist, get a job, buy a house—all I wanted to do was search for the truth.