Her arms tightened about him. She clung to his solid frame. An anchor against slipping into that unfeeling emptiness. To retreat from the pain of this world meant fleeing from him, too. From what she felt with him. What she desired.
It would mean Dualayn had taken one more thing from her. She wouldn’t let him hurt her any longer. Rob her of anything else.
“I’m sorry,” Ōbhin whispered after an eternity.
She stiffened at his words. “For what?” she croaked, her throat raw. She stared up at him, viewing him through a world blurred by her pain. “For what he did to me? Or that you got me injured?” Their conversation from before she’d collapsed sharpened in her mind. “Because that was an accident, you hear me?”
Avena seized his face.
“I’m not going to let you run away from the chance I might get hurt, Ōbhin!” She stared into his dark eyes. She tightened her grip on his cheeks, her pale fingers brushing across his brown skin. “You hear me? You don’t get to decide what’s too dangerous for me. I do. I’m not going to let you go with Dualayn while I just stay here waiting and wondering. It’s my existence that’s in peril. It’s my life that’s going to be impacted if something goes wrong. So, what are you sorry for, Ōbhin?”
She awaited his answer.
*
He stared into her fierce, hazel eyes. The little flecks of gold glimmered in the diamond light. The stubbornness thrust out of her soul. A half-buried rock which would break your toe if you kicked it, thinking it would move where you wanted.
His emotions harmonized into a single melody. “I’m sorry that he betrayed you. You didn’t deserve what he did to you. It’s a crime. If I could, I would strangle the life from his body. I would leave him gloveless in a blizzard and the door barred against him.”
“That’s it?” she asked, her eyes searching his. Her fingers seared his face, her touch setting his heart to pounding. “That’s the only thing you’re sorry for?”
“I won’t stop you from coming.”
Her expression softened.
“I’m also sorry for trying to put you in a cage,” he continued. “I can’t protect you by locking you up. You’re not a songbird to sing for me when I want it. You’re a falcon. You should fly free over the mountains and use those talons of yours. I’m sorry for the things I said to you after you were ‘healed.’ It was inexcusable how I treated you. I was a coward running from my own fears.”
Her forehead furrowed. Her lower lip quivered. A noise rose in Avena’s throat. Then her hands tightened on his cheeks. She jerked his head down. Her mouth claimed his with a fierce passion. He closed his eyes, melting into the kiss. Her hands slid from his face to his hair, clutching at his short locks and pulling his mouth against hers.
His arms were around her again. He held her in his arms, rejoicing at the feel of her pressed against him. The taste of her. Feel of her. A sweetness he didn’t deserve. He squeezed hard, knowing she wasn’t a glass diamond, fragile and easily shattered. She was the real thing. Hard. Her soul bright and clear.
His gloves creaked as he gripped her back.
A salty flavor seasoned the kiss. Tears spilled from her eyes. She kept kissing him, refusing to let go as her body shuddered in his arms. Through the joy of this moment, a dark rage sang a sour note of discord.
He hated Dualayn more than anything in the world. A man who deserved to be killed.
A man he couldn’t kill.
He wasn’t sure how long they kissed before she broke it and pressed her face into the hollow of his neck. Her entire body shook as the grief spilled out of her again. He kissed the crown of her head, feeling her silken strands on his lips.
“I love you, Avena,” he whispered, giving words to all those feelings that had been swelling in volume, the joyful tones resonating through his soul.
She tightened her arms around him, clinging to him.
*
Avena held Ōbhin in her embrace. The alien sensation rippled through her body. Her brain was only a few cubits away, and still she could feel the connection between her mind and flesh growing tenuous. She held tight to Ōbhin.
She could trust him to protect her if she went limp.
“I love you,” she said, her tongue feeling numb, sluggish.
He squeezed his arms around her. The fuzziness surged throughout her flesh. Every nerve in her seemed to prickle like she’d slept on not just her arm but her entire body. She clung to him.
“I’m here,” he said, such care in his eyes. His gloved hands stroked her back. “If you fall, I’ll catch you.”
She smiled.
The sensation passed a moment later. She felt firm again. In control. She sighed in relief and kept holding him anyways. His arms around her made her feel safe. They would be heading to Koilon soon. Tomorrow. Maybe even today. There were still hours left before the sun set. Soon, they would venture into those red-stained woods and down into the ruins. Last time, she’d only ventured in a short distance. This time . . .
It would be dangerous, but what choice did they have?
Chapter Fifteen
“There!” hissed Jilly. She threw down a pile of clothing before Dualayn and spat on them. “There’s the clothes you’ll need.”
This was the sight that Avena found when she emerged from the lab with Ōbhin. Her
