Only then does it dawn on me.
He’s helping me escape. He’s the distraction so we can make it free.
This is so wrong, but I do the only thing I can.
I shove Kearan’s arm off me and sprint for the trees. Kearan catches up with me in no time. He runs as though the very devil is on his heels, though he doesn’t overtake me. His longer strides match mine through the woods. Snow-covered branches whip my face, but our tracks are lost to the mostly needle-covered floor.
I’m not entirely sure which direction we’re running. I cannot orient myself, but Kearan seems to know where we’re headed, so I let him lead.
My muscles are still exhausted and sore from the last two days’ adventures, and I don’t last as long as I should on the run. My hands go to my knees, and I heave in breaths of air.
Kearan says, “You’re actually alive? How?”
And then the next thing I know, he’s gripping me in the fiercest bear hug.
I have not been touched like this since I was very small.
Not since my father would grasp me to him before throwing me atop his shoulders, walking me to the library, where he would read me a story before bed.
Kearan releases me abruptly, as though just realizing what he’s doing. Or perhaps it was my rigid posture that got through to him.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I’m so relieved you’re okay.” He clasps his hands behind his back, as though to keep them out of my sight lest I get any ideas about cutting them off. “But how are you okay? I was so sure you were dead.”
“It would have been preferable to what I experienced,” I say.
“I was awake the whole time. They didn’t knock me out as they did you. I’m too heavy to carry. They made me walk. They sailed you out on that ship, dumped you over the side bound to that iron weight. I thrashed and fought with all my strength, but it wasn’t enough. I watched the water as we sailed away. I hoped you’d regain consciousness and manage to free yourself. I waited for you to surface. Minutes and minutes passed, and still you didn’t.”
His voice cracks on the end, and I look up.
I take in his injuries once more. The dried blood on his clothing and caked to his hands. He got himself beaten while trying to save me. He cried over me.
Captain, stop flattering yourself.
The reminder of those words has me stopping that line of thought immediately.
“I made it,” I say. “I’m alive. You don’t need to worry. Apparently I’m harder to kill now.”
“Because he’s changed you?” he asks.
“I guess.”
“He helped us escape back there, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Because he wants you as his mate.”
My eyes close. “Don’t ever say that again. He doesn’t own me.”
“No one could ever own you.”
“I think he’s going to look for me when he’s done back there.”
“And you don’t want him to?” Kearan asks carefully.
My head whips in his direction. “Of course not!”
“Sounds to me like immortality and power are being offered to you.”
I step up to him and jab a finger into his chest. “Let’s get something straight. I don’t want to live forever. I have a family waiting for me in the stars. I intend to reunite with them someday. Not be trapped on this miserable world forever. And when has power ever made anyone happy?”
Kearan doesn’t flinch from my proximity. He shrugs. “Alosa seems pretty happy as a queen.”
“Alosa was happy before she was a queen. It isn’t the power that makes her happy.”
“Okay.”
I step back from him and drop my hand. “Don’t you ever suggest I’m some greedy—”
“I wasn’t.”
“Yes, you—”
“I just wanted to know where you stood with this King of the Undersea.”
“Stop interrupting me!”
“Yes, Captain.” He slams his lips closed.
“No man determines my fate. Threydan may come looking for me, but he can’t have me.”
And then Kearan’s face changes, as though he’d been forcing it to be calm. Now it morphs into a snarl. “He can look all he damn well likes; he’s not taking you. I—we—the crew won’t let it happen.”
A moment of silence passes, where we just stare at each other. I notice his breath fogging in the air before him, while mine does no such thing.
I hold one of my bare hands out in front of me. It looks normal, a deep umber against the white backdrop of this frozen tundra. I blow a breath of air against my skin. While I feel the gust of air, I don’t register any temperature with it at all. Not the cold of my surroundings or the heat that should be on my breath.
Kearan asks, “What’s wrong?”
I hold my hand up to him. He pauses before reaching out with his own ungloved hand to take it.
“Can you feel that?” I ask him. “Am I tangible at all?”
“I can feel you,” he says reassuringly. “You’re real.”
“I can feel the contact. I know you’re touching me, but I can’t feel warmth or cold. I just feel wrong. Does my skin even give off heat?”
He hesitates before saying, “Yes.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“I would never lie to you.”
“Then why did you pause?”
“I was processing how your skin felt against mine.”
That ball of heat where my heart is flares at his words, and I dare to ask. “And how does it feel?”
“Electric, like storm clouds.”
I stare at our joined hands, willing something—anything more—to happen. Not because I want a connection with this man, I reason. Forget that silly moment where my heart stuttered upon hearing him crying for me.
But I want to feel something. I want to feel normal.
“We need to fix it,” I say. “I need to be put back the way I was.”
“I know. We’ll fix it. We’ll make it right.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, but we’re going to figure it out. Can you move again?”
I nod and stand upright.
“I don’t think they meant to let me live, regardless of what that woman said,” Kearan says. “They didn’t blindfold me. I know right where we are.”
“Good.”
“Thank you,” he says earnestly. “For coming back for me.”
“I happened to stumble into the camp where you were being held.”
“You would have come for me even if that weren’t the case.”
“We need to move again.”
We run, flying through the forest as silently as possible. I try to slow my breathing, but I’m panting as loudly as an overworked horse. My head and limbs feel too heavy. I carry more than I ever should have to: the fate of the world if Threydan catches me, the end of my own mortality looming over me, the possibility of being kept from my family forever, and always—always—my past looming just around the corners of my mind, waiting to invade my thoughts should I let my walls down.
I brace myself against a tree when I need yet another break. I feel as though I could sleep for days.