Page 18 of Eldritch
“When I’m not being stalked like I’m a mischievous hare in the woods.”
A burst of laughter flew past her lips, and as if it’d startled her, she slapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, I must be deliriously exhausted, but…a hare is hardly the proper depiction of you.” She laughed again, the sight of her making Zevander chuckle. Still wearing a grin, she turned to look at him. “What is it?”
“Your laughter. It’s pleasing to hear.”
“There’s no reason to be grim. I found her. She’s alive and doesn’t appear to have been swallowed by the wrathavore.”
“What makes you certain of that?”
Her brows came together in a more serious expression. “When I watched it consume Moros, he didn’t quite look the same. He was…somewhat grotesque. Put back together wrong.”
“I see.”
“Anyway, I don’t know what will happen with Aleysia, but at the moment, I feel relieved. I feel whole.”
“As you should.”
She yawned and covered her mouth with her hand again. “I’m sorry, seems I’m tired, after all. I’ll let you get back to your vigilant watch.” A glance toward the bedroom and her brows tightened. “Although … perhaps it might be best if we sleep in the same room, at least. Just for tonight.”
“Is something else troubling you?”
Lips pressed together, she shook her head. “A bad dream is all.”
Zevander nodded toward the piled blankets. “It’ll be warm by the hearth. I won’t sleep much tonight, anyway.”
“Is something troublingyou?”
He shook his head, not bothering to mention his gnawing compulsion to kidnap her and return to Aethyria without Aleysia. “Not tired.”
“Well, thank you. For being here. For everything.” She leaned toward him, hesitating, then pressed her lips to his.
Fire burned in his muscles. Everything inside of him compelled him to wrap his arms around her and kiss her until she was fucking breathless and clawing at his chest. When she broke away, his hands twitched to act on his desires, but against his own instincts, his own urges, he released her.
“Goodnight,” she said.
“Goodnight.”Lunamiszka.
An ache stabbed his chest, and a cold hollow expanded behind his ribs, as he watched her settle back into his makeshift bed of blankets on the floor. A creeping pain burned his chest, not like the sharp lance of a blade, but a slow, viscous poison crawling over his rib bones. Zevander pressed his hand to his heart, silently searching for the source of whatever writhed inside of him. An acidic taste lingered at the back of his throat, the acrid scent of rot and decay filling his nose.
What in seven hells is this?
He strode into the other room, so as not to arouse concern from Maevyth, and once there, he gripped the back of the chair near the window, knuckles white. Jaw clenched, he let out a grunt, panting as the ache deepened, squeezing that wretched, beating organ he swore could never be touched. It pounded furiously inside of him, a fist against a cage, warning him that it might just hammer through his chest.
Through unfocused eyes, he stared down at the scorpion necklace laid across the table, the one Maevyth had worn the night of The Becoming Ceremony. Zevander narrowed his vision on that single object, inhaling deep breaths, while the memory of Maevyth that night distracted him from the tension of his muscles bracing for the next wave of agony.
His chest tightened. The blackness hanging on the fringes of his vision closed in. Like molten steel in his veins, it burned, pulsing through him in sharp swells of misery.
Gods, what is this?
A sensation so foreign and unsettling, he damned near called out for Maevyth.
Yes, Maevyth. Think of her. Moon witch.
With a trembling hand, he reached out for the jewelry, clutching it in his palm.
As the image of her beautiful face came to mind, the agony dissolved, little by little. The fist around his chest loosened just enough that he could take a deep breath, and the peripheral blackness slinked back to the fringes.
Zevander breathed hard through his nose, squeezing that damned necklace as if it were a talisman. He opened his eyes to it, while the last of whatever had attacked him withered away, and bending forward, he ran his thumb over the scorpion, remembering how it’d lain against her silky skin.
