My chest aches for her, but then she shifts her hand, ever so slightly, so that it’s not her palm grazing my lips anymore, but her wrist.
I kiss the beautiful veins and feel her pulse flutter beneath my breath.
Her breath hitches with anticipation.
The animalistic part of me, the possessive part of me that wishes to claim Blaise, to wrap her very spirit around my fingers and never let her go, tells me I should wait. That I should draw out this moment until there’s nothing more in the world she could possibly want than me.
I want to consume her very being.
But then there’s the part of me that knows better.
The part that knows that Blaise has waited long enough.
That I never want her to have to wait on me again.
That’s the male who sinks his teeth into Blaise’s perfect skin.
When Blaise tucks herself into the crook of my neck and bites me back, the entire world shifts. Blaise and I fall into one another, two perfectly aligned pieces of a wooden puzzle fallen under the bed collecting dust, before someone thought to join us together.
I thought the bloodsharing ritual had been effective before.
I was wrong.
Blaise and I—our bodies have been bonded for months now, ever since the parasite deceived me into the bloodsharing ritual.
That was nothing.
This? This is everything. This is two souls being knit together, so intertwined they’re indistinguishable from one another. Now that Blaise is present for the ritual, we share in it together and I can feel a connection being forged, flowing in a cycle of her heart to mine and back.
It’s a vow and a promise and a commitment and a covenant, one nothing in Alondria can shatter.
I tear my teeth from her wrist and run my hands through the hair at the base of her head, pulling her lips to mine, still dripping with blood.
Blaise tenses, and not in a good way.
She flicks her gaze up to meet mine. Her brown eyes shimmer golden through her thick eyelashes, but there’s something other than desire there. There’s a wall.
A determination.
She pulls herself from my arms and retreats toward the other side of the bunker.
I feel as though I’ve fallen through the ice.
“Blaise…” I say.
She tenses at her name, closing her eyes as she leans her head back against the wall.
I inch closer, but she holds up her hand to stop me, and when she stares at me, there’s a gritty resolve in her eyes.
“The Old Magic took away your love for me,” she says, “but it didn’t take mine away for you. I had to do that myself, and it was… I can’t…if we do this, there’s not going to be any turning back for me,” she says. “I can’t spend my life pining over a male who doesn’t love me back.”
“Blaise, I…”
I want to tell her that it’s already too late, that after what we just shared, there is no turning back. That for me, there was never really any turning back. Not in a way that wouldn’t just end with me chasing her down, begging for her to give me another chance. And I want to say it, want to tell her I love her. That I love her like how my father loves my mother. But as I look at the distress in her expression, I know it won’t be enough. That Blaise is a female ruled by the whims of her gut, her emotions.
And if she’s convinced I don’t love her, I can’t simply tell her my love is different now than it was before. It will only hurt her worse in the end.
So I don’t.
And we both close our eyes.
But judging from our breathing patterns, neither of us fall asleep.
CHAPTER 91
ZORA
We walked the length of the beach the rest of the day.
We found no other survivors.
Because there are no other survivors.
It’s just me and Farin on this island.
Meaning…
I watch him as he sleeps, his dusty hair curling slightly at the tips, his face serene as he slumbers.
He almost looks innocent, the way his chest falls and rises ever so slowly. He doesn’t fear death. Or, if he does, he doesn’t fear it from me.
I blink, as if that will settle the twitch in my eyelid that’s overcome me ever since Farin killed the lone survivor on the beach.
That sailor was our only hope.
Our being the operative word.
There’s still hope for me.
There’s still hope for me. I repeat this mantra as I rise from my cot and pad toward the other side of the cave.
I pull the dagger Farin abandoned to the sand from my belt.
The hilt is cold to the touch, and I can’t help but note how dull the blade appears.
This won’t be clean.
But as I’ve said, I’ve never died before. I’m not eager to try it anytime soon.
