Page 390 of Alchemised

“Which of us has hands steady enough to build a bomb?”

Helena snatched hers away, curling her fingers into a fist so tight she could feel metacarpal bones under her fingertips. The room swam, threatening to topple her from the bed. She braced her other hand firmly against the mattress to steady herself. “Well, maybe if I—”

“Helena, I’m tired.”

She looked up and saw it in his eyes. The war had eaten him; it had carved him to the bone and not stopped even then. He was scarcely more than a ghost.

She had known, from the moment she’d seen the array on his back, that if he survived it, it would drive him to distil his world to a single point and he would never stray from it. He had made that point her.

He could not stop so long as she was in danger, and it had worn him almost to nothing. He just wanted an endpoint to look towards.

Her shoulders shook. “But … I want to save you back.”

“I know.” He said it gently. “And if anyone could, it would be you. But I would like to say goodbye to you before you’re gone, and you are losing yourself in this.”

He pulled her into his arms, his chin resting on the top of her head.

But her mind would not stop racing. When he left, she went back to her research. Starting from scratch. When she heard him coming, she put everything away and didn’t mention it. He knew anyway, but they pretended.

She kissed him. Pushed him back against the bed and slid her legs up until she was on his lap, fingers threaded through his pale hair as she moulded her body to his, wanting all of him.

As he kissed down her neck, she found the buttons and fastenings on his clothes until she could touch his skin, shoving his shirt down off his shoulders, guiding his hands to her waist.

His hands gripped her, thumbs pressed against her lower ribs, arching her closer.

Her hands shook as she began unbuttoning her dress, fingers trembling so badly that they fumbled with the buttons. Kaine tried to close his hands over hers, but she jerked them free.

“I want this,” she said, voice shaking. “I want this on our terms before I go—please …”

Her voice cracked.

“This was ours …” She swallowed, blinking hard. “They took it from us, but it was ours.”

She managed the rest of the buttons and let her dress slip off, pooling at her waist. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him close, kissing him.

She stayed astride him, her thighs bracketing his hips as their bodies joined. His fingers curled against her waist, but he didn’t push her down, didn’t make her move beyond the pace that she felt ready for. He gave a low groan as she rolled her hips forward.

She tried not to remember, not to compare it to any other time, just trying to dwell on the now, grounding herself in the moment, but it was familiar …

She remembered it being like this before, slow and intimate. The burning reverence of his touch when he’d made love to her.

That’s what it had been. Making love. It was what they’d had.

CHAPTER 71

Julius 1789

HELENA WAS CORRODING LIKE METAL; DISSOLVING, DECAYING, flecking away into pieces. There was a constant pain in her chest as she felt herself come apart.

There were so many things she wanted to say to Kaine, but she could scarcely think them without her throat beginning to ache and her heart pounding and she would start crying. She’d never been particularly prone to crying before, but the pregnancy seemed to rip it out of her. The countdown to her departure was slowly tearing her apart.

One day, instead of crying, she snapped and raged at him.

His plans were stupid and selfish. It wasn’t fair that he got to die and she was left to live with everything. If he’d let her help rescue Lila, none of this might have happened. If he’d just trusted her and not been so controlling, if he’d let them work together—everything might have been different. It was all his fault.

He let her say it all, until she was gasping for breath, hand clawing at her chest, trying to force her heart to beat evenly, and when he had to do it for her, she tried to tear his hands off.

When his father called him away, she was left to seethe and realised he was doing this intentionally.