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Unless this is what fate is.

I reach her lifeless body after what seems like forever. Her skin has a blue tinge to it, and the blood which covers her arm has a scent I want to recoil from.

“Alice?”

She doesn’t respond to me.

All this time away from her and all I wanted was my mate back in my arms. It was what my body was telling me. It was what my flame was made for.

And I was too late.

I gather her against me, trying to get my warmth into her body.

“Alice, my mate.” I push my face into her hair, desperate to have her stir, to say something, anything, even if it’s to tell me to leave and never return.

I need her alive. My soul can rest as long as she walks the Yeavering or beyond the veil.

Without her life, mine may as well be over.

Rain tumbles from the sky, wetting the skin on my face, only it’s not rain.

It is tears.

ALICE

Something drags me back from the brink, pain every step of the way, other than the soft, wet warmth which soothes it all away.

A warmth which is familiar, a scent which is one my heart has missed terribly.

A body I have to come back to. With all the effort I can muster, I fill my lungs and open my eyes.

Fenrother holds me in his arms, his eyes, those incredible eyes studying every aspect of my face.

“Alice.” His voice is anguish personified. “You are…here.”

And I realise what he thought he had found.

He thought I was dead.

My emotions churn, heating me from within. He came for me. He came for me, and he thought the queen killed me. The water is not rain but from him.

From my big bad monster.

“You should have told me about the curse,” I force out.

Fenrother blinks. He dips his head, wings shivering and tail lashing.

“I should have.” He glares at my midriff as if it’s done him a wrong. “I should have told you everything the moment I knew you were my mate, but I didn’t know how.” He lifts his head, and I’m lost in his handsome face. “It’s not an excuse. You deserved better, given how you ended up in the Yeavering, and I should have been a better Wyrm for you.”

“Fenrother.” I want to reach for his face, to touch him, to connect with him, my heart aching because it’s filled with conflict “I understand you didn’t know what to say, but I would never want to do anything which would end up hurting anyone, especially you.”

The pain which floored me, the pain which speared through my being, making me lose consciousness, making me fall to the ground—the pain is gone.

Fenrother is all there is.

“It’s not you didn’t tell me about the curse, but that it would mean I’d lose you, and I don’t want to lose you. That’s what hurt me the most.”

I cradle my damaged arm. Fenrother dips his head again and laps over my wounds with his forked tongue.