Page 77 of Kiss of Death
“I swear on my honor in the presence of the Realm of Caelum that I loved her the moment I laid eyes on her.” I looked him in the eye as I declared my love for her, completely unashamed and indifferent to how he felt about it. “Four hundred years of misery…and then she gave me a reason to live. The Barbarians overtook her ship and killed her crew, and I used every power at my disposal to get her out of there without even knowing her. I watched her cut down men thrice her size and outsmart opponents with more experience. I watched her look terror in the face without hesitation. I witnessed the most remarkable woman I’d ever seen—and I was lost.” I shook my head slightly at the memory. “And I came to her, and I asked her to be mine for as long as she would have me. I thought I would never love again, let alone want a wife and more children, but I would consider myself the luckiest man in the world if I got to have that with Lily Rothschild. Another chance at happiness with the woman who…” I hesitated because it felt wrong to disrespect Anya, but she’d also disrespected me. “With a woman I believeI was meant for all along.” I looked away from Talon across the clearing, watching the fireflies float in the dark and illuminate the brush and the canopies of the trees. Listened to the quiet sounds of the forest, the life that continued on even after the sun had set.
Talon said nothing to my tale, probably because there was no good way to respond to it. And he was probably uncomfortable with the way I spoke about his daughter, the way I declared my love unapologetically. “I’m sorry about your wife.”
My eyes flicked back to his automatically.
“I was married before Calista, and I lost her too.”
I already knew this, already knew everything about Talon Rothschild, but I chose to accept his revelation like it was new. “I’m sorry.”
“And I had a daughter.” He hesitated, the thought of her still affecting him all this time later, and then cleared his throat. “It still haunts me to this day.”
“I understand.”
He looked away again, his thoughts becoming his own once more.
The divide between us didn’t shrink, but at least it stopped growing.
“My son came to me…and said he believed your love for Lily was real.”
I wouldn’t have expected Hawk to speak on my behalf, not when the only times I spoke to him were somewhat hostile. He’d justgotten his father back after a gruesome injury. Wouldn’t have expected him to risk pissing off his father at such a difficult time.
“So that’s Hawk, Riviana…and Lily.” His eyes turned back to me. “But there’s still a warning in my heart, an unease I can’t explain.” He studied me with his sharp gaze, like he could find the answer carved into the flesh of my cheek.
Guilt flooded my body like a dam had been broken. Most of his assumptions about me were wrong, but his intuition still felt the error I had made. “Your suspicions are warranted, Talon. If Lily were my daughter, I wouldn’t trust me either. But there is one thing you can trust about me, and it’s this—thatI will not stop until I get her back. That I’m your ally in this endeavor. That I deserve to be down there because I made that choice with a clear mind, but Lily Rothschild doesn’t. If I make it to the underworld but I can’t leave with her, then I’ll stay behind with her. Because I’d rather live in the dark with her than live a mortal life without her.”
22
CALLUM
We left Riviana Star and found the dragons waiting for us at the edge of the forest.
Two days and two nights had passed, and I felt my mind deteriorating. I hadn’t slept in four hundred years, so I forgot that I needed it. But now my body demanded it, even though Lily’s soul was in peril. My mind filled with so much haziness, simple thoughts seemed to elude me. It was akin to looking through the smoke of a fire and trying to see the other side.
But I didn’t dare voice my needs, not when we raced time.
Talon seemed to have a conversation with the dragons because they stood together, exchanging long looks before they turned away.
It was strange to watch them interact, to witness a conversation but not hear it.
To know they were discussing me but I couldn’t eavesdrop like I could on Lily’s conversations.
Talon eventually turned back to me. “Khazmuda insists that we rest. Neither of us has slept in days.”
I wanted to dismiss the suggestion, but I was so exhausted, my face felt like it might fall off. I used to dread the endless days that blurred together in the underworld, but now I missed when I was able to go on forever. “We’re useless to Lily if we’re weak.”
“Then we’ll rest for a few hours and then return to the dead island.”
“We shouldn’t return until we have a plan. Otherwise, Leviathan will grow suspicious.”
Talon removed his tent and bedroll from his pack before he kneeled down and got to work.
It was still dark, sometime after midnight, hours before sunrise. It’d been hundreds of years since I’d built a tent, but when I pulled out the pack Talon supplied for me, I quickly pieced it together like the memory had never left me.
The dragons built a fire in the center of camp and kept watch so we could rest.
I moved to my bedroll in the tent and lay there, my mind about to shut off from exhaustion, but the guilt kept me awake. In the underworld, she couldn’t sleep. There was no respite from the constant chaos. And here I was, my eyes almost too heavy to keep open.
The fatigue took over, and I slipped under the haze…and drifted away.
