Page 74 of A Storm in Every Heart (Enchanted Legacies #2)

ODESSA, PRESENT

K astian and I erupt from the sea, gasping.

I cling to him, and he to me. For a moment, we just hang there, suspended, both of us too exhausted to move.

Below us, the sea is still roiling. I can feel the rioting chaos of the sirens awakening. I can hear their tangled voices roaring over each other, screaming, wailing, their thoughts now fractured and disjointed. A thousand hungry voices with no conductor.

It’s so loud I can’t think. I can barely swim, Kastian grips my waist and pulls me toward shore, until at last, we collapse onto the rocky beach.

The moment we touch land, everything goes silent.

“Dessa?” Kastian asks, voice strangled. “Are you alright?”

Am I alright? I don’t know. I can’t speak. I can’t even find words to describe what I am right now.

Overwhelmed.

Exhausted.

Alive.

Dazed and silent, I push myself up, bracing my arms against the damp sand, and look around.

The beach is empty. The air smells of rain, and the sun has shifted behind a cloud, turning the sky a strange blue-grey, like a storm is coming.

When I glance down at my fingers, they’re normal—not webbed or elongated into claws. That’s a relief.

That is, until, Kastian’s dark eyes dart toward something behind me and widen.

I turn my head to look, and I’m startled to realize that we haven’t made it that far out of the sea.

We’re lying on the sand, just barely beyond where the waves are lapping at the shore.

His feet are still in the water, and mine… aren’t there at all.

“Fuck,” I blurt out, suddenly finding my voice again.

I pull my tail in, trying to scramble further onto the sand. Scrambling with a tail isn’t all that graceful, and I flop forward, nearly falling face-first into the sand, before catching myself against Kastian’s shoulder. He laughs, in an exhausted, humorless sort of way.

I toss my hair back to glower, the image of the terrifying, hideous sirens flashing in my mind. “How can you laugh? I’m sure I look monstrous right now.”

“You don’t.”

My frown deepens. “Don’t lie.”

“I’m not. All this—” He gestures toward my face and chest, “—is normal. It’s just your, uh, tail.

Here.” He bends down and picks me up, tail and all, and carries me further up the beach.

By the time he sets me down again, the tail has shrunk back into two legs—albeit with an impression of scales along my feet and calves.

I sit on the sand and pull my knees up to my chest, wrapping both arms around them. Kastian sits next to me and we’re silent for a moment, watching the waves crashing against the beach.

I don’t know what to do—what to think. Kastian is alive, I’m alive, the siren queen is dead, and I don’t really understand any of it.

Kastian reaches over and his fingers curl into my hair. He turns my head, forcing me to look at him. “Say something.”

I exhale a long breath. “You’re an idiot.”

He blinks rapidly. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me! What were you thinking?

I only realize that I’m yelling when he shouts back, matching my tone. “What was I thinking?” he roars, “ You threw yourself into the fucking ocean. I was thinking I had to find you.”

“You could have—no, you should have drowned. How were you breathing? Any man should have died ten times over.”

“I keep telling you, Princess, I’m not just any man.”

“Arrogant prick. I—” My voice cracks. “I thought you were dead!”

“And you thought that meant you could leave me?” He grips my hair harder, squeezing painfully. “Nothing is going to take you away from me, not even death.”

Emotion explodes in my chest. The bond and my pulse fall into sync, making me hyper aware of my own thundering heartbeat. I’m not really sure if we’re arguing, or just processing all the pent up emotions of the last several days—the last several decades, really.

I want to believe him. I want everything to be alright now that neither of us died and I can feel the bond strong between us. I want this to be the beginning of something rather than the end; Except…

“Could you hear what the siren said?” I ask, no longer yelling.

He shakes his head. “No, just a lot of screaming.”

“She said it’s in our nature to destroy anyone we care about. I could still end up hurting you, we don’t know?—”

He shakes his head, cutting me off. “I’m not worried about it.”

“Why?”

“Do you know where we are?” Kastian asks, by way of answering me.

I frown. “Of course, what?—”

Kastian sits up and looks me dead in the eyes. “This is the same beach where you left me,”

My breath catches in my chest. “Where I left you, when?”

He doesn’t answer immediately, glancing out over the water as if seeing far more there than I can. My racing heart thunders with anxiety, and finally, I can’t take the silence any longer. “When?” I ask again, louder.

“You know, it’s the strangest thing.” He says slowly. “When Magnus was torturing me I thought I was dying. I was sure I died, actually, but then Connell woke me up.”

“Connell?” I demand, “What?—”

“I’ll explain everything in a minute, just listen. When I woke up I had all these memories I’d never had before…of you.”

I gape at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I remember you. I remember everything.”

My mouth falls open with shock, and I can only stare at him, a thousand questions racing through my head.

And then, all at once, I understand.

Until the day he dies he’ll never remember you and will never be able to speak of it.

“You died.”

“Maybe only for a moment.” He grins. “Apparently it’s not even the first time. Maybe all sirens really do kill the men who love them, but I already died twice for you. I think that’s enough.”

His words pound in my head. The men who love them.

A smile spreads across my face and I let out a startled laugh.

We’re both alive. We’re here. And he remembers me.

I launch myself at him, and he raises both hands instinctively to catch me, both of us tumbling backwards in the sand.

I press my lips to his and for an instant, the kiss is a gentle collision—relief turned physical—but then Kastian’s mouth slants over mine with a sudden, reckless hunger, and it shifts into something else. Something hot and greedy.

He pulls me closer and I slide my hands up his bare chest, fingers brushing against the tattoo of my face.

I pull back, abruptly, breaking our kiss long enough to look down at the tattoo. “You realize what this means, now, right?”

He nods, the tip of his nose nearly brushing my cheek. “Honestly, even before the memories came back, I think I was half certain what it meant already. I knew I loved you when I was eighteen years old. There was never a world where you weren’t going to be mine.”

I grin, at a loss for words, and he rolls me so I’m straddling his lap, knees digging into the sand.

I clutch his shoulders, digging my nails into his skin, and I’m suddenly all too aware of my nakedness, and I realize, somewhat belatedly, that we’re out in the open, fully visible from the windows of the castle.

I could not possibly care less.

I feel reckless, invincible. Maybe it’s the knowledge that we both died a little to get here.

I lower my mouth to his for another kiss, harder this time, teeth clashing and lips bruising. His hands slide down my sides and over the backs of my thighs. Delicious anticipation blooms in my belly and I roll my hips.

My movement draws a raw, involuntary groan from deep in Kastian’s chest. He pins me with his dark gaze, before pressing his mouth to my breast, hot and wet against my skin, tongue circling my nipple, laving and biting in perfect, merciless rhythm.

I arch my back, and Kastian digs his fingers into my ass, yanking me closer.

I let out a little gasp as my sensitive core comes in contact with his belt buckle, and I reach between us with fumbling fingers and undo his trousers.

He moves his mouth to my other breast as I reach beneath his waistband to wrap my fingers around his hard cock.

He hisses, hips jerking, and his teeth graze my nipple, just enough to sting.

I stroke him, marveling at the heat and weight in my palm, the way his breath stutters when I squeeze just a little harder.

I tighten my grip around the base of him, feeling the heat pulse through my palm.

I let my thumb slide over the ridges and veins of his cock, delighting in how his whole body arches up into my touch, desperate and ragged.

The muscles in his stomach flex as he tries to keep from thrusting into my hand, and for a moment, I savor the way he lets me take the lead.

I drag the head of his cock slowly between my legs, just barely letting it graze where I want him most, savoring the slick, throbbing ache there.

His dark eyes never leave mine, and he looks almost angry with need.

His hands are braced hard against my waist, fingers trembling as he fights the urge to just flip me over and fuck me into the sand.

“Dessa,” he rasps, voice strained and shredded. “Stop fucking teasing.”

I give him a wicked, lopsided smile. “What? You’re not enjoying yourself?”

“I’m dying,” he growls, and the way he says it, half-joking and half-furious, makes me laugh.

I lower my mouth to his neck and bite softly, which sends a full-body shudder through him. I rise a little higher on my knees and let the tip of him push past my entrance, just the barest inch before pulling back.

I glance down, watching the way my body takes him in, and the sight makes my whole stomach flutter. I lean forward and trap his bottom lip between both of mine, sucking on it as I let myself sink down further, impaling myself on his cock.

He groans, low and obscene and utterly helpless, but the sound is lost as at that moment, thunder rips across the sky and lightning flashes making the hair on my arms stand up.