Page 37 of Heavenly Bodies

‘Why aren’t you hurting me?’ she shouted.

‘I shouldn’t need to burn you from the fucking inside out,’ Enzo hissed. ‘Why isn’t it working?’

She rolled on to her side as his light dimmed. ‘I suppose I just don’t believe you’re really going to kill me.’

Enzo’s jaw clenched as he paced away.

Elara stood. ‘Stop. Holding. Back.’ She raised her sword again. ‘What? Has the Lion gone soft?’

Enzo gave a warning sound as he raised his weapon. She danced around him, jabbing and feinting as he defended her strikes with ease.

‘I know what you’re trying to do,’ he said, as they got closer and closer to the cliff’s edge. ‘I swear, Elara. If you fall off that cliff, I won’t follow you.’

‘And why would you? I thought you hated Asterians.’ She spat at his feet, and Enzo snarled, the blow against her sword harder this time, the light that burst from it blinding her momentarily.

‘I thought you hatedme,’ she said, and lunged again, as she launched the illusion of a nightwolf at him.

He grunted in frustration, stumbling as she tiptoed backwards towards the cliff’s edge. The fear was well and truly within her now. But she had to face it. She couldn’t carry on being haunted. By her parents. By Lukas. Most of all, by Sofia.

‘My parents killed your mother,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that what you claim?’

She laughed coldly, as she reached the edge. Enzo rushedcloser in and grabbed her by the back of her neck, his other hand gripping the fabric at her hip, fire rippling off him in waves. It seared through her, and Elara welcomed it.

He heaved, his full lips so close that if she so much as shifted, they’d graze hers.

She swallowed, as she fixed her hate-filled gaze upon Enzo’s, raising her chin. His grip tightened in her hair. She had never seen a hatred like it, what burned within his eyes for her. And she understood. Because she hated herself too for what she was about to say. But she didn’t let it stop her.

‘I’m sure the Light-loving bitch deserved it.’

There was a flash of light so powerful that it knocked Elara back, and suddenly, there was no ground beneath her.

There wasn’t a sound around Elara as she fell. Almost as though time had slowed, she saw Enzo at the precipice, clenching and unclenching his fists, a look of shock mixed with rage upon his beautiful face.

She reached for her shadows, felt them twisting and writhing within her. But they couldn’t push past the memories.

The waves crashed below.

Oh gods. She was going to die. She was really going to die.

She jabbed her hands out, again and again, but the shadows wouldn’t come.

And she finally began to scream.

Time sped up, her hair whipped around her, her skirt tearing in the unforgiving riffs of the howling wind. She jerked her neck, seeing the crash of the waves growing nearer and nearer. Her body would shatter on the rocks, if it didn’t break upon the sea’s impact.

She looked back up, and to her horror, saw Enzo jump.

He flew through the skies, body plummeting towards hers.

‘No,’ she tried to shriek, but the wind stole it from her. Enzo’s body collided with hers, and she sucked in a breath as he clutched her tightly. The two stared at each other, stricken, as they continued to fall, fall, fall, spinning in each other’s arms.

‘This is how I die,’ he shouted over the wind, in a matter-of-fact tone.

No, that just wouldn’t do.Enzo had followed her off a cliff. The man who hated her most in the world. The least she could do was try to save his life.

Elara tried to move her lips, but she was paralysed as they plummeted to their deaths.

‘You told me you were a dragun, Elara,’ Enzo said through clenched teeth, his grip unyielding around her.

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