Page 80 of Kiss the Dawn
Fire starbursts in my chest, the heat of the sun rushing through my veins. My vision is filled with light, and I’m flooded with memories. Deep, hidden moments that not even breaking the cycle of nightmares released. My heart swells with emotions I’d forgotten, and my eyes burn with the salt of tears.
An agonized scream pulls me back, slamming me onto my knees.
Another scream is followed by the sweet scent of blood.
“Orina!” Godor bellows.
I force my head up, body trembling from the aftereffects of a broken curse, to find her impaled by barbs. Rivers of blood trickle down her body and pool on the ground. She’s limp, unconscious, and bleeding out.
“No!” My voice is a ragged broken thing. “Let her go, please, let her go.”
Henry tears his gaze from her and fixes it on me. “She loves you…”
I can hear her pulse slowing. She’s dying. “Henry,please. Don’t punish her for my crimes. She’s a good woman. An honorable woman.”
“And she…loves you,” he says again. His brows go up. “You love her too.”
“Take from me what I took from you. It would be a perfect revenge. But then it would make you just like me. A monster. Is that what you want? Is this what Agatha would have wanted?”
“Don’t fucking say her name!” Spittle flies from his mouth, but then his face crumples. “You don’t get to say her name.”
“This wasn’t what we agreed to.” The woman from before approaches, except now her hair is bright blue, and her eyes a stunning green.
She’s fae.
“We didn’t agree to harm an innocent,” she says.
“He loves her.” Henry points a finger at me. “He should watch her die.”
The woman looks down on him in pity. “Not today. Not like this.” She lifts her hand and clicks her fingers.
The trap vanishes, and Orina falls. I move fast, blurring to catch her. I lower her to the ground, cradling her in my arms. Her blood soaks my hands and fills my head, and my hunger rises. I tamp it down.
“It’s too late,” Henry says with glee. “She won’t make it.”
I bite my wrist and hold it to her mouth.
Henry lets out a bellow of rage and rushes me, but Godor tackles him and throws him to the ground, andthe next moment the doors fly open, and Kaster appears, Sangualex at his back.
“Drink, Orina. Drink.” I pinch her jaw and force my blood into her. “Drink, dammit!”
My heart is in my mouth because she’s so pale, so unresponsive, her pulse so slow it’s almost gone.
I can’t lose her. I won’t. I grip her throat and squeeze. “Drink now!”
It moves beneath my hand, once, twice, and the band around my chest eases. She’s drinking. She’s fucking drinking.
A sob claws at my throat, and I let it free, blinking back tears as she grabs hold of my wrist and sucks.
The curse is broken. I’m free, and everything I need to live for is safe in my arms.
Chapter 29
EZEKIEL
Orina’s pulse is steady, and her wounds have healed. She’ll wake soon, and I’ll be here, in New Town, in the apartment I bought for her. Waiting to greet her, to tell her that she did it. That I’m free of my curse.
I feel whole for the first time in…forever. I feel…hope.
