Page 31 of Grim and Oro (Lightlark)

brOKEN AND MENDED

She upends everything. Not just my feelings. Not just my heart. But also, my palace.

Her stuff is everywhere. Her clothes are on my floor. Her little crystal bottles are in my bathroom. Her scent is in my sheets.

And I love it .

I hate every time she leaves, which is all the time, since she has endless training sessions with her guardians.

Like right now. We just woke up. It’s barely past dawn. “They’ll be looking for me soon,” she says, trying to sit up. At night, I keep illusions in her room, in case they check on her, but they can only do so much.

I place my hand on her hip to hold her down. She looks up at me. Breathes out, right against my neck, sending chills down my spine. My arm is wrapped around her. She curls into me, pressing her body against mine, and amusement touches her lips when she feels me, ready. Always ready for her.

“Last night wasn’t enough?” she says, her voice breathy against my lips. She gently runs her fingers down my length, and a low sound of need escapes me.

“It will never be enough,” I say.

Every time we do this, I expect for this need to be satiated, like it’s a hunger. But it’s more like the universe. Infinite. Endless.

My hand trails down her hip, until my fingers find her own need. She’s been looking down at me, watching me play, but now her eyes snap back up to mine.

One look is all it takes.

Her nails are clawing into my chest, she’s sinking down onto me, I’m groaning my approval as she starts to move, shoulders hiking, head thrown back.

I grip her hip, my thumb stroking down her soft sensitive skin.

She’s as insatiable as I am.

She bites her bottom lip as she moves and those lips .

The things she has done to me with that mouth.

The times I have kissed her, the times she has kissed me , until our skin is bruised, until both our lips are raw and aching.

She likes it. She likes the marks on her neck from my lips.

She asks for it, and so do I. Still, for now, we hide the proof of this, from both our realms. We’ve had to heal each other from the countless ways we have marked each other in this endless, limitless joining of pleasure.

Like right now, as she scratches down my chest, making long marks with her nails. I’ll have to heal those later, or maybe I won’t. I’ll wear them proudly, as a sign she used me for pleasure.

“Come here,” I say, pulling her down against me, and her chest is rubbing against mine. Her hands are on my shoulders.

She kisses me, and I wonder how I went five centuries without this feeling. Without this rightness. Without this taste and pleasure.

My tongue is in her mouth, then my teeth are on her bottom lip, sucking, biting. A moan escapes her throat. “Please,” she says, and I know her. I know what she wants. Especially now, when we’ve spent so little time sleeping.

I wrap an arm around her waist, pinning her to me, before I unleash. She gasps against my lips, panting, as I give her what she wants, what she begs for late at night. What I dream of during the few hours of sleep I’ve gotten in the last few days.

She’s bucking her hips, meeting me stroke for stroke, burying her hands in my hair, nibbling at my neck, sucking against my throat.

Then, she’s pulsing, and I’m joining her, and we’re both sweaty, chests moving together. She hums against my neck, and this ... it’s more than sex. More than physical connection.

There is a word for it, I’m sure. One I can’t bring myself to form, even in my mind.

“I have to go,” she says, and this time, she leaves.

A dragon. A baby dragon is currently living in my quarters .

Isla presented it to me as a pet .

I refused, of course. I don’t like anyone—other than my hearteater—touching my things. That includes a small bundle of scales.

But then, she portaled me to the forest, where she had left it ... and I felt her wave of worry at the creature being alone. Her disappointment at my reluctance. So, I brought it back with me.

All it’s done is sit and cry.

“If I kill you, she’ll hate me,” I say. I purse my lips, going through scenarios. “Maybe I can make it look like an accident ...”

It just tilts his head and looks at me with wide, watery eyes.

I sigh.

I pick it up, and the tears magically disappear. I glare at it. “Control yourself,” I say. I set it back down.

The crying starts again immediately.

I flare my shadows, trying to scare it. It just cries harder.

Exasperated, my hands make fists, before I pick it up again. The crying stops. I narrow my eyes at it. “You will not manipulate me,” I growl, with as much venom as possible.

It just leans forward—and licks me.

Disgusting. I didn’t know dragons licked anything . I set it down, ignoring the crying, leaving the room for a council meeting.

When I return, I’m relieved that the crying has stopped.

But the beast is in my bed . Surrounded by something ... I realize, with a flash of irritation that it tore my pillow into shreds . Isla’s is, of course, unharmed.

“Off,” I say, picking it up, and setting it down on the floor.

Instead of crying, it just looks up at me like I’m an idiot, before moving its wings that Isla was so convinced were broken and flying back onto my sheets.

It spins around, making itself comfortable before happily falling into place, resting its rounded head against its tail.

I glare at it. “How convenient that your wings are working again,” I say, cursing it. Cursing the fact that I can’t say no to her.

The fury dies when Isla arrives. She sees the dragon and smiles. Smiles . The joy permeates my room, light as the hot-air balloon we once stood in. She loves it.

I glare at the dragon. It took me months to get Isla to care for me. This creature has been here for days and she’s smitten.

Its favorite place is on her chest. She smooths her finger between its eyes until it falls asleep.

Only then can I portal the creature into the soft bedding she made it in the next room. I have to be careful, or the beast will awaken, screaming, and she’ll rush out of the room to get it.

I am extraordinarily careful as I portal it away.

Then, I turn to my hearteater. She’s laughing. She finds me amusing.

Moments later, that laughing turns to whispered pants against my throat.

My fists lock in irritation. I’ve been annoyed all day. Last night, my meetings ran so late, Isla was already asleep when I got back to my room.

The wretched creature was asleep on her. It awoke when I slipped under the covers and glared at me, as if I was in some way invading their space. In my room. In my bed. Next to my hearteater.

She was gone before I woke up, off to her early training. And the beast was resting on my chest .

The nerve.

Now, though, I get to see her. Finally . I portal to her room, grateful to have time without the creature between us.

But the moment my feet hit the ground, I know something is wrong. I feel it. I see it in her face.

My eyes quickly settle on the sword.

The one I spent decades searching for. The one I had planned to use, before all my plans went up in ash.

Before us .

Her hurt hits me next.

“Hearteater,” I say, very carefully. “Where did you find that?”

Her eyes narrow. “You said you had something to tell me. Before I interrupted you.”

That was weeks ago. Before we ... before we became one, for the first time. “What is it?” I swallow, dread sinking its teeth into my chest.

No. If she knows what I was planning ... what I was ready to do ... what I’ve been keeping from her this entire time ...

I could manipulate her. I could go into her mind and make her forget. I could make sure she never learned any of this.

Part of me wants to. I almost do.

But that twisting in my chest ... that irrational feeling that makes me want to be honest ...

It wins.

I tell her the truth.

I tell her she is Nightshade. I tell her about her father. About how he was a Nightshade impervious to curses, just like her.

I tell her why I needed the sword so badly, and of course—of course she offers it to me .

“I told you,” I say, fighting for my voice to remain steady in the face of her growing disappointment. “I don’t want to use it anymore.”

Her own tone is cutting. “Right. The cost is too high. Tell me the truth now. What was the cost?”

There’s no lying. No hiding. Even as my shadows lurch forward, toward her, even as my heart sinks, as if my body is bracing for impact. As though it knows that once the words are out, there is no reversing this.

“Your life.”

There it is. The moment everything changes. The moment I’ve done something so monstrous, she can’t see past it.

Tears start to slowly slide down her cheeks, and I hate myself. I hate that I ever had a plan that didn’t put her first.

“My ... life?” Her voice breaks, along with my heart.

My explanations mean nothing. Her emotions do not falter.

“I never want to see you again,” she says. And she means it.

There isn’t anything I won’t give her.

And so, I vanish.

Without her, my weeks are pure and utter torture. I’d rather be skinned by shadow-blades every night than lie awake and miss her.

Only that wretched dragon keeps me company. It cries all night and refuses to leave her place in bed. I stop trying to move it.

I feed it. I talk to it, like a fool, wondering aloud if she will ever forgive me. Surely she won’t abandon her dragon, will she?

“She’ll be back for us,” I tell it, but I don’t really believe my words. Her hurt was heavy. She can never trust me now. She can never ... she can never truly care about me again.

I deserve this.

The scar worsens. Every day I battle it, until my powers are drained. Astria tells me what I already know.

“One more breach. That’s all it’s going to take.”

One more breach, and they will take over this entire land. They ’ ll kill me. Everyone will be dead .

I knew it would come to this. I chose this.

It happens just days later. I’m in bed when I sit up, gasping, pain slicing me in half. The scar. It’s ripped, right down the center. A cut larger than ever before.

It’s the end. I know it.

I put on my armor, piece by piece. My imminent death should scare me, should enrage me ... but I have lived. For just a few months, I lived . I knew true emotion.

I knew—

I knew her. And she knew me.

Everyone beyond these shores sees the bloodthirsty warrior, the villain, the enemy. But I don’t care.

I don’t care if no one else ever knew me, because she did. And to be known by her is enough.

I portal myself and the dragon into her room. I wrap the beast in shadows, so it doesn’t interrupt.

She senses me immediately. I expect the anger and annoyance, but not the relief. Not the happiness. “I told you I never wanted to see you again,” she says.

I try to smile. “I might have good news for you, then.”

She sees through my attempt at a joke immediately. Her face pales. Her anger dissipates. “What do you mean?”

I don’t answer. I just stride toward her until she’s in my arms, and then I look at her, look at her , taking in every detail.

“What’s wrong?” she demands.

Nothing. Everything.

“The scar has opened. In a place it never has before. A place previously deemed safe. There’s a village near it.”

What I don’t tell her is that this is the biggest opening yet. And I know ... I know it will kill me. I know it’s too much for even me to manage on my own. The sword would save us. It would save everything.

It’s either me and all my people and my lands ... or her.

I choose her.

It’s villainous. Monstrous. But I don’t care.

I choose her .

“Whatever happens to me, heart, I want you to know something.”

“What?” She tries to wriggle out of my arms, eyes widening in concern. “Grim, nothing is going to happen to you, nothing—”

“Let me talk, heart,” I say, pressing a finger to her lips. Taking a moment to enjoy their softness. “Interrupting is very rude.” I hope to see her smile, one last time.

But she doesn’t smile. If anything, her concern grows.

My thumb smooths down her cheek. “I need you to know that you changed everything. The gods don’t listen to people like me, but I would go on my knees and beg them to let me keep you.”

And thank them for ever letting me have you .

“You were once the bane of my existence ... and now, you are the center of it.”

Disbelief. Tears form in her eyes. Happiness, then dread.

“My entire world was night, and you lit a match. No matter what happens to me in this life, I’ll find you in the next one. I’ll always find you. What I feel for you can never be extinguished. Like the nighttime sky, it is infinite. You and me ... we’re infinite.”

That word. The one my sister once taught me. I know its meaning now.

Her tears fall, and I catch them against my thumb.

Her voice is just a whisper. “No. Don’t go.” It becomes desperate. “I can help you. We can figure this out, whatever it is, Grim, together . Let me go with you. We can try the sword. Let me go.”

She won’t stop. I can see it in the determination of her face, in her tone, in the emotions flaring around me.

Together . She wants to face the end of the world together .

But I love her too much to let her.

“Okay, Hearteater,” I say. “You can come.”

I kiss her for the last time. Hers is the last name I want on my lips, hers is the last taste I want of life.

She doesn’t notice when I slip my fingers down her back. I grip my portaling device.

And I take it with me, so she can’t follow.