Page 59 of Scent of Desire
But Radcliff led me back to the light.
“Radcliff?” I felt my strength draining and my focus disappearing as his black, imposing shadow came to me.
He swooped me into his arms, carrying me in his godly embrace. “You…” His lips moved, but I didn’t catch the rest of his words until he said, “…safe.”
The light. We advanced to it. It felt like flying. Radcliff stopped on his way, and he and Christian seemed to talk, but I couldn’t hear them. It was as if a bomb had exploded in my ears, and their voices were far away, blurred by a thud.
“…it’ll hurt,” I heard Radcliff finish his discourse. “See you in hell.”
I think Carmin pleaded.
The last thing I saw was a lighter in Radcliff’s hand and a sharp Machiavellian grin on his face.
Then, a flame.
Then, the flame went away, and the room turned into fire.
Diabolic flames rose inside the club, tearing down the walls. The smell of smoke and burning invaded my nose. The fire tinted the room in charcoal black, marking this place of debauchery as a vestige of the underworld before it collapsed into ashes.
It was the death.
Radcliff carried me through the flames as if we were immune, and we left this chaotic place. On the outside, sirens cried out in the middle of the starless sky, and the effect of the aphrodisiac slowly drifted out from me.
Radcliff dropped me delicately on the floor, brushing my hair away from my face with a tender touch. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t go,” I begged, a tear trailing to my cheek.
“You’re a part of me, Lily. I’ll always be with you.”But not physically.I had learned how Radcliff could twist his words into hiding the full truth. “You’re mysoulmate, but I can’t—”
You can’t offer me your soul because you believe you have none.
“Your heart is enough,” I whispered, the sound of the sirens getting closer.
“It’s rotten, and dark, and ugly. You deserve more.” He brushed my face, his eyes roaming over each of my features. They were aching with a tortured pain. He was blaming himself, probably experiencing for the first time in a very long time the feelings ofhurtandloss. “I was wrong… You are my strength.”
He inched forward to me, his lips approaching mine, a few inches from touching. “Twentieth of January.”
His birthday.
He placed a fairy-tale kiss on my lips.
Not the kind that would awaken me and give me my forever happily ever after.
But the kind that was a goodbye, bewitching me in a deep sleep.
It smelled of white.
White, like the afterlife and the nothingness.
A scent of clean and chemical that left no place for colors, as emotionless as the blank pages of a book.
“Lily? Look, she’s awake!” I recognized my uncle’s smell—paper journal with an amber note.
My eyes fluttered open, and the cold and merciless white became blurry. I shifted my head, feeling my uncle’s hand holding mine. My vision adjusted to distinguish two shadows that were bent on top of me—my uncle, who had a tear in the corner of his eye, and Hugo, who let out the brightest beaming smile.
“Nice to see you back,doudou.” Hugo grinned. I tried to lift myself into a sitting position, but he interrupted me, his hand on my shoulder keeping me in place. “You’re fine. But take it easy.”
“I’m so sorry, Lily. I know you can’t forgive me, but I—” My uncle pleaded, clutching his grip on my hand with a grip so tight it’d cut my blood from flowing. “I can’t lose you like I lost your mother.”
