I was speechless for a moment, astonished. “You…what?” I shook my head. “Toven…I would never have asked that of you. It’s hardly fair, when I have Kavi and Isa, and…Toven. Ten years? That’s a long time.”
“I love you,” he said softly, reaching out to touch my hair. “I’ve never needed you to say it in return for it to be true. I loved you since the moment you fell into my table, looking like a mess, sticky and flustered in a shirt two sizes too small. That night in my hotel,” he stroked a thumb over my cheekbone, and I leaned into the caress. “No other woman could compare to that, Ravenna. I want no one other than you.”
“So, you’ll come back?” In ten years, I thought. It seemed an immense span in that moment, a lifetime to wait for this again, for an hour in a sunlit meadow. I would have said that I could not fathom it, to forsake the company of all others on the memory of an hour, but in that moment I could. I looked into his piercing green eyes, full of wonder at the depth of love he’d come to know, and I understood. “I love you,” I whispered then, ignoring my prior question. “I didn’t say it before, Toven…I was frightened. Afraid of what the future would hold, sure that you wouldn’t come back. After all, how long did we know each other? And the position we put you in…” I shook my head. “But I do. I have since the night in your hotel, when I understood the truth of who you are, of what I meant to you. I love you.”
Tears did spring to his eyes then, and he leaned forward, capturing my face in his hands as he kissed me, sweet and slow. I felt them slide down his cheeks and mingle with my own, and when we pulled apart, we were both laughing softly. “I never thought I would feel this,” he murmured, touching the place on my chin where one of the tears had caught, sparkling in the sunlight. “It is cruel, I suppose, in the way it turned out. But I wouldn’t change it. Not if it meant never knowing you.”
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t change it, either.”
He paused then. “Ravenna, there is something I need to tell you.”
I felt a dart of fear pierce my heart as I saw his expression grow serious, the laughter melting away. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
He hesitated. “I don’t know. But not long ago…something happened. A terrible tragedy. One of us was murdered, Ravenna, in the place between the realms.”
I stared at him. “What? You can’t kill a god. You’re immortal.”
“Not if certain conditions are met. There is a line of men, great hunters in the days of old, who turned against the gods. We believe their descendant is responsible for it, and if he is…Ravenna, he would have had to pay a great price to do such a thing. And,” He let out a long breath. “We are weakening. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how, but I can feel it. I am not what I once was, not entirely. It is faint so far, but I am afraid of what may come next.”
I reached for his hand, weaving my fingers through his, my heart pounding again in my chest. “What does that mean, Toven? Are you in danger?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly.
“What will you do?”
“Try to find the others,” he said quietly. “We have been scattered for a long time, but perhaps it is time for us to come together again. There is something coming, Ravenna, and I am very afraid of what it might bring.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I stared at him. “Are you…are you not coming back?”
He gripped my hand tightly. “I am telling you because you deserve to know, to not be left in the dark, wondering and waiting. You will be safe here, you and Kavi and Isa, no matter what comes, for ten years at least.” He reached for me then, pressing his forehead to mine. “I will come back, Ravenna. I swear to you, I will return. No matter what happens, no matter what I must do, I will come for you. I swear it by every god and goddess there ever was. But Ravenna…”
“What?” I whispered, closing my eyes tightly as I breathed him in, clinging to him as if I could somehow keep him there with me. “What, Toven?”
“You must believe in me. You must keep believing, no matter what. That I live, that I love you, that I will always do so. That is my best chance, if what I believe to be happening is true. You must, Ravenna.”
“Always,” I whispered, and I leaned forward to kiss him, brushing my lips over his as I ran my fingers through his hair, rising up so that my blouse fell off of my shoulders and down onto the blanket. I pressed myself against him, bare skin touching, and I drew him back down with me.
It was sweet and slow that time, made poignant by the knowledge that he would leave soon, that I suddenly could no longer put a time frame on when he would return. I did my best to memorize him, to trace every line of his body, every angle and ridge, and he did the same to me, touching me with a reverence akin to worship. He moved inside of me with infinite slowness, burying himself in me with each stroke, and when at last he came again with me, his whole body shuddering, he murmured my name over and over against my ear: “Ravenna, Ravenna. I love you.”
“And I love you,” I whispered, clutching him to me as if it might be the last time. “I always will.”
Then it was time for him to go. I stood on the beach, entwined in his arms as Amelie waited impatiently, kissing him as tears ran down both of our cheeks, and I held his face in my hands. “I will see you again,” he said firmly. “Believe in that, Ravenna.”
“Whatever comes,” I promised him. “I will.”
I stood on the beach and watched him go, not moving until the plane had risen into the sky, fading from view. And yet I could feel him still, the echo of his touch on my skin, his whispers in my ear.
Ravenna. Ravenna, I love you.
“And I love you,” I whispered again, my words carried away on the breeze as I turned to go up the bluff, back to the men who waited for me, the others that I loved. Peace and calm waited for me there, hard fought for and hard-won.
In the distance, on the far reaches of the horizon, storm clouds gathered.
Pursued by the Gods Page 22
