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My eyes roved over the dark landscape. “It petrifies me,” I admitted.

I’d seen enough of it, I knew that the dead found peace with the Mother, but it didn’t matter. Death went against my very nature. To heal. To live. To thrive.

“You are not going to die tomorrow, Lana.”

“I would believe you if you didn’t have a penchant for lying,” I said, my mouth twisting in a reluctant grin.

The arm that wrapped around my waist tightened. “Lana,” Asher said hesitantly, “tomorrow, if there’s a fight, don’t waste your life attempting to save mine. I’m ready for death if it comes.”

I shivered at what he was asking. He didn’t realize that even now that was impossible.

“I am oathbound to protect you,” I said.

“Then I release you from it.”

I sighed. “It doesn’t work like that.”

He growled, “I don’t give a shit about your oaths. I care about yourlife.”

I swiveled to face him. “You know, you’re so very human, Asher. So very human, and so very inhuman.”

“If that’s supposed to be a compliment...”

I smiled. “It is.”

I faced forward again, leaning back into him. I closed my eyes, feeling that horrible ache that came with losing someone beginning to set in.

Strange sounds filtered in from the jungle around us, each bird and insect and mammal filling the night air with strange music. It was getting too cold out here, but I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but tonight, it felt like the end of something. The end of this journey across the human world, the end of this tiny two person cosmos that had developed between me and Asher. The end of living without consequences.

But it also felt like a beginning of sorts.

“What do you want out of life?” I asked.

He was quiet for a long time. Finally, he spoke. “A week ago I would’ve told you justice.”

“And now?”

He stood abruptly, pulling me up along with him. “Redemption,” he said, his gaze pinned beyond me to some far off point on the horizon. And I sensed... I sensed Asher was holding back. Even the way he stood was poised like he was readying himself for attack, his shoulders tense.

“What changed your mind?”

In the fading light, Asher’s eyes met mine. And they held everything. His world, mine.

And in that look, hesawme. We have a word in the old language for that.Hauza. Soul-sight. To see everything that makes someone a unique entity.

He leaned forward, his breath brushing over me. “You already know.”

I could feel my connection hurtling me toward him.

Mymate. I’d been sucked into this cyclone we created and it was too late to escape. And far too late to want to.

Asher’s hand cradled the back of my neck, and his head dipped toward mine. This time I knew, Iknew, what was coming.

When he kissed me, my lips were hesitant as I breathed in his essence. I remembered what happened last time, and I felt the weight of all I had to lose.

Asher paused, his breath fanned against my cheek and chin. Then his mouth was back on mine, moving slowly, coaxing a reaction out of me. Life boiled down to this one moment, this one connection.

Asher’s teeth nipped my lower lip, and without meaning to I moaned into his mouth. Suddenly I didn’t mind the cold so much. It felt like just one more sensation, and now that Asher was so close to me, his front nearly pressed to mine, I didn’t feel a chill, but a burn.