To Love a Vampire - A.K. Koonce Page 0,57
before crisscrossing the rope slowly down our arms. It burns like fire on contact and I wince, breathing hard through my teeth but no sound escapes my mouth.
La tull, La sol, es unte. Wil te rhoesa, wah unte.
La tull, la sol, es unte. Wil te rhoesa, wah unte.
La tull, la sol, es unte. Wil te rhoesa, wah unte.
Her words flow gently through my mind but don’t hold any meaning. I don’t know how many times she chants, how many times she crosses the flesh searing rope against our arms. My eyes clench tightly closed, and I breathe shakily through my nose.
I feel her at our wrists now, she unclasps our hands until our palms are flat against each other’s palms before tying the rope around the back of our hands. I feel her knotting it there. My wrist hurts so bad I’m sure the flesh is gone entirely but I don’t look.
She pulls our tied arms closer, my feet stumble against the smooth ground but Asher pulls at my waist, facing me to him. I open my eyes to him, we face each other, one step away from the edge of the cliff.
Our bonded hands fume white smoke between us, his face is stern but composed, like the pain isn’t there at all.
“Breathe, Fallon. It’s almost over,” he whispers into my hair as he presses a slow kiss to my temple.
I do as he says and focus on my unsteady breaths.
“The two of you are now eternally bound.”
I chance a glance toward Luca who nods for me to finish the ritual.
To jump.
My eyes dart nervously to the crowd who waits for me to plummet to my death with happy smiles on their faces.
“You know I’d never let you jump, Fallon,” he says pulling me against his strong chest.
“You wouldn’t?” I ask, hope fluttering through the thick cloud of panic in my lungs.
“Of course not,” he says pressing his lips softly to mine, washing away all the fear in my mind. I meld into him, the pain in my arm barely surfacing with his mouth against mine. “I’d never put that much pressure on you,” he says, his breath fanning over my parted lips.
His words are said strangely and confusion joins my overcrowded emotions.
But only for a moment.
He pulls me even closer to his body, wrapping his free arm tightly around my hip, my hand grips his shoulder out of reflex. My nails sink into his shirt as he leaps over the edge of the world.
The wind tears at our bodies and clothes, wrapping the layers of my dress around my legs as we fall toward the reaching waves below. I feel it the moment we leave the shielding magic that surrounds the Wanderer’s world, like a bubble reluctantly popping all around us.
I clench my eyes closed and hide my head in his chest.
What if we’re not a true match? Or worse, what if we are but I flounder in the water until I pull us both down to the dark ocean floor.
Our bodies hit the water hard, knocking the thoughts from my mind and the breath from my lungs, leaving me no further time to dwell on my fears.
The water’s cool and is a relief to my throbbing arm, which now moves freely at my side, unbound as if the salt water dissolved the rope. Instinctively I cling to Asher. But it occurs to me I really will just drag him down. I unclench my fists from his shirt, my arms and legs fling rapidly through the heavy water. I push panic into each movement of my thrashing limbs. I am alone, drifting through the open ocean. An offering to the water fae in hopes that they won’t kill me before I kill myself with my inability to find the surface.
I keep my eyes closed tightly, the pressure of my lungs press against the walls of my chest as I fight to find oxygen again.
Something brushes my leg, clasping around my ankle. I scream, a muted and diluted sound of my fear. My legs kick strongly, trying to get away as I suck in small amounts of water in my irrational attempt to flee. The salt burns my nose and lungs and I almost want to cry, just add my pain and salt to the water that has taken me in as one of its own.
My body goes still, my mind wonders how I even got here.
I proposed to Asher. I proposed a life of love and freedom and commitment