by Tenaya Jayne
Her heart beat languorously. Syrus felt every slowed beat through his body. Then it stalled and stopped.
"NO!"
Syrus gathered her against him again, red lightening cracking over his whole body. The electric current engulfed Forest, the lightening streaming into her wound like water to a drain. Moving up through her veins, jolting her silent heart.
Forest's eyes shot open. A scream exploding from her lungs.
Relief such as he had never known flooded Syrus. His tears fell on her face as she looked up at him.
She reached up and placed her hand on his cheek. "Syrus…" She winced, a weak gasp of pain sliding from her lips as her slave mark broke open, bled, and then sealed back together, her flesh new and perfect.
Her stomach wound began pulling itself together under Syrus' hand. Her eyelids fluttered, her eyes sliding backward, and her hand fell from his face as she dropped into unconsciousness.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Forest opened her eyes in the darkness to the familiar sounds and scents of her bedroom. Had it all been a dream? A terrible, terrible dream? She moved her hand to trace along her scar… but there was no scar. She exhaled, feeling the bruised weakness in her core. She turned her head. She was in her bed, Syrus silhouetted in the dark, asleep next to her.
Syrus had known she was in danger. He’d saved her life.
Forest sat up, her hands involuntarily clutched at her stomach. The vision of her sword coming from her flesh flashed before her eyes. She shivered. The image was a terror that would stick with her the rest of her life.
But Leith was dead. The knowledge brought a strange twinge. She placed her feet silently on the floor and crept out of the house. Compelled to see his body, to have her eyes confirm what her new skin already had, Forest walked through her garden and out. The moon cast its light on the woods around her. She'd lost time, unaware of how long she'd been out. His body may have fallen to ash by now, or Syrus may have done something with it.
It was closure she craved. Just a private minute to say goodbye.
Leith's mangled body lay face up. The aquamarine moonlight reflected on the surface of his eyes. The areas of his skin that were undamaged held the appearance of wet wax. She starred at him, momentarily numb.
The numbness didn't last. Forest choked on the vomit rising up her throat as all of her memories of him from the first to the last flashed through her mind. She fell to her knees next to his body, shaking with silent tears and held his hand, his fingernails crumbling to dust at her touch.
"It didn't have to be like this," she whispered. "I'd have given you my love freely, if only you'd have asked for it. If only you could have been kind…if only…"
The memories of how her marks confused her heart stung in her chest. However forced, false, and twisted it had been, she had loved him. And it could have been real, if only he would have been content with the free gift of love. But he wanted property rights.
Forest moved through every emotion she'd ever had regarding Leith, setting each one free like a bird to the wind. Decades of weight lifted from her little by little as she opened her hands and released the past. But another sinking feeling swooped into her stomach. She turned her head around abruptly. Syrus was standing behind her. A pain worse than being stabbed, worse than death, sank into her heart, transferred from Syrus.
****
His eyes didn't deceive him. He'd never seen clearer without human blood. But how Syrus wished what he saw was a cruel illusion. She shed tears for Leith. Tears! With plain regret in her heart. And the words she'd uttered, he'd have traded anything to un-hear them.
Betrayal. Betrayal too deep to pardon. Everything within him that lived for her…died. His heart shut down in self-preservation, and he went cold inside. He took a step back and lifted his hands in surrender. "Well, I guess I wasn't supposed to see this. By all means, continue telling his corpse how you love him and you wish you were bound to him and not me."
"What? Syrus, that's not—"
"Not what? True? You've pushed me away and pushed me away, rejecting my heart over and over. You've held me at arm's length, and you let him live when you had the chance to end it. How can you say you love me when you obviously love him, and how can you love him in the first place?"
"Syrus, please—"
"No, don't worry about it, this one's on me. I'm the fool who thought underneath it all, you actually loved me."
"I do!"
"That's a damn shame. If it's true…this is going to hurt, a lot."
"What's going to…" Forest's voice trailed off as Syrus closed her access off to his heart.
Forest gaped at him, unable to breath. He was rejecting her as his mate. The legendary pain of such a thing rushed on Forest. The invisible ties between them pulled and tore like hacking off a limb but leaving it hanging by a sinew, still connected but dead. Her eyes, hands, and heart ripped apart under the surface as he turned his back and walked away.
Forest didn't move. It hadn't really happened she told herself. Amazingly, the pain of rejection, at least the physical part of it, was already fading. How could that be when all the stories told of enduring agony? That individuals who rejected their life mates suffered lifelong excruciation? It wasn't some searing sting or burning leaving her writhing on the ground, it quickly settled into despair and desolation sliding through her veins, poisoning every inch of her.
I can live with it. It's not that bad.
She continued to watch his retreating back. He walked at a steady pace, his frame completely ridged, until she could no longer see him at all.
Strange. This is what I wanted, right? Isn't it? To be free of anyone and everything. To live my life without the burden of hurting him because I can't be what he wants. To let him go. Never see him again. Never touch him. Never hear his voice teasing me. Never again see his childlike smile. What I want…I? What I want?
When did I become so damn noble?
Forest rubbed her hands together. The pull of their bond still existed in her palms, like a ghost, a mere phantom of what had been there. But it was still there!
Get off your ass, stupid!
Forest jumped to her feet, grabbed her sword from the ground next to Leith's body, and ran for her life.
The moonlight slid along the blade as it shot through the air, missing Syrus' head by an inch, sticking deep into the trunk of a tree next to him. He whirled around as she came up behind him, his eyes bugging with shock.
"Where do you think you're going, sucker?" she demanded.
"Forest…what are…what do you…" he spluttered.
"You're not going to just walk out of my life. Especially when your reasons are ass backwards."
"What?"
"You misunderstood what you saw, what you heard. I came outside to see his body with my own eyes. After all the years of being tied to him, everything he's done to me, I needed closure."
"You were grieving! I felt it!"
"Yeah I was grieving, but not his death, you idiot! I was grieving for my own life, and what he did to it. I was letting the past go so we could move ahead. Sometimes a woman just needs to cry."
"Bullshit, I know what I heard. I can't take anymore. It's over." He ducked under her blade and continued walking away.
Forest pulled her sword from the tree trunk and ran to block his path. She thrust the blade under his chin.
"Get out of my way, Forest." He took a step back from the blade.
She advanced, keeping the sword's edge a breath from his jugular. "No. We'll have it out here and now, and this is the only way I know how."
"I'm not going to fight you."
"Damn it, Syrus! Draw your weapons!"
When he made no move, she threw her sword on the ground and grabbed one of his, pulling it from its sheath and pushing it into his hand. He sighed, gripping it loosely. She picked her sword back up and instantly launched into a ferocious attack. Syrus stumbled back, forced to block her strikes.
He evaded, his eyes bu
gging worse than before. "Are you trying to kill me?"
"You've been in my memories, Syrus. You know how his lover marks altered my emotional responses. I never wanted to hurt you or drive a wedge between us. I felt unworthy of you, and I made myself believe that you were ashamed of me. I wanted more time to make something of myself. I want to be considered your equal. That's why I accepted my birthright."
Syrus gapped at her. "That's why you accepted your birthright?" His shock had him lowering his guard.
Forest wasn't having it. She gritted her teeth and attacked harder. "I lied," she shouted over the clanging of metal. "I'm an ungrateful liar. I've lied to my heart, but my heart never believed me. No matter how many times I repeated the lie, my heart dismissed it as blasphemy. "
Syrus moved forward, drawing his second sword, letting his feelings pour out into his blades. Forest ducked a vicious strike and spun away, regaining her footing, pushing back on him.
"I tuned out the truth just as I tuned out your heart. I ran from you because I wanted you so much. I wanted to be yours from the first moment I laid eyes on you, Syrus! But I couldn't forget my lifelong conditioning that I was nothing but trash."
Her sword clashed so hard against his, the bones of his arm rattled. "Stop fighting me!" he shouted.
"You can run away, but I'll catch you. You can let go of me, but I won't let go of you!"
A strangled cry sounded from her lungs and she stuck at him as hard as she could, her every word punctuated with a clang of metal. "I. Won't. Let. You. Go!"
Syrus' heart shocked back to life. There she is, my Forest.
The hurt and anger on Syrus' face drained, and he let his arms hang at his sides.
"NO!" She shouted, dropping her sword and grabbing one of his hands bringing the tip of his blade to her heart. "Don't stop!"
He tried to pull away, appalled, but she held his hand fast.
"If you leave, you may as well kill me right now. I won't survive you, Syrus."
"Forest…" he rasped, pulling his hand from hers, dropping his swords and grabbing her by the shoulders.
Tears ran down her cheeks. "I thought you'd always be there," she sobbed. "I thought I could put you aside and pick you up when I was ready and you'd be okay with that. I abused you so you'd go away, thinking it was best for both of us, all the while not really believing you'd ever reject me. But you have. All I can feel is the absence of our bond. I thought I didn't want it and that I was just too afraid of the pain to really reject you."
"Are you in pain?" he asked.
"Yes, it's just not what I thought. It's not the pain that's driving me to say this. I want it back, Syrus. I want you! You set me free. I'm a free woman. I want to start over."
Syrus shook his head sadly. Desperately she grabbed his hand and laid it over her heart. "Do you doubt me?"
His brow creased in a frown. Her heart hammered against her ribs. "Can you still feel it at all? Even a trace?"
"Yes," he whispered. "Oh, Forest what have I done? I'm looking right in your eyes, it's blurry, but I can see you and our bond's not healing."
Hope leapt into her throat. "Do you want it to?"
He hung his head, his shoulders slumping. "Yes. I want it, but I destroyed it."
She held both his hands tightly in hers. "I don't care. As long as we're together, bond or no, I love you."
"I don't know…"
He pulled away from her and closed his eyes. She could feel him slipping away from her yet again. She had to do something…Forest reached into her pocket, her fingers closing around the End of the Bridge Merhl gave her. She moved to Syrus and reached out for him.
"Will you come with me, Syrus?"
"Huh?"
Forest wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, the End of the Bridge, clasped in her fist and thought of where she wanted to go. The portal opened around them sucking them into the darkness. The end dropped them in midair ten feet above the water.
The silvery purple light of the water closed over them as they fell through the surface. Forest stroked to the top, gasping for air. Syrus coughed and shook the water from his hair.
"You could have given me a little more warning what you were up to, Forest. Geez."
She swam to him and framed his face between her palms. "Look where we are."
"I've noticed."
She turned her head toward the crescent rock, where the small waterfalls fell into the river. "Come with me."
They swam to the falls, to the rock ledge, waist deep, the shimmering water spraying up around them. Forest faced Syrus, who watched her warily. "I want to start over. Let's go back to when we stood right here. Remember?"
"Yes," he whispered. "I remember."
Forest gripped his shoulders. "Oh, Syrus. I'm sorry. I went about everything wrong. Please…is there nothing left in your heart for me?"
He hung his head, rubbing the heel of his hand over his chest. "It hurts so much. It's still yours, it always will be no matter what I do…I want to trust you, but…"
"Please," she whispered laying her hand over his heart, "give me the chance to heal it."
He took a deep breath and rested his forehead against hers. It would take time, she realized. He held himself aloof from her, but he was here.
"I'm sorry I misunderstood," he said.
"I'm sorry I ever left your side for a second."
"I'd give anything to change it."
"So would I."
They clung to each other, tears racking their bodies.
"Kiss me, Syrus."
He took a deep breath and framed her face gently with his hands. His gaze pushed deep as he rested his forehead against hers. His bottom lip trembled. "Are you finally done running from me?"
"Yes, Syrus. Yes!"
He leaned in, his lips a breath from hers and stopped. Her eyes fluttered, and she titled her head back, her lips begging his. He eased in but still made no contact. "Are you sure?" he whispered.
"Yes."
Syrus ran his thumb over her aching bottom lip. "Are you really sure?"
Her blood began screaming for him, burning through her veins. "I swear."
His lips came down so slowly and so soft. Forest's eyes shut tight, and her face pulled in the tension of pleasure. He patiently built such terrible agony inside her. Flames and starving hunger.
They both gasped; a quickening in their hearts shimmered silver. Hope sprang a well in Forest, the connection was healing. The pain around his eyes eased, and he breathed easier.
He kissed her again, harder. "The bond is alive. It's battered and fragile, but it lives."
"I felt it, too."
A faint trace of his innocent smile broke his lips. He crushed her against him and pulled her under the falls into the cave. They dove at each other. Forest's shirt ripped under his urgency to touch her new skin. His fingers ran down her neck, over her shoulder, and down to her elbow where her scar used to be. He replaced his fingers with his lips. "You're mine?"
"Yes, I'm yours, Syrus. Completely."
Steam filled the cave, rising off their bare skin as they truly made love for the first time. Every physical act they had shared before paled in comparison. Every wish and yearning fulfilled without haste, overawed with love. Every second the bond gained strength, resurrecting in their hands, breathing deeply in their hearts, only the eyes held back, something still hindering the connection there.
After exhaustion claimed them both, Forest rested her head on his shoulder and watched the dancing light on the cave walls as it bounced off the water.
"There are no words, Syrus," she said still breathless.
He shook his head in agreement. "No. None that could adequately describe…"
"You can mark me now."
"I thought you wanted some time to be free of scars."
She did. She never wanted another scar unless she won it in battle. But her remorse urged her on, trying to continue to make amends. "It's okay… I'm ready."
Syrus brought her hand
to his lips. "That means the world to me. But I'll have to decline."
"What?"
"Thanks, but no thanks. I've got an alternative for you." He looked around for his discarded cloak. Squinting, his vision fading, he spotted it floating in the corner of the cave. He grabbed it and retrieved the small box still tucked safely in the inside pocket.
