Flame and Starlight by Dana Isaly

Chapter Twenty-Three

I told Asher everything. I told him about the uncontrollable power and about the voice that accompanied it. I told him about how it whispered for me to kill Aoife and how I was pretty sure it had also told me to kill him in a dream I had. He gave me his full attention and hung on every word until I was finished and folded my legs underneath me, trying to curl up and disappear.

He stared at the floor for a moment, and I watched him intently, waiting to see what he would do. We had both changed when we got back. He wore loose pants and a tight white shirt that clung to every muscle that was now taut with stress and worry. I played with the hem of his shirt he had insisted I wear.

“I want my scent all over you,” he had growled in my ear.

I didn’t protest after that.

But now, sitting wrapped in a blanket on the couch, waiting for him to respond to my story, I felt self-conscious. The anxiety that I had rarely felt since crossing into this world was suddenly creeping its way back around me like ivy, gripping at my heart. Without even realizing I was doing it, I reached out my senses, my anxiety fueling the need to know what he was thinking, and skimmed the edge of his power with mine.

“You’re being a bit more gentle this time,” he whispered.

“Sorry,” I said and pulled it back. “My anxiety is a bit of a trigger for it.”

He grabbed my hands, and I watched our shadows twirl around us there, a cool breeze against our skin.

“You never have to apologize to me for your power, Alys.”

I met his grey eyes and smiled, but I knew it didn’t reach my eyes. I could feel the sob climbing its way up through my throat.

“Something is wrong with me.” My voice broke. “Maybe I shouldn’t have changed. Maybe it took so long because I wasn’t meant to be here.” I was spiraling. I could feel the panic take hold in my stomach and chest, seizing my muscles. I couldn’t breathe. I stood up and paced in front of the sofa. “I wasn’t supposed to be here, Asher. You brought me here. You took me and brought me here, and I wasn’t supposed to be here!”

“I know,” he whispered into his hands.

“Why did you do it? Why did you have to bring me here and turn me into this?” I gestured at my body. I knew I was being ridiculous; I could feel it. I always knew when my anxiety took hold and I was no longer being rational, but I was on a roll and couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out of my mouth like a waterfall. “This is your fault,” I said in a deathly, low whisper.

My power pulsed through me in a shock wave at those words.

His fault. His fault,it whispered.

Another pulse of power hurtled through me.

His head still hung in his hands, the thick strands of hair curling around his fingers.

“I know, Alyssandra.” He lifted his head and looked at me. “You don’t think I hate myself every day for bringing you here? Tearing you out of your comfortable life? I hate myself for bringing you here and making you stay with me.” He stood and gripped my arms, his fingertips digging into my flesh. “I hate how selfish I am with you. I knew from the moment I saw you that I was well and truly fucked. Why do you think I treated you so badly? Kept you at a distance?”

I ripped myself out of his grip. I was angry and heated, and I knew I would get lost in those eyes if I stayed too long. I made circles around the small living room and then poured myself a drink and downed it in one gulp, letting the liquor set my skin on fire.

“I had come to York to save you. I knew Theron was hunting you. I knew Aoife was close to you. You don’t understand the horrors I grew up with. You don’t understand all the things I have seen him do to not only me. When I heard he was looking for someone, for you, there was just something inside me that broke at that. I couldn’t let him do it again.” He was really shouting, causing his shadows to seep through the room and block out all the firelight. His face was red, and his eyes seemed to light up with anger.

“You did it out of spite, Asher. You did it to stick it to Theron one last time. Do not delude yourself into thinking this was all for me.” I swallowed another glass and ran my hands over my face. My magic thrummed under my skin, pushing me closer and closer to the cliff. I turned away from him and gripped the bar until I felt the metal dip under my fingers.

“Alys,” he said and placed a hand on my shoulder to turn me around. His eyes widened slightly before he pulled me to him, my face cradled in his hands. “I did not only do it for me. I felt something pull me to you.” I felt tears prick at my eyes. “Breathe for me, little duck. Grip that power and pull it down.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, pushing it as far down as I possibly could, my power writhing against me, fighting the entire way. I couldn’t tell the difference between my anger and the thing inside me. I didn’t know if what I was feeling was real or if it was that thing trying to take me over.

But I felt rage in that moment. Rage that my mother wasn’t my mother. Rage that everything I grew up knowing was a lie. Rage that I was taken from my friends and family.

He took you away, it whispered.

I pushed back at it, forcing it down and hidden. I had to sort through my own thoughts and my own feelings. With Asher’s skin against mine, his own self-hatred free flowing into me, and the thing inside me swelling with hope it would be freed again, I couldn’t breathe.

“I don’t know why,” he murmured into my hair. “But I know I was supposed to save you, Alys.” I swallowed against the tears. “And you were supposed to save me.”

“Save yourself, Asher.”

I pulled out of his hands and stalked off to the bathroom where I slammed the door and threw his shirt on the ground. I stepped into the empty bath and turned on the water. It was so hot my skin instantly began to turn red. I pulled my knees to my chest and hugged them tight. And then, resting my forehead on my knees, I cried.

I mourned my easy life that I had lost back in England. I cried for my mother and for my friends. I let all the anger burn off my skin and melt into the water. This was never Asher’s fault. Deep down, I knew better. I knew that if it weren’t for him, I would have probably been dead by now, or worse. I kicked myself for being an asshole, and then because I didn’t want to face him, I laid my head back against the bath and cried again.

* * *

I was thoroughly waterlogged, and the water had turned ice-cold by the time he knocked on the door, two soft little raps that brought me out of my haze. I furiously wiped at my eyes.

“Yeah?”

“May I come in, please, Alys?”

I started crying again at the gentleness in his voice, and without waiting for my word, he slowly crept in through the door and knelt next to me. I shivered against the chill in the bath.

“My princess,” he whispered as I reached for him and he reached for me. Completely unfazed by the water sloshing out of the bath and all over him, he scooped me up and let me sob into his neck while he somehow wrapped me in a towel and carried me to the bedroom.

He shushed and murmured against my sodden hair and ran his hands over the towel, trying to warm me up. Even his shadows seemed to know I was cold and kept their distance. We sat on the bed like that, him staring into the fire and me staring at his chest, until the silence became unbearable.

“You should sleep,” he said, cutting through the silence like a blade. “I’ll let you change and get some rest.”

He began to stand, but I threw my arms around his neck.

“Do not leave me, Asher. Never leave me. I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I’m so, so sorry.”

He let out a breath and pushed me away from him. My heart dropped.

“Hey,” he said, grabbing my chin. “You’re a pain in my ass, you know that, right?” I laughed, and he caught it with a kiss. “I will never leave you, Alys.”

I straddled his waist and let the towel fall to the floor. I rested my forehead against his and let my emotions flow through that bond he had created. I let myself feel his as they moved across our skin.

Adoration. Hope. Fear. And something a bit more demanding in the present moment.

A deep rumble through his chest had my breath hitched in my throat and my hips moving against him, hard and ready.

“How will I ever be able to stay mad at you?” I asked against his mouth.

“I’m really hoping you never can. You were terrifying.” He laughed and moved his fangs against my neck. I tilted my head to the side to give him better access. I rolled my eyes.

“Bite me, Asher.”

“With pleasure, princess.”