Her mouth dropped and she quickly rushed into his arms. Aeric wanted to fight it, to send her away. But his traitorous heart wouldn’t listen. Instead of pushing her back he wrapped his arms tighter around her, clinging for dear life while simultaneously bracing himself to hear the words that would rip through his soul like a knife.
“I never lied when I said I love you. And yes, there are shifters in all parts of Kingdom. But I am more than a woman who can become a cat. I am two personalities trapped within one body and only the madness and wonder of this place could allow something so bizarre to exist. Outside of these woods, one part of me would cease to be. My mother explained that on Earth split personalities are not at all rare and can in fact co-exist peacefully, but here in Kingdom it just isn’t so.”
Was she lying? Could that really happen? Aeric had never known of another case like Chrysalis/Lissa. In the whole of Kingdom, he couldn’t honestly say he’d ever heard of this phenomenon.
“Which one of you would die?”
She shrugged. “I do not know. But were I to guess, I think it would be me.” Her eyes pleaded with him to understand.
Aeric dug his fingers into her back, wanting to keep her always. Wishing there were some way to give her a piece of his own soul if it meant she’d stay safe. If she could be happy again.
“But there is more. I love you, with all that is within me. But Chrysa does not. Your interaction with Chrysalis was very peripheral. She does not know you. And those are the real reasons why I stayed away.”
He licked his lips. “But we could still be together. As we are now.”
“I sent Rumpel to find you for me, to tell you, because I could not stomach the thought that you would never know the truth of me. It’s been so hard trying to work through this, to tell you that it has to… it must be…” she hiccupped and seemed to be swallowing tears.
Of course Rumpel had been tasked with telling him. The imp never did a kindness without something in return and it worried him what Lissa had offered to pay him in exchange for that service, but right now it was more worrying that her body trembled and she looked defeated and shattered.
Feathering kisses along the crown of her head, he shook his head. “Lissa, there is always a way. Danika once told me, that love, when it is real, is a magic more powerful than any in this world. Together we stopped Siria, surely we can figure this out. I do not wish to let you go. Not now, not when we’re so close.”
“But Chrysalis owns claim to this body as much as me. I cannot always be me, and I remember you told me once that your hearts desire was to travel the worlds, not because it was your duty, but because you could. You were a free man able to roam and be yourself.”
His lips quirked. “You remembered that?”
She sighed. “I remember everything.”
Tipping her chin up until their lips were so close they shared breath, he searched her hot gaze and felt his blood begin to heat. “Do you trust me, kitten?”
“With my soul,” she was quick to assure.
He loved this fragile, impossibly sharp-witted beauty before him with everything he had in him. “You’re all the adventure I’ll ever need. Who needs to see the worlds, when all I have to do is walk through one of your father’s doors that leads to a million different miracles of wonder? Hmm?” His thumb stroked her lower lip.
Her tongue lightly flicked the pad of his thumb and he sucked in a sharp breath, ready to take this woman’s body as his own, plunder her mouth with his tongue and brand her as his forever.
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” She asked in a tone so quiet he had to strain to hear.
“I know now where I belong. I don’t need the world, not when I have you by my side. You’re all I ever wanted, I was just too foolish to realize it immediately.”
She laughed and held his wrist lightly. “But there is still the matter of Chrysalis. What about her?”
“You say you two can communicate now, right?”
“Kind of. She’s opened herself up to me, so that I can ‘see’ and ‘hear’ what she does, but we cannot have back and forth discourse. She’s just no longer hidden from me.”
He nodded. “But can you call her forth?”
She cocked her head as frown lines bracketed the edges of her plump, pink lips. “Yes. But why?”
“I just need to ask her a few questions is all.”
Her lips thinned, but she didn’t ask him to explain further. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he recognized instantly the transformation from his Lissa, to Chrysalis.
Chrysalis and Lissa were identical in looks now, apart from the bleeding heart tattoo that rested just beneath Chrysa’s right eye. But where his kitten’s eyes glowed with love, Chrysa’s were more wary, skittish.
She inhaled deeply and immediately stepped out from the circle of his arms. “She has spoken with you then?”
Her voice was an octave deeper. Her chin was held just an inch higher and her chest was puffed out a little more. All differences so subtle that if he weren’t aware of them, he’d never assume that the woman he loved and the woman standing before him were anything but the same.