“I don’t want any of this!” I raised my voice, suddenly realizing why Katia had arranged for me to go through the wreathing ceremony with Brennon in the first place. She’d handpicked him as Alonso’s vessel.
Dane let go and I turned away from him. I didn’t want him to see how scared I was. How hopeless I felt.
As I stared through the shimmering branches into the night, Dane slipped behind me, easing his hands around my waist. “The choice will be made for you whether you want it or not,” Dane said softly. “I’m here. I love you,” he whispered into the back of my neck. “We were meant to be together.”
He traced his thumb against the slope of my hip bone—the same way he’d touched me when we first met. I placed my hands on top of his; the firm pressure of his grip deepening my desire. He kissed my shoulder . . . then my neck, my ear; I turned toward him to find his mouth, when he stepped back. A slow smile spread across his lips with that perfect dimple peeking out. “It’s your choice. I’ve already made mine.”
I wanted to refuse him, for his own good, but there was no escaping. The branches seemed to imprison his scent, trapping it there until I felt drunk with his essence.
Thanks to Katia’s memories, I knew how to perform the ritual, just as I knew Caddo like it was my native tongue.
“You’re sure this is what you want?” I stepped toward him, searching his eyes, but it was too dark to decipher his expression.
“Yes.” He pulled me close, his warm breath caressing my face. “I’ve never wanted anything more than this.” He whispered in my ear, “I want to be able to find you, to taste you, to feel you even when I can’t feel myself.”
The smell of his skin was indescribable, like every good memory mixed with the sweetest bitter sorrow that I would ever know.
He kneeled in front of me and presented me with a knife from his belt.
My blood seemed to ache for his. I took his hand, and dug the knife across the length of his left palm. He sucked in air, trying to hold in the pain.
“A kisctsa rauuir tiaticaa kaukuu’,” I chanted as I kneeled to face him, slashing a deep cut above my heart.
I pressed his palm against my chest. It stung at first, but we both held on tight. I could feel my blood slowly overpower his and then flow into him. I breathed in time with him and waited. We were meant to meet, meant to be in this moment. I loved him before I even knew him. It was written in our blood.
I felt both of our cuts heal simultaneously; a wave of raw emotion crashed over me. I was unable to distinguish one feeling from another. They were all intertwined—yearning, fear, lust, despair, but, above all, love.
A brilliant light moved across my skin, enveloping me in warmth. Even though it was like looking at the sun, I watched the light dance across my skin and spread to Dane, but the light never completely left me. I felt our lives surging as one—every cell, fiber, hope, fear, and dream merging with his. We were like a tangled mass of veins and arteries, all leading to one heart, beating for each other.
His body shuddered along with my own at the overwhelming sensation of having my blood pulse within him. He pulled me toward him and kissed me passionately; any resistance I once felt quickly faded with the rushing of blood through our hearts.
I felt like I couldn’t get close enough to him even if he swallowed me whole. Without breaking our kiss, he pulled me into his lap. I felt a surge of excitement pulse through him as I slipped his shirt over his shoulders, dragging my fingertips across the now-healed scar on his left shoulder.
“Sometimes I think about the day we met,” he whispered. “We would’ve talked all afternoon,” he said as he lowered his hands to the buttons on my shirt. “And when the sun set, we would’ve walked hand in hand to the sunflower field.”
Slowly, he unbuttoned my first button. I smiled into the dark.
“That’s where we would’ve had our first kiss.” He moved his hands down to my next button, slipping it from its home. “We would’ve gone to Windy Point, and never even noticed the stars.”
I gently bit down on his lower lip. The third button practically popped open by itself.
He placed his hands on the last button. “And then we would’ve gone to Crystal Pond and undressed each other in the glow of the rising sun.”
With the last button undone, he slipped his rough hands under the tattered cloth and eased my shirt from my shoulders.
We slipped out of our remaining clothes. The thought of finally being able to feel his bare skin against mine was so overpowering that I pushed him down against the cool ground and kissed him, letting my hair fall over him like a veil, my breasts brushing gently across his chest.