House Of Gods 9 - Samantha Snow Page 0,44

buried her face against him.

It went on like that for days. Tannin didn’t wake. And Tara was haunted by dreams of the beautiful little girl who looked rather like a fawn and called her “Mama.” She tried to talk to Astra about her dream, thinking that maybe it was a vision of things to come long into the future and that it must have meant Tannin would wake up soon. But Astra tempered her hope by telling her that sometimes dreams are just dreams, and sometimes our unconscious mind gives us what our conscious knows we can’t have. Cai tried to get Tara to eat and drink and even to walk with him in the forest. But she would not leave Tannin’s side, and they all worried as she grew weak.

Lopt had stayed in Yggdrasil; he had no choice in the matter. The hundred years had come due, and Tannin wasn’t awake. He and Tara weren’t able to join together to hold the nine worlds under one reign, and the prophecy was broken, and the realms pulled apart, leaving Lopt trapped in the forest and separated from Celeste. Not even his magic could bridge the gap this time.

As Tara laid beside Tannin, vaguely watching Cai and Celeste walk out into the forest to join Lopt for another walk, she closed her eyes and felt the gentle rise and fall of Tannin’s chest against her cheek. She thought about all the times they had been together, which wasn’t really that many. Mostly she thought about the time that they had been together. She tried to relive it in her mind, to feel his touch and his lips, his body inside hers. She couldn’t cry anymore and was afraid of going numb, so she even thought about the times when he had aggravated her the most, just so that she could feel something, anything besides the void that was eating her up. When she realized that his breathing had stopped, it hit her all of a sudden, and she instantly panicked and tried to remember when his last breath was and how long it had been stopped.

“Please, no!” she screamed as she pushed her head up to look at him.

But instead of seeing the bluish-purple of his closed eyelids, she saw his eyes. Tannin looked back at her with deep, open eyes and tried to manage a smile, although it hurt him even to move his lips.

“You’re awake!” she screamed and laughed at the same time. “But you stopped breathing!”

“Yeah,” Tannin said in a weak voice that was scratchy and barely audible. “I think I held my breath for a second there. I couldn’t believe you were actually lying on my chest.”

She smacked him gently on the chest for making her think for a second that he was dead.

“Ow!” he said. Even her slight tap was painful.

“I’m sorry,” she laughed through her tears. “I thought I had lost you.” She held his face in her hand and looked at him intently as if afraid to look away.

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Days,” she said. “I don’t know exactly. I lost count.”

“Have you been here with me this whole time?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Tannin looked confused, or scared; she wasn’t sure which. “Why?”

Tears poured from her face as she spoke. “For the same reason that you came here to fight my brother and save me. I love you.”

Tannin’s eyes widened. “Say that again,” he whispered.

“I love you,” Tara said.

Tannin ignored the pain and reluctance of his body. He reached up and pulled her down onto him, their mouths meeting in a kiss so intimate they both felt it inside every cell in their body. They kissed until their tongues were tired and they needed to breathe. Tannin pulled Tara up onto his chest as close as she could possibly get, which still didn’t seem close enough, and their eyes stared at each other with their foreheads touching.

“I love you too,” he said. “I’m sorry for all of the bad things I’ve done. And I am sorry for killing your brother. I’m sorry for having horns and for—”

“You don’t need to apologize for any of those things,” Tara said as she furrowed her brow and became upset, thinking he still didn’t value how important and beautiful he was to her.

But he took his finger and covered her lips to quiet her so that he could finish.

“I’m sorry for anything I have ever done to upset you. But know that the only reason I did any of