“To love you.”
I expected the air to shift.
It didn’t.
My heart was pounding so wildly that blood roared through my system at a rapid pace dropping the temperature in the room.
“And do you?” I was almost afraid to ask, but I had to know. “Do you love me?”
“Fear is never welcome. I can feel your trembling, Stephanie.” He avoided the question. “Fear makes us weak.”
“And love? What does love do?”
“It makes us both. Strong and weak, depending on which side you’re on.”
“Answer the question Cassius.”
“I find I’ve suddenly developed some of that fear I’m always so easily dismissing.”
“Afraid of what? My reaction? My response?”
“All of the above.” His fingers threaded through my hair. “Everything about you terrifies this human body, to be sure. Words don’t just create, they have the power to destroy, to level a city with one simple phrase, the words of a Dark One… even more so.”
“Well then, one of us will have to be brave,” I encouraged.
“Yes, one of us will.” He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the sides, was he already getting wrinkles? And why was his body failing him so readily? So easily?
“I love you,” I blurted. “I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember. And I’ll continue loving, until time ceases to matter, to exist.”
Cassius crushed his mouth against mine then pulled back. “I love you more than I should… I love you in ways I shouldn’t. I desire you in ways that are hard to comprehend. And the love I feel for you is the scariest thing I’ve ever admitted out loud, to anyone. Because once those words are released, you can’t take them back. You could try, but love, weaves a thread of its own and once you confess with your mouth, your soul has no choice but to follow.”
My breathing slowed, nearly stopped altogether. “Who knew you were so romantic.”
“More like, who knew, that as a human, I’d be so capable of telling the truth, rather than lying.”
“You’d rather lie to me?”
“Absolutely. Lying is less scary. Honesty will always be terrifying. I’ve discovered I’m like a cat.”
I pressed my lips together to keep from bursting out laughing. “How are you like a cat? Exactly?”
“The scaredy cats.” He frowned. “Is that wrong?”
“Not at all.” I covered his hands with mine, they were still burning up. “Tell me this feels good.”
He leaned back against the pillows, his shirt inching up to show me an expansive area of lean abdominal muscles. “It feels more than good. I could lay in your cold forever.”
“Funny, most people hate the cold.”
His eyes flashed open. “Cold is life.”
“What do you mean?”
“The earth.” His eyebrows pinched together. “The source of life is not heat… nor is it cold, it is the perfect balance of both. Without one, the other ceases to exist. The cold you bring, reminds me of the way things work, the balance that must always be kept.” His eyes closed again.
I wanted him.
Possessiveness washed over me.
Not in a way that I’d ever experienced before, but in a primal, surge of energy that I couldn’t ignore as my heartbeat slowed in my chest, my eyes zeroed in on his neck.
Mine.
His humanity called to me, his… love, beckoned me.
There are two ways to mark a human… His words came to mind. Force your will upon them.
“Cassius?”
“Hmm?” He didn’t open his eyes.
I leaned forward and cupped his neck with my right hand, my palm rested against his hot skin. “I’m sorry.”
“For?”
“Doing something that’s forbidden….” I closed my eyes and forced my will on him, but rather than forcing him into slavery, into a typical hero worship. I gave him my love.
I showed him my feelings.
Opened up my heart and soul to the man who’d stolen my heart as a immortal only to give it back as a human.
He was my everything.
And I refused to let another moment go by, without anyone knowing, without the world knowing, that we belonged together.
Even if it killed me.
With a cry of pain he screamed beneath my touch and shards of light spread throughout the room.
And then with a burst of white, Cassius’s skin went from hot to frigid. His eyes rolled to the back of his head and then turned completely white. He reached for me just as I reached for him.
With one graze of his finger against the blanket, it evaporated into thin air, the clothes between us suddenly gone as if he’d willed them to disappear. Like slow motion the frigid air danced around us and then stopped.
Time.
Was.
Gone.
The world around us was black.
Nothingness.
Only Cassius and I existed.