Pure Requiem - Aja James Page 0,24

emerge, dreaming and hoping and praying that he’d drown his body in you?”

I huff a deep breath and throw my head back in defeat.

Yes! I had those thoughts. I never admitted to myself that I had them, but I did.

I don’t any more. Not since I realized that Dalair was in love with Kira. But there was a time that I found him unbelievably beautiful, irresistibly attractive. I suppose that’s why some subconscious part of me asked him whether he preferred males or females that day on the hilltop. Our hilltop.

And perhaps it’s also the reason why I was so heartbroken by his union with Kira. Not only because of her, but because of him. I was more jealous of Kira’s hold on Dalair than the reverse.

I regard Sophia again and declare, “I don’t feel that way any more. It was just a function of Dalair being the closest friend I had and we spent so much time together.”

Her eyes lose their teasing and soften instead.

“There’s nothing wrong with it, Cam. Dalair is beautiful inside and out. I, of all people, can appreciate this thoroughly.”

“I’m not…you know…I don’t like men,” I stutter.

“Okay.”

“I don’t like women either,” I add.

She nods obligingly.

“I’m not a sexual person.”

“You just haven’t met the one for you yet,” she says softly.

“They don’t exist.”

She opens her mouth to argue, but then seems to think better of it.

“Are we friends again, Cam? Erebu?”

Both her hands wrap around one of mine.

A lump forms in my throat, preventing me from speech, so I simply nod.

“I’m glad,” she murmurs and presses a gentle kiss on my knuckles.

“Are you ready to talk about the other memories? From when we first met? Not as Cam and Kira but—”

My head buzzes with the onset of a migraine.

“No.”

“Very well,” Sophia agrees readily. “Would you like to come meet the rest of the Shield’s inhabitants? As the new, true you?”

I stand and offer her a hand to help her up.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

We walk out of my apartment hand in hand, as if this is a waking dream.

But for the first time in my entire existence, I am no longer walking alone.

Chapter Six: Don’t Think Those Stars Won’t Align

*TAL*

I feel…different.

My body is sated from the countless hours of loving with my Mate throughout the entire night. We only dozed for short intervals to catch our breath. Even when we slept, I stayed inside her, and she stayed inside me. We remained joined in all ways.

This respite from the never-ending pain that engulfs me is like the beacon of a lighthouse in thick, foggy darkness. One blink of a brave, solitary star in an interminable night. I collect them in my heart, one by one.

Perhaps, one day, my darkness will be ablaze with a million stars.

My mind is at peace. For once the nightmares of reliving the millennia of torture and captivity did not besiege my subconsciousness. My mind, body, heart and soul are full of Ishtar. Her taste, her scent, the resonance of my blood in her blood, the sounds of her contented sighs and breathy moans, the most intimate part of her embracing the most intimate part of me.

But that is not all the difference I feel.

We have good days and bad days, ups and downs. I dare not expect that this respite would be any more permanent than the other ephemeral periods of calm, though I will hold on to this gift as long as I can. I treasure each and every moment like this, a pauper counting pennies. A pauper who feels richer than a king.

There is something else, as well. Something new. I cannot put my finger on it.

It reminds me of how I felt when Ishtar and I were first reunited, in our “honeymoon” hotel, before Medusa abducted and trapped both of us and reopened all of my newly healing wounds. In that hotel, we loved each other just like we loved each other last night.

I started healing afterwards; I even began to “see” blurry outlines and sense shades of light. Because those hints of returning sight disappeared after Medusa got to us, and later, when my inner demons descended once more, I wondered whether it was all in my mind, what I thought I saw.

But this morning, as I walk down the corridor toward the training hall, something is…

Different.

When I come to the secured automatic double doors, I don’t know why I instinctively shift a step to the right. But the second after I do so, Tristan and