House Of Gods 9 - Samantha Snow Page 0,14

was the one who had chosen to leave; there was a difference in that.

“What are you going to do now?” he asked.

She wasn’t expecting that question. She thought that surely, he would have more things he needed to be answered from the time they had spent apart.

“I will go back to my sister’s and watch for destiny’s path to unfold. Then, when I am no longer needed, I will return to you.”

“No.” Leif’s word carried the weight of a thousand words with it.

“What?”

“I do not want you to return to them. I need you to be here, with me.”

“I know, and I feel the same,” she said as she looked down at her lap. “But there is a need for me to be able to help my sisters see into the future.”

“There is a need for you to stay with me.”

“Leif, please,” she said as she looked up into his eyes. “This is why I left without saying goodbye the last time. I don’t want to go; it hurts us both.”

“Then, don’t go!” Leif grabbed her hands and held them against his chest. “Don’t go, Norna. Stay with me. The Fate has already plotted a course, and destiny will unfold as it wishes. We have no need to see it ahead of its time. The only need that I have is to be with you.”

Norna tried to pull her hands back from his. It was hard enough to force herself to leave, but it was much harder when he was begging her not to go.

“Please,” he pleaded as tears formed in the corners of his eyes. “Do not leave me again.”

Leif was such a strong and handsome man, fearless and capable of brutal strength and even more fearless resolve. But here, sitting beside Norna as she readied to leave him again, he was broken. Norna weighed the implications in her mind, just as she had done when she had left before. There was a huge prophecy to play out, and there was still much that could go wrong along the way. But she had done her part by returning and setting things to the place that they were now. She had sacrificed her happiness and Leif’s. And now, if she left again, she would be doing the same. This time she wasn’t sure it would be fixable if she left.

Leif slid his body closer to hers on the couch and pulled her as close to him as he could. He put his head against hers and leaned the side of his face against her cheek.

“Please,” he whispered into her ear. “I do not want to live without you again.”

Norna turned her face toward him so their mouths met, and Leif waited for her to say something, anything that wasn’t a goodbye.

“I love you,” she said with tears in her eyes.

“I love you too.” He wasn’t sure what this meant. He held her tightly, afraid that if he let go that she would leave again.

But instead of getting up, she kissed him, and he kissed her back as if she were his sustaining breath. He dropped her hands and wrapped his arms around her back as he pulled her into his chest and onto his lap. She put her hands on either side of his face, and as their heads tilted back and forth in a frenzy of impassioned kisses, she pressed her mouth against his without letting him go. She, too, had been suffering without him. There was not a day or minute that had gone by in which she hadn’t dreamt of being back in his arms. She’d had the courage and selflessness to leave before, knowing it was what she had to do. But now, she felt differently. Now, she felt that what she needed was him; and he needed her too. She didn’t want to stop kissing him ever again, but he pulled his head back for one small moment to look into her eyes.

“What does this mean?” he asked. His eyes were full of fear for what she might say or what she might do to crush his heart again. “Does this mean that you will stay? Or is this just a sweet last gift before you leave again?”

“I’m sorry,” she cried to him softly. “I am so sorry I left before. I felt I had to, and I did what I thought was necessary. But you need to know that I died each day without you, and I never intended to be apart from you