Page 43 of The Last De Loughrey Dynasty (The Legacy of Aquila Hall #1)

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

DOROTHEE

I’ve seen death all throughout my life. People’s bloody bodies and blurry eyes that have seen everything they’ll ever be able to see. Death followed me every step since I was an innocent child. It has always been scary, but I didn’t know a single one of these people.

Their death traumatised me because I was aware that their life had ended, and adults teach you that that’s a sad thing.

Grieve their loss.

Cassandra was the first person I lost that I knew. She was the first real death I saw. And it was so difficult to grasp that this was it. She died at the age of sixteen.

This, all of it, is everything she will ever experience in life.

Cassandra will never wear the emerald dress she was so excited about at the Ball of Aquila.

Cassandra will never finish school, get rewarded for her hard work and go to college.

Cassandra will never grow up. And for the sole purpose of power, her parents have to bury their daughter.

Hands brushed my arms from behind. The touch was gentle and, in some form, comforting, which caused my body to lean into the person behind me. I inhaled his cologne, which had a sweet edge to the herbal note of the smell. My back was against Archer’s chest, and confused, I took in the none personalised room we were in. His bedroom.

I don’t remember coming here.

In the common hall, Chadwick had excused our absence with my friends searching for me in worry after they heard there had been an accident while I had just searched for my psychologist in his office.

We were told that there had been a student involved in an accident in the south dorms and that the girls having their bedrooms there should be sheltered in the north dorms, where the boys had theirs, for the night until everything had been clarified.

Somehow, I had landed in Archer’s room.

My mind is hazy, and I felt dizzy with grief over a girl I barely knew.

Was I even allowed to grieve her?

Because if I looked at her death from a different angle, her death served the purpose of breaking my curse. She had nothing to do with any of this. But it didn’t matter, in the end, she was still dead.

“Talk to me, Doe,” he mumbled against my ear, and his voice soothed this chaos in my mind a little.

But I didn’t know what I should– could say to make me or him feel any better. Nothing was going to be okay from now on; perhaps it had never been okay in the first place. We had gone sloppy over the last couple of months, accepting whatever was coming for us because we couldn’t find any more riddles of Mairead that could help us… no more diary entries from Dottie…

I guess a part of us all had hoped that this was it. We were deluded to think that just because the universe wasn’t giving us any more signs, it would all turn out just fine.

Archer stroked his hands down my arm until they reached my own, where his fingers intertwined with mine. “Please, don’t go mute, Doe. I don’t want to lose you to the silence again.”

“You panicked when you couldn’t find me.” It felt so hard to fight the urge to seal my lips and spend the rest of the night alone in the back of my mind. For so long, I had found salvation in the form of silence.

He brushed his thumb in gentle strokes up and down mine. “I did.”

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

I concentrated on counting the strokes to grab onto reality, fighting hard to keep my focus in the now.

“When I felt your panic in my core, I wanted you to be with me. I wanted it so desperately that I acted on impulse.” Sorcery requires sacrifice, and that’s what I offered the triple moon goddess.

I turned the inside of my hand up, and Archer’s hand shifted to the back of my hand, giving me a clear look at the bandage where I knew a bloody cut lay beneath.

“I asked you what happened, but you had been so absent when we came to my room that you couldn’t answer, so all I could do was tend the wounds you had on the outside.”

“Thank–” I stopped myself from finishing these words, recalling that he didn’t like them being spoken to him.

“You can say these words if you’d like to. I’m sorry I was so harsh about it before. There are simply terrifying memories my mind recalls when I hear those words.”

“Then why is it okay if I say them now?” I didn’t ask what memories came to mind when he heard the words thank you , because if he wanted to, he’d tell me without having to ask.

“Because you’re the star in my darkness. When I’m with you, I forget every painful memory that would usually haunt my mind. Around you, I feel safe, Doe.”

I sat up, shifting on my knees before him on the bed we sat on. My thumb gently stroked his cheekbone until I sensed the skin of his lips beneath my thumb, causing me to linger.

The moon lightened his eyes in a beam, making the hazel colour look silvery in the light. He was so beautiful, from his body to his features, down to his very soul. My heart ached in the cruellest of ways when I looked at him. And tonight, I knew that all I needed was to give in.

My mouth was on his before the tiny bit of sanity I still possessed could tell me to rethink the outcome of this. Archer stilled underneath me, and for a moment, I thought that’s how he tries to symbolise that he wants me to stop. But when I tried to pull back, one of his hands tangled in my hair, and he dragged me closer, preventing me from escaping this moment. I parted my lips for his tongue to stroke mine as we deepened our kiss. My mind slipped from all the worry and fears that had captured me for the past hours.

Tears started to fall from my closed eyes, joining our kiss in a salty note that suddenly made this moment taste like regret. Regret that this will probably be the only time I’ll ever get to be this close with him, and now that I know how ethereal his lips felt on mine, I’ll always grieve what could have been.

Archer suddenly pulled back, and I looked at him in confusion while more tears fell from my eyes. I’ve been so numb tonight that now I can’t stop to… feel .

He shook his head slightly. “Doe, we can’t–”

“Please. Please, just for tonight. We both know that there’s a really high possibility that we’ll die in a month. I–I need you, Archer. Please ,” I pleaded with everything I had, sobs leaving my lips as it all grew too much. “I know this is selfish. But when do we get to live for us?” I buried my hands in the fabric of his shirt and gasped for air. “Just for tonight. Then we can pretend again.” Pretend that it’s easy to just be friends.

I waited for him to say something, anything. But instead, he brushed my long hair behind my ear and caught the falling tears with his thumb, pulling me gently closer by the chin. He placed a faint kiss on my lips, his eyes softening while the same pain I equally felt crossed his features too.

“We’re not the star and the man in the moon tonight. We’re just Dorothee and Archer. Just for tonight?”

“Just for tonight,” I agreed, before our lips met, and we allowed our souls to become entangled as one.

The salty taste mixed with the taste of iron from my chapped lips. But I couldn’t care less about the sting of pain or how our lips adapted to the colour of my blood. With him, all problems seemed as light as a feather, too dainty to worry about.

Archer lay back on his pillows, and I moved on top of him. His hands cupping my face, holding back my hair so it wouldn’t disturb our moment.

Kissing him felt oddly natural to me, even if he was the first person I’ve ever kissed. And truly, he was the only man I ever wish to kiss from today on.

The strips of my dress slipped from my shoulders, and instead of caring and pushing them back in place, I just let it happen. This boy beneath me knew my soul to such an extent, not even I did. We got to know each other in a way that was far more intimate than uncovered skin.

Whatever will tend to the wound bleeding on our insides tonight, I’ll just let it happen.

Just for tonight.

But can we keep this promise?