“You have a choice to make,” he said. “A very difficult one.”
I swallowed against a raw throat. “Doom Oceansgate by taking Amryssa to Hightower, or end the nightmares and lose her forever.”
“Yes.”
An icy dark nothingness hardened within me. I waited for Ky to laud my strength, to assure me I could survive the loss of the one person I’d ever truly loved. The only one who hadn’t left me, like everyone else had. Like he soon would.
He didn’t, though, thank goodness. A line formed between his brows. “Did you ever see her, out there? In the swamp?”
“Who, Zephyrine?” I tried to scrub the arid despair from my voice, with little success.
“Mmm-hmm.”
I weighed that, grateful for the subject change. “I caught...glimpses, sometimes. I’d hear laughter on the breeze, or see a woman from the corner of my eye. Or feel something behind me and turn to find flower petals fluttering through the air. And once, in the beginning, when I hadn’t eaten in days and hadn’t figured out how to dig for mussels yet, I found a fish laid out on a stone. Like an offering. It was cold, still. And I assumed it came from Zephyrine. In some weird way, I knew it had.”
“She looked after you,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And now you have the option to return her child to her. Or not.”
I quieted. He hadn’t loaded any accusation into the statement. The words rang with fact and nothing more, a decision he would leave to me.
And yet there was no decision to make, not really.
The mere idea of losing Amryssa crouched on my chest, driving all the oxygen from my lungs. In the emptiness left behind, Olivian’s words came back to haunt me.I care about Oceansgate more than about myself. But for her, I’d let it burn.
Gods. Only now did I understand what he’d truly meant, how very alike he and I were. Because I already knew what I would do. I didn’t have to measure anything on the scales of justice or the greater good.
Amryssa wasn’t going into the swamp. She was going to Hightower, because the world needed her sweetness and light. So did I. Without my friend, I’d be nothing but an orphan again, without purpose. Without worth.
I burrowed against Ky. He seemed to sense what I needed, because he tucked my head beneath his chin, his breathing deep and even. I was so profoundly grateful that he hadn’t pushed or judged me that I couldn’t hold back any longer.
I touched his birthmark. It wasright there, a pale beacon just inches from my face.
A muffled gasp escaped him. The hand he’d cupped around the nape of my neck tightened.
I froze. “Sorry. Did I hurt you?”
A pause. “No,” he said thickly. “It’s only...that’s a sensitive spot. One I very much like having touched.”
I should’ve pulled away. But the skin below his collarbone was smooth and enticing, and the groan that rumbled from his chest when I resumed stroking fired bolts of warmth through me. His breathing accelerated, though he didn’t take my attentions as permission to touch me back.
And goddess, I adored him for that, for granting me that control. For gifting me a shard of power in this horrendous situation.
When I glanced up again, his lips had parted. His eyes were low blue flames.
Seven hells. Talk about a distraction. I let my fingers still and stop.
He growled a soft protest. “You wouldn’t be so cruel as to leave me hanging, would you?”
I gave him an impertinent smile and curled my hand against my chest. “Of course I would. It wouldn’t be any fun if I didn’t.”
“Oh, I beg to differ. I can’t think of anything morefunthan me pinning you to this bed and fucking you hard enough that you forget what we just read.”
Want ignited in my breast, pure and unadulterated. There was something perversely erotic about hearing such filthy words in that silken accent. “That sounds like a terrible idea.”
His tongue swept over his bottom lip, leaving it gleaming. “It sounds like a fantastic idea. The best idea anyone’s ever had, anywhere, in all the world, throughout the entire history of time.”
