Page 143 of The Nymph Prince

“I will not let death have you,” Theron whispered, staring down at me through his long dark lashes.

His words…they stirred a memory. I’d been shot by a pirate and Alek had healed me.

“Death must loathe us for cheating him so many times,” I said with a laugh.

“Maybe death needs to realize he can’t have us,” Alek answered.

“Alek?” I cried, reaching for him.

It wasn’t his body, but it was his soul. That’s why my soul reached for him just like my arms did now. Just as I’d always reach for him.

“Aye, love,” he said as his eyes crinkled at the edges.

His hands glowed, and my body tingled with warmth.

That’s all I remembered before falling into a deep sleep.

***

Voices mumbled nearby. I opened my eyes and stared up at the roof of a tent. There were no candles lit and no other people in the tent that I could see. The sun shone outside; it reflected a little through the material. I watched the material ripple with a spring breeze before I tried sitting up.

“Well, that’s not happening,” I wheezed, falling back down.

I ached all over. My arms felt like they were weighed down with all the metal in the armory and my legs felt the same. However, there was a pain Ididn’tfeel. I’d been stabbed in the stomach. I should’ve been dead or at least in excruciating pain.

I shouldn’t have felt as well as I did, given everything that’d happened. Not just from the wound. Alek had died, and yet, my heart was no longer broken. My soul wasn’t torn to shreds. I felt…whole.

How?

I clenched my hands into fists, angry at myself for not feeling the agony of his loss. He was my heart, my other half. Losing him should’ve destroyed me. I’d felt that grief as I fought in the battle. I’d barely held myself together.

And now I feel content. Happy, even.

“You’re awake.”

I jumped at the deep voice and angled my head to see him. He sat in a chair not far from me, looking as though he’d just woken up. Blond hair and brown eyes, a muscular body with wide shoulders and a broad chest. Though muscled, he wasn’t bulky with it.

“Theron, correct?” I asked.

No…that wasn’t right. The name felt wrong on my tongue.

I searched my memory, knowing I’d seen him recently. Haman had tricked me and dealt what should’ve been a fatal blow. Malik had ordered for someone to find Eva. But Eva hadn’t been the one to find me.

Theron had.

I closed my eyes, focusing on a soft thumping. It was the sweetest of sounds. A heartbeat. Alek’s heartbeat.

As the sleepy haze lifted from my mind, I gasped and shot upward. Every inch of me screamed in protest, but I ignored it. I remembered everything.

“Alek!” I threw myself onto his lap and buried my face into the side of his neck. Cries tore from my throat as I held onto him.

“Please don’t cry, love.” He moved his hand up and down my back and kissed my head. His tone shook with the emotion he didn’t let surface. Always trying to be strong. “Gods, I was so worried about you.”

As his arms surrounded me, I’d never felt so safe. So happy. I’d lost him. It was impossible to have him back.

“Worried aboutme?” I whimpered, brushing my fingers through the back of his hair. Strange how he was in a different body, yet he felt exactly the same. “You’re the one who died, Alek. How are you here?”

“It’s hard to explain.”