Page 73 of Of Realms and Chaos

With a gentle sort of intensity, Asher pushed Lian up slightly, forcing eye contact. Lian was now the shortest of our group since Winona was no longer here to claim that title, but she still managed to look larger, her imposing and unfaltering ruthlessness adding inches to her height. Until now, that was. As The Manipulator spoke words only Lian could hear, we all felt the heaviness of our recent losses plaguing our hearts.

Lian’s tears ceased moments later, the remnants wiped away by Asher’s thumbs. Slowly, Asher leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss to Lian’s forehead, this time audibly whispering, “May she return to Eternity.”

Tension faded when Luca reached down to offer Lian help as the two females separated, which she promptly swatted away with a sound of disgust. Amusement soon followed when Cyprus reached out his hand instead, wiggling his fingers, and Luca leaned down to lightly smack his cheek in return.

As soon as Lian was fully up, I reached for Asher, scooping her into my arms and burrowing my face in her neck. When the smell of vanilla hit my nose, I nearly broke.

“He healed me. Are they still there?” Her words were muffled against my hair, but I knew what she meant.

“He left the scars, Princess. They are still there. And you are still here.”

She was okay. She would be okay.

I did not realize how badly I was shaking until Asher’s steady hand met my jaw. Relief flooded me at the simple contact. Like the rainbow after a season of rain, Asher’s presence lit my world with color. In fact, I could have sworn that the sky brightened, the sun stronger and warmer than before.

“I missed you,” I said into her ear, smiling at the way she shivered in response. There was nothing quite like feeling and hearing her. A box full of every note we had ever sent one another sat waiting in my small room in Pike, but no matter how many times I reread them, it would never be as beautiful as the real thing.

When she looked up, I gasped out loud, horror filling me. A violent storm of emotions raged within her eyes, cyclones and thunder of something beyond understanding. She was harder, fiercer, and angrier than the last time I had held her. I could feel it in my chest—my soul. Something about her was fundamentally different.

“I missed you, too.” The hard edge to her tone—one which I knew was not meant to show anger, but was merely an example of the changes occurring within her—sent alarm bells blaring in my head. What had happened in the last couple of weeks that made her this way?

“What did you say to her?” I asked quietly.

“I told her that life and death do not conquer. We do.” She shrugged, leaning up to place a gentle kiss on my lips. I desperately wished she would not pull away, but of course, she did. Suffocating on the taste of her would be better than breathing the empty air that signaled her absence.

“I love you.” The words ripped free of my mouth without a second thought, and I realized how much she needed to hear them when her eyes grew glassy. She reached up again, this time offering a far more reassuring kiss. When my tongue slid across her bottom lip, she chuckled, pulling away again. But I chased her mouth with my own, securing my arms around her tighter and leaning forward. A soft breath left her mouth, and I slipped my tongue inside, taking advantage of her surprise.

She laughed into the kiss, but gave just as much as I did, locking her arms around my neck and smiling as her tongue wrapped around mine. I nearly moaned at the sensation of her, but I could still feel her strange resolve, as if she had built a wall around her, coarsening herself.

“Gross! Stop that this instant.” The hiss came from near my knees, irritating, but not enough to ruin my joy at having my Asher back in my arms.

I hate that cat, you know.

Asher’s answering laugh to my yelled mental words made me smile, a true moment of happiness. Those were so rare these days that I tried to memorize every blush and blink and bend of her in this moment.

I love you too, by the way.

And that, the sound of her intoxicating and demanding mental voice, I would need to remember too.

“Well, little brat, you really beat the shit out of that thing,” Henry said, ruining the moment.

Cyprus laughed, leaning over to press a kiss to Asher’s cheek before quickly standing and moving himself out of my reach. She was not smiling, instead staring at the bloody female who still lay unconscious a few feet away.

“What is she?” Luca asked, leaning his head forward and squinting his eyes—as if the answer to his questions were written somewhere on the female’s body. Henry had told us what the creature had done, but Ranbir had been far too focused on Asher to explain anything.

Winona would have known, but it was her husband who answered.

“She is a whisp, though I have never seen one who manifested that way. I can search through…her research sometime soon.” With that, we all quickly sobered, the amusement and joy depleting in an instant. The air was left thick and stifling, full of the stench of death and loss.

“Okay, time to go.” I lifted Asher with me, holding her so tightly it might have hurt. But letting her go, losing this contact, was not an option. Not when she was suffering, and not when I was crumbling.

The silence of the fae since the battle in Grishel left us all with our hackles raised. Something sinister was brewing across the Sea of Akiva, something not even The Mist could hold back. We were preparing, training with mortals and demons and any creature willing to step up and choose a side. But we were vastly outnumbered.

Asher needed to be ready.

“Go where?” Her voice was so much higher than her normal tone that I feared she might still be hurt somehow. When she squirmed in my arms, I set her down gently, grabbing onto her face and pulling it close to mine, inspecting her for harm. “Go where, Bellamy?”

I froze, finally understanding.

---