What was he going to do?
If he dared touch me, he’d lose everything. I’d never met a man so ready for his annihilation.
Then he held me. My face cradled in his hands.
He wasn’t gentle or delicate but rough and determined. His thumbs pressed into my cheeks. I could feel the pads against the curve of bone beneath the skin.
I pulled my breath in through my teeth, a soundless hiss. I walked toward the one place I shouldn’t go…he had told me to stay. I didn’t.
I went anyway…
Green eyes stared long and hard into coal black. Lips moved with words not spoken aloud. The air was thick and warm. Fingers digging their way inside. Taking all of me even though I wasn’t giving.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
I closed my eyes.
He kissed me.
Electric. Charged.
Sliding lips. Tangled tongues. Hands never moving but mouths everywhere.
Elian bit down on my bottom lip. Hard. Brutal. I tasted the blood and I tasted everything.
There were sounds unlike anything I had ever heard. From him. From me.
Slick and wet.
“Let me in,” Elian whispered against my bleeding lips.
Let him in.
Let him in.
Let me in.
I pulled away, breathing heavy and quick. I felt dizzy. Like I was floating.
Up to the stars.
I covered my mouth with my hand and realized I was shaking. I pulled my fingers away and saw the bright red.
Elian saw it too. He didn’t apologize.
I was glad.
I would have hated him for it.
The letter came just as it always did. On the third day of July.
Same day.
Every year.
The day of my awakening.
A dawning.
The day I entered hell.
The day he was taken away.
It fell through the slot in my door, landing on the rug that muffled the noise of my beast.
I knew the day. I woke up feeling it in my bones.
Shaking. Sweating. Hard to breathe.
I picked up the pile of mail and carried it into the kitchen. I carefully sorted until I found the one that I knew was there.
Cream colored envelope. Scrawled, barely legible handwriting. My name spelled out in careful letters. I pressed it to my chest, then lifted it to my cheek. I could feel the words inside, pressing against my skin.
Their promises.
Their affection.
Their doom.
I purposefully folded the letter that I would never read into a perfect square and walked back to the room where I slept. I pulled the flower-patterned box from beneath the bed and opened it.
I placed the folded square on top of all the others.
I stared down at the remnants of my love. My life. My future.
And then I closed the lid.
“Hi.”
He was there.
The push and pull twisted me into complicated knots. Confusion. I felt it. For the first time, I felt doubt.
“Hi.”
We looked at each. Elian was wearing dirty jeans and battered shoes. His shirt was stained and looked as though he had slept in it. I thought about him rolling in unclean sheets and felt…sad.
“I had fun last night,” he said, casting a look around, terrified of being overheard. And perhaps hoping at the same time.
I saw the flash of territorial flame in his eyes.
“I did too,” I told him. Because it was true. After he kissed me, Elian built a fire. We sat close, arms wrapped around each other. We were folded up in a cocoon of our own making and I gloried in it.
In him.
In this thing that was happening between us.
Because it was as it should be.
“I want to see you again. Tonight.” He sounded desperate. He was sucking the air from my lungs.
So fast.
So soon.
“Tonight.” I let the word roll around on my tongue.
Elian nodded. “Tonight.”
My pen glided lazily along the edge of my notebook.
You slip in quietly,
Before the storm.
Burrowing inside
Clawing deep.
I dig you out
Before you can take root.
It’s too late
To save what was already lost.
When you came in
From the rain and snow.
To massacre my heart