The Rise (31 page)

I smiled, though my heart was a clump of nothing in my chest. My left hand, which was still wrapped around my Gladius, trembled slight as I looked at it. So many wonders in this world, so much heartache.

“What did you do to earn them?” I asked.

Arrol turned back to face me, his wings molding back into his body. He reached out and ran his fingers over the silver lilies on my right arm. “What did you do to earn
these
?”

I nodded my understanding stiffly, wishing I hadn’t asked that question, wondering why he had even offered to show me his wings in the first place.

One last wonder in a world of wonders.

“Oh, I thought you were gone.”

And one day you might think that completely, but I will always be here, Alexa.

“That’s the first time you’ve ever called me by my name.”

It is a day of many firsts, indeed.

“Where did you go?” Arrol asked, surprising me out of the conversation in my head.

“What?”

“I’ve observed you much since you arrived here, and I have observed many others of your kind in the past. All of the others, and you, too, seem to fall away sometimes, and your eyes go distant, only I get the feeling it is inward they are turning. It is a look I cannot describe to you, but I’ve only ever seen it with your race. You had it just now.”

I turned toward the door that led inside the cabin, my eyes cast down at the ground, the weight that had fallen on my shoulders suddenly feeling too immense. “I don’t know about the others,” I said quietly. “But I think what you’re talking about is just my way of trying to make peace with the pieces inside me, to let two things that oppose each other live in some kind of harmony, but I don’t expect that to make any kind of sense to you. It doesn’t even really make sense to me.”

“Sure it does, Alexa,” he whispered behind me, as I pulled open the door and stepped inside. Before it closed behind me I heard him say it again. “Sure it does.”

And then I was heading down the glass tube hallway to the one that led back to the bedroom. Now I thought of Kayden again. And the last piece of my heart broke.

Alexa

I stopped when I came to the green door. Something told me that Kayden was on the other side, waiting for me, maybe had been for hours. I placed my hand on the doorknob, but made no move to open the door. I just leaned my forehead against it and closed my eyes.

Of all the things I had to do, this was by far the hardest. Giving my life for Nelly didn’t feel as bad as you would think. It didn’t even really shock me that that was the only way to save her. I felt I had always somehow known it would come down this, and it was something that I accepted almost easily, if not a little bitterly. The hard part would be leaving Kayden behind, telling him that I loved him and turning around and breaking his heart.

Maybe you won’t have to. Maybe he doesn’t love you as much as you think.

“Doesn’t matter either way. He’s my Libra. When I die, he will hurt.”

Gathering the last of my courage around me, I straightened and pushed the door open into the darkness of the room. Taking a deep breath, I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. The room was silent. My eyes went to the bed first, hoping to find Kayden there under the covers, sleeping. The bed was flat and tightly made. Empty.

And then he was in front of me, having seemingly appeared out of thin air, and his warm, strong arms were around me, his hands wrapping in the braid in my hair. His body pressed up against mine, forcing my back to the door. Then his lips found mine in the darkness, and his kiss was gentle and almost painfully contained. I heard myself moan a little at the feel of his heartbeat so close to my own, the skin of his bare chest almost hot against the thin fabric of my dress. My Gladius fell from my hand and hit the floor by our feet.

Everything I had been thinking about a moment ago left my mind instantly. All I could concentrate on was Kayden; the way his calloused hands were sliding over my skin leading trails of fire, the force of his body against mine, the feel of his soft lips. The world melted away into nothing, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulled him against me as hard as I could. A growl, almost murderous, rumbled up his throat and vibrated against my lips. His hands slid down to the front of my dress, and there was a tearing sound as he ripped the fabric right down the middle, then slid the sleeves down my arms slowly, making me shiver. The ruined dress fell to the floor in a puddle of silver around my feet.

My heart was pounding hard enough to break through my ribs when Kayden’s fingers dug into the bare skin at the back of my thighs and lifted me up the way he had last night. My legs wrapped around his waist and held there for dear life. My head fell back as his fingers broke the band holding my braid together and then unwound my hair in three swift motions. I shook my head, and my dark hair spilled out over my shoulders. Kayden pulled back a little and looked at me. His golden eyes nearly glowed in darkness of the room, burning with a fire so intense that it seemed it had blazed there forever, and always would. His fangs were pushing out over his lips, which were parted slightly as the air rapidly filled his lungs. And then he sank them into the soft skin on my neck.

I cried out when they slid into me, but it was not a cry of pain, even though Kayden had not been in the least gentle. My hands wrapped themselves into his hair and held him to me where he took my blood. I stared up at the ceiling as he drank, my eyes slipping closed as ecstasy rode through me in thick waves. His arms were so tight around me that I ceased to be able to breathe, and that was just fine.

Then I was falling, and my back landed on the soft bed, crushed there with all of Kayden’s enormous weight on top of me. He lifted himself up, a worried expression seizing his features as he propped himself up on his hands over me. His voice was the growl of an animal. “Did I hurt you?”

I stared up into his golden eyes, wondering if my voice would work when I opened my mouth. “Are you kidding?” I asked, taking ragged breaths.

His eyes trailed down my body, over the rising and falling swell of my chest, and down further still. I arched my back, and his warm hand slipped under me. His fingers found the clasp of my bra and flicked it open as he brought his head down and licked at the blood that was still trickling down my neck, his soft hair brushing my cheek. I shuddered and pulled him down on top of me again, not caring that the weight of him was probably enough to crush bones. Not caring about anything at all.

I wrapped my legs around him again, feeling the hardness of him all over me. Heat was spreading through me like forest fire in the heart of summer. I realized that the only thing between us now was my bra and my underwear, and I pushed Kayden up again and pulled my arms free of the bra’s straps. Kayden snatched it and tossed it aside.

Now he stared only into my eyes, though I lay almost as naked as the day I was born beneath him. I was surprised by how comfortable I felt, how
right.
I had never spent much time thinking about what my first time would be like, but I had always thought I would be at least a little scared. It was impossible to be, though. I couldn’t be afraid with Kayden’s arms around me, his skin pressed against every inch of my own. I couldn’t be anything but grateful. At least I would get to have him once, if never again. It would have to be enough, and yet it never could.

I reached my hands behind his neck and pulled him down to me again, finding his lips with my own. He tasted like blood and sunshine and sweet things, and my heart seemed to be swelling to ten times its size in my chest. I dug my fingers into the scarred skin of his wide back, felt his hard muscles moving underneath them. Then his hands were at my hips, his rough thumbs hooking into the sides of my panties, and I was so anxious that I was sure I was just going to die.

Kayden sat up then, still between my now quivering legs, still with his hands on my hips, and looked down at me. My eyes travelled down his body, the hard lines of his abdomen and further down some more. When I looked back up at his face I knew that he was ready for me, he was just waiting silently for me to tell him that it was okay.

I didn’t have to think. I bit my lip, reached my hands out and trailed my fingers over the ridged muscles of his stomach. His tawny hair had fallen loose of its short ponytail, and now fell around his face like the mane of a lion. He was wearing nothing but a pair of black shorts that were bulging thickly right below his navel. I met his eyes, trying to memorize the sight of them now, because the look in them was one I had never seen before, and may never get to see again. It spoke of endless love and hunger and pain. It turned out that I did have a heart left in me, and it proved it to me by burning and breaking in my chest now. I looked down at where Kayden’s thumbs were still hooked around the last piece of clothing that hid me from him, and nodded my consent.

Instead of sliding the garment down my legs, Kayden growled again and tore them into two worthless pieces and tossed them aside. Then his black shorts slid down and he kicked them away in one rapid, fluid motion. Then him,
just
him, was on top of me again.

My fangs slid into his neck at the exact same moment that he slid into me, seeming to fill me up inside somehow way beyond physically. He did not handle me with caution, as I’d feared he might. Kayden seemed to know that I could take everything he had to give me, and held nothing back, either because he was unable to, or just because he knew that I would not want it any other way. We were both Warriors, both accustomed to taking a beating, both long-time friends with pain. And my bite was not gentle, either. I had never felt a pain as sweet as this, and I got the feeling that neither had he.

It seemed to last a lifetime, and soon the pain was replaced with the most intense pleasure I had ever known. My head seemed to be spinning, reeling with the knowledge that my Libra, my Kayden was inside me and that we were one at last. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, any more
perfect
, my body came to a point where it was impossible to keep silent, where I thought I really might be dying of pure bliss, and I cried out his name.

He finished with me, pulling back a little while pushing forward as far as he could go at the same time. His golden, sunrise eyes stared down at me, and the sight of them hurt my heart so badly that I had to shut my eyes. I could hear his ragged breaths as he lay down beside me and pulled me close to him, wrapping his arms around me and stroking the top of my hair with his fingers.

We lay there in the darkness, his heart beating softly beneath my ear and my hands splayed out on his smooth chest. After a very long time, he spoke, and his words made the awfulness of the situation he had made me forget that I was still facing hit me in the face like a bucket of freezing water.

“At least I got to have you once, Alexa,” he said. “I can live knowing that.”

Alexa

Those were the only words that were spoken between us. There was so much left to be said, but as I heard Kayden’s breathing grow deep and steady beside me, I thought that maybe it was better not to voice it all, to just let the last moment retain its beauty, to not allow it to be spoiled by nasty truths.

Sleep did not find me so easily, though, and I lay there staring at the ceiling feeling wonderful about having Kayden so close and wretched about allowing myself to feel wonderful. Eventually, moving very carefully so that I wouldn’t disturb Kayden, I untangled myself from him and slipped off the bed. The moon outside the window was more than enough to see by, and I grabbed my old jeans and t-shirt and put them on. After a moment of staring at my old tennis shoes, I took the boots Sasha had gotten me and slipped those on, too. Retrieving my Gladius from the floor by the door, I tucked it in the back of my jeans and slipped out, casting one last glance at Kayden, who hadn’t stirred in the least.