Tears filled my throat as his voice turned hoarse. Perhaps he, too, wanted to have a conversation without tears interrupting. “And,” he said, “I selfishly want to be here to see you enjoy it. I want to hear you laugh and see your face light up when you're happy. I want to see the sparks in your eyes and the fire in your soul when you decide you're going to fight. And I want to be the one to protect you, to hold you, to comfort, and to please you. I want… you.”
He pulled one of my hands to his chest. “I want you in my heart. Callista, I would give you my very soul. It's a broken,monstrous mess, but I'm offering the pieces to you. Would you marry a beast?”
“No.” My emotions flew in every direction, but he had insisted that I see my weaknesses in a positive way, and I would do the same. “But I would marry an elf who is fighting to be better every day. Who has risen above his own pain and genuinely wants to do right by others. Who is kind and protective and honorable. Who makes me feel important and strong and safe and beautiful.”
I clasped my hands around his neck again. “You,Aedan Vander Ignim. I would marry you. In a heartbeat.”
A fierce smile tore across his face. He pulled me closer, and I leaned in to meet him. His lips burned like flames. Our time was up. He pulled away after the swiftest brush across my skin. “You should move back. I don’t want to burn you, and I will shift at any moment.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck tighter and buried my face against his tunic. “I just got you back from the dead. Don’t you dare ask me to leave you now.”
He hugged me close to him and crossed his arms around my back as he bent his face into my hair and whispered, “As you wish.” His magic wrapped around me in a fiery yellow shield. Was he trying to protect me from the heat of his shifting?
His skin grew so hot I felt it through his clothes. Would those clothes ignite? Would a fire get past his shield?
I didn’t care. I tightened my hold on him, and he pressed his hands into my back in response.
White light exploded from his body, drowning my senses, but not burning me. I couldn’t see anything except brilliant, sparkling white. I couldn’t tell if it was actually an overwhelmingly brightlight or if it was just so much magic that my senses were perceiving it as white light.
Despite not being able to see anything, I still felt Aedan—my hands around his neck, his hands on my back and shoulder, his heat burning—while also not burning—everything.
Jagged yellow, red, and orange flames suddenly interrupted the all-consuming white light. They burst out of Aedan’s body like flowers popping out of the ground in the spring. These flames did not burn me either, and I did not know if it was because of their nature or the way he was holding me. The shield he’d wrapped around me had vanished. But my heart felt his, and his heart told me that I was safe. No flames coming from Aedan would burn me.
As the flames replaced the white light, he gasped and took in an enormous gulp of air—the kind of gulp I’d expect if he’d been holding his breath underwater for minutes and then opened his mouth to fresh air. After several ragged breaths, he loosened his hold on me.
I pulled my head back to see if I could find out why he wasn’t gripping me close anymore. Flames still surrounded us, popping and burning the air as loudly as any real fire would, but I didn’t feel them.
Aedan—not a drekkan, but an elf—cupped my head with both hands and leaned close to my ear. “Callista. You saved me again.”
Chapter 36: Aedan
We stood in flames, but I knew Callista was perfectly safe now. They were my flames, and we’d touched each other’s hearts enough that my magic would only protect her.
Plus, they gave us a little privacy, and that light show was going to bring an audience.
Callista stared at me in wonder and confusion. I lifted a hand and held it between us. No claws. No fingers as large as legs. “I’m not a drekkan,” I explained.
She took my hand and wove her fingers between mine. “What happened?”
I smiled, pressing the emotions into my chest enough so that I could speak. “Your mother called on the magic I’d wasted in deception to make me suffer the effects of my own monsters until I… until I begged for the kindness I’d refused to offer her and felt the pain of love I did not deserve.”
My emotions broke free from the walls I’d surrounded themwith, and I coughed as they worked their way past my throat and into my eyes. “When you chose to stay with me as I shifted, my heart bled for the truth that no matter how much I loved you, I would never be able to show it properly. We would always be ripped apart at dawn. And you deserved so much more than that.”
I ran my thumb along hers, embarrassed at how hoarse I sounded. “I thought I was begging for your kindness when I suggested you punish me for what I did to your mother, but that was pathetic compared to the tortured feeling I had when I asked you to forgive me for dying.”
I lowered my forehead to hers. “I don’t know exactly which moments satisfied the magic, but I am eternally grateful that all the moments have turned me into an elf that you’re willing to share your life with. Because, in truth, that is all I want right now—to share my life with you.”
She grinned at me, and I swooped her into my arms in a bridal carry. A warmth filled my chest when my arm bumped against the dagger I’d given her yesterday, still strapped to her waist. “It was never a curse,” I whispered in her ear. “I thought it was, but I was wrong. It was a gift that I desperately needed to help me grow. I’m sorry she isn’t here to witness it.”
She brushed a kiss on my cheek. “I’d like to believe she is.”
Chapter 37: Callista
When Aedan and I finished kissing, he set me back on my feet and waved at the flames around us. “They probably think we’re both dead by now.”
I laughed. “No, they would have tried saving us if they thought that.” I stuck a hand into the flames. “These must be a little transparent.”
His eyes lit up with a mischievous glint. “Is your brother out there?”
