She gasped, and sucked in sweet, delicious air. His body still pinned her against the wall and his thorns punctured her skin, but she didn’t care.
He traced the imprint of his fingers while she desperately hid her wince. “No,no, I—I hurt you,” he breathed. Violently, he shook his head like he knocked clarity into himself, because his words steadied and spilled out of him. “I can’t fight their order. I can’t stop it. You need to do it.Do it fast.”
Emmery’s gaze flicked between his eyes as her mind raced, then down to the thorns. “You can’t mean—”
“Yes. Please do it. Please, I’m begging you. I’ll kill you, and I can’t bear it. I can’t do it. Iwon’t!”His chest heaved and, gods, those were tears welling in his eyes. He braced his hands on either side of her head as the thorns cinched tighter and he roared between his teeth. “I need you to do it. Do it.Do it!”
She couldn’t wrap her mind around what he was asking. It was wrong. So numbingly, unfathomably wrong. “No, Dez.No.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Emmery.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “I wanted so much more for us. I wanted to give you everything. I wanted to marry you under the moonlight, make love to you, have a family, and … I wanted the lazy mornings. I wanted to write you countless books so I could read to you every night until you fell asleep in our bed. I wanted to find peace in each other.” His bottom lip quivered with his voice. “My entire life I’ve waited to have this, waited for you, and it’s being stolen again. And I wanted it all, I wanted it so badly, more than anything—I wanted it all withyou.”
Her chest tore wide open in a gaping wound that would never heal. “Don’t say goodbye. We can find a way around it. You can do this. You’ll … make it. You can fight this compulsion.”
“I can’t. They—I’ll never be able to stop,” he croaked.
She broke. She sobbed and inconsolably clung to his shredded shirt. Her hand sliced on his thorns, but she could barely feel the bite. “I—I can’t live without you. Don’t ask me to do this. I can’t, Dez. I can’ttake that chance. I won’t gamble with your life!”
He clenched his teeth and gasped as the thorns wrenched themselves loose, as if they owned his body. “They’re trying to make me like thosethings.” His eyes widened with immeasurable fear, and such rawness, Emmery froze. “Don’t let them do it. Don’t let them make me like that!Pleasedon’t let them do it!”
She cried harder and took his face in her hands.
“I’m terrified, Emmery. I canfeelit. They’re spreading. I don’t want to be one of them. I want to go as me. Do it while I’m still here. This is—it’s my last choice,” he said, the words heavy with despair. With desperation. And his voice shook as he asked, “Can you do that for me, angel? Please. Do it for me.”
Emmery wanted to scream. To tell him no. To find some way to keep him, some loophole to fight the compulsion, but this was it.
This was the only way.
And he might be okay. He might survive this.
Hewouldsurvive it. She threw it out into the universe and begged the fates to hear her. To weave it into their tapestry. But there was only one way to find out. And once she did, there was no going back.
Dez hollered over his shoulder and it took her a moment to realize whose name he called.
Vesper came sprinting forward, off kilter as if he would faint. He looked as if he would impale Dez with the nearest sharp object or beat him to a pulp. Emmery threw up a wall of golden fire to keep him back.
“What the fuck are you doing, Emmery?” Vesper yelled through the flame, but it was hoarse and winded.
“I’m calling in our bargain,” Dez rasped. He shut his eyes and whispered something laced with heartache. Vesper’s eyes flashed, his spine stiff. “Whatever happens, I need you to get her out of here. Alive. And—” Dez’s voice cracked. “Take care of her for me.”
Vesper opened his mouth but snapped it shut, his eyes flitting between the two of them. His hair lifted in the air rising off the flames.
Dez returned to her, kissed her softly, his lips salty with sweat and sweet with blood and she wanted to scream. She wanted todie right here. Wanted anything but for this to be his choice by her hand. To give him this while it stole everything from her.
He leaned his forehead against hers, took her face in his hands, and whispered, “You were all of my sweetest moments, my deepest prospects, and tenderest dreams. Maybe next time we’ll get it right.” He kissed her one last time, short and soft and impossibly sad. It was the sort of kiss that bled goodbye. “If this is how it had to go, I’m glad to die by your beautiful hands.”
He kissed each of her palms, the pactum, thevotai, and the bond he’d defied the gods by creating for them.Then he laid her hand over his still heart and Emmery sank it into the thorns, aching as if she had already been skewered through the middle and her guts spilled out for all to see.
She couldn’t do this.
She wasn’t ready.
And yet, she had to.
Her bottom lip wobbled. “Not even death, Dez. You promised, remember?”
“And I always keep my word, angel.”
Then Emmery honoured his wish, unleashed her flame, and prayed her love was enough to keep him here.