I…I’d said that?
“You were this little thing carrying your weight in pebbles, your hair a pale tangle of moonlight. When you saw me, I thought you’d scream and run away. Child or not, most sensible mortals would do that when confronted by a wolf. You did neither of those things.”
I didn’t think I… I was known to be sensible.
“You just stared at me with those big green eyes.” There were several moments of silence, and I feared he wouldn’t speak again, but he did. “It was a long time before you saw me again. Not until the night you turned seventeen, but I saw you between then.”
I had the strange impression that the night he spoke about had once been important to me. Life-changing and haunting. A source of bitter failure that had once felt like it would never go away. But I also sensed the event no longer meant anything to me.
“I never told you about the dream I had of your lake before I even laid eyes on it,” he said. “I can’t even say it was a dream. It was…yeah, it was something else. But for years, I told myself that was all it was. Convinced myself until I no longer could. It was a warning, one I heeded.” Heavy regret filled his voice. “But I did so in the worst way possible.”
He fell quiet then, and I was grateful. I didn’t want him talking about things that made him sad. I wanted him to laugh as he had before.
Time passed as I floated, and I heard other voices. Ones I didn’t recognize. Some I thought I would know eventually. They talked about the past and the future. They shared ancient knowledge, speaking of magic and power until his voice silenced theirs.
He spoke more, mentioning the night he saw me in a Temple. He told me how he tried to distance himself from me. Talked about how he saw me again when he stopped me from attacking some gods.
It sounded like a completely insensible thing for me to try, but it made me smile.
“I already knew by then that you were brave,” he said. “I just hadn’t realized how brave you’d become. How fearless and passionate you were.”
I liked that part.
“And I wasn’t prepared for how much I’d feel… How I’d feel alive just being in your presence.”
I really liked that part.
“After I had my kardia removed, I was still capable of feeling. Caring. I was still myself, I just didn’t… I don’t know.” His voice sounded closer.
As I floated, I felt the ghost of a touch on my cheek. My eyes closed. I really, really liked that.
It struck me then that I always liked when he touched me. Loved it.
“I just didn’t feel things strongly. I was no longer capable of doing so,” he told me. “Until you. You made me feel things strongly. Everything, liessa.”
Liessa? Was that my name? I didn’t think so, but my heart skipped at hearing it. And it wasn’t a bad feeling. It was pleasant. I loved when he called me that. It had a special meaning.
“From that very first damn kiss, I should’ve known.” He sighed.
Known what?
Better yet… I wanted him to tell me about our first kiss. I wanted to remember it.
And he did, much to my happiness. “You knew I was, at the very least, a god, and you still threatened me.”
Well, that happiness was incredibly short-lived. Why had I threatened him? I had a feeling I’d been justified.
“You warned me that if I tried anything…”
Go for that weapon on your thigh again? I heard his voice—not then, but in my mind. He’d said that to me after I threatened him, and I had answered with a yes.
“When I shushed you, I really thought you were going to hit me,” he said with another low chuckle. “I never knew a mortal to be so…wonderfully belligerent to a god. It was refreshing.”
That was an odd reaction, but it still made me grin.
“I could’ve done so many damn things to make sure we weren’t seen. Telling you to kiss me should’ve been the very last thing I suggested.” I felt that whisper of touch again, this time on my jaw. “But your threats provoked me, and damn…it shocked me. Even before Maia removed my kardia, I’d learned to control my temper. To not let things rile me. I knew better.”
He…he did. Because he…he’d had to learn that.
“But a few minutes with you and I was responding to your every word and every move without much thought. Just instinct. I wanted to challenge you. I didn’t think you’d kiss me. I figured you’d more than likely hit me. But you did.” His voice was a sigh against my skin. “And it shocked the hell out of me.”
But I… My brow wrinkled as I opened my eyes to the empty, dark sky above. I had…I had bitten his lip. Then he’d kissed me back.
“Fates, liessa, you tasted of warmth and sunshine,” he said. “Life. It left me feeling off balance for days. I was so damn pissed at myself for engaging you like that. I knew better. I fucking knew better. You didn’t realize who I was to you yet, and I knew the kind of danger I was putting you in. I knew what could happen. But you were in my arms after all those years of avoiding you, and you…you…you felt like you were mine.”
Mine.
Some knowledge arose that the idea of belonging to someone would enrage me, but not him. He was different. I did belong to him. And he belonged to me.
“I told myself it was because of what my father did. It made sense to me that I would feel that way since you’d been promised to me before you were even born.”
A deal…
One made between a desperate King and a Primal to save a kingdom…and the realms.
“It couldn’t be anything else, but I…I started to feel things strongly again. After that one damn kiss, I felt…I felt excitement. Anticipation. And damn, it had been a long time since I’d felt those two emotions, but everything was heightened when it came to you. Even anger and frustration,” he said with a dark, rich laugh. “And when you stabbed me?”
I…I’d stabbed him?
“I even felt alive then.”
What a strange man.
I smiled.
“When you argued with me. When you smiled at me. When you had that look of violence in your eyes. When it turned sensual. But especially when you laughed. I felt alive,” he said. “But I also felt fear again. And Fates, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt that. It was even before my kardia was removed, but I felt real fear when I thought about how willing you were to risk your life. Terror at the thought of Kolis discovering you.”
That name…
My hands balled into fists. I didn’t like that name.
I felt the soft glide of fingers over mine. I looked at where my hand drifted in the water. Slowly, my fingers relaxed, unfurling. It was his touch. It felt as if he were mapping the bones and tendons beneath my skin. He spoke of our time at the lake, and how he felt more like himself than ever when he was there with me. He talked about how he’d finally taken me into the Shadowlands.
“That fear had me acting like a real piece of shit,” he said. “And when I learned what you had plotted?”
I’d…I’d planned to kill him.
My chest seized with agony. I hadn’t wanted to, but I’d believed I had to. I’d been so very wrong, though. I knew that.