Page 29

Missing Him

I’m trying not to let my wildly beating heart escape into the night air. He came to find me. Even with the distance between us, I’m not entirely alone.

Goddess, I didn’t realize how much I needed to know that.

I search along the banks in the shades of the trees on that side of the water, and finally spy a man-shaped form with one shoulder leaned up against the trunk of a lone willow tree, the graceful branches arching and falling in a canopy that grazes the ground gently. I think maybe his arms are crossed as he watches me.

“What do you want?” I ask, a little breathless.

I shouldn’t be breathless. It’s silly to be. He’s probably here with a question, or he’s worried I’ll unleash the Shadows.

Reven doesn’t answer, and he doesn’t move.

Hells, Meren, don’t be a fool.

I should be taking advantage of being alone with him. This is a chance. A chance for me to…I don’t know…figure out how to flirt better really fast.

But I can’t. Not right now. Not after Horus. Not with everything that happened tonight. The tangle of all the emotions I’m trying to not let get in my way is a problem.

I glance to the moon-bright skies above, wondering how much Reven can see of me below the water. “I am completely naked at the moment,” I warn.

“I can’t see anything indecent,” Reven assures me, sounding almost bored.

Great. This man has touched and kissed, licked and nibbled, possessed and worshipped my body, and he sounds bored. Bored is the opposite of what I need right now. A spark of challenge rises up in me. “That’s a shame.”

He sort of stills even though he doesn’t really move or change posture. “Horus—”

“Cain taught me.”

There’s a beat of silence long enough that I decide to elaborate. “To swim,” I say. “You asked. He taught me when I was a child after I almost drowned in a well.”

“I see.”

Does he, though? Has he figured out who Cain truly is to me? I know for a fact Reven hasn’t figured out who he truly is to me. He still has no idea we’re bondmates. I try to feel him, feel that connection, but there’s nothing there.

He clears his throat. “Horus—”

“I don’t want to talk about Horus. Not with you.” I swim toward the side of the pool where my clothes are.

“Why not me?”

“Because you don’t remember him.” I’m not accusing him. It’s not his fault. “What he did means nothing to you, and it should.”

How would Reven before he lost his memories have dealt with it? A more merciful killing? Or maybe he would have understood my reasons for exiling our friend when no one else seemed to?

I wish I knew.

“We should talk,” Reven says each word slowly, carefully, rolling them around in his mouth as if he’s not entirely sure that he should speak them because the second he puts the suggestion out there, he’ll have to do something about it.

“Not the best timing, but all right. Turn around.” I don’t wait for him to comply before I climb out of the pool and dress. There’s no way to dry myself, so it takes a little while to get my clothes back on as they stick to my skin uncomfortably.

“Is there ever a good time?” Reven asks while I struggle to secure my knives under my clothes.

“These days, not really.” I drop my skirts.

“Do you mind joining me over here?”

I plunk my hands onto my hips. Just once I’d like it if he was the one to bend a little. “Why do I have to come to you?”

A sound that is all things frustration still manages to reach my ears. “Does everything have to be an argument with you?”

The sudden, small smile that tugs at my lips surprises me. A fact I cover with sarcasm. “Only with shadowraiths who have trust issues. And quasi daddy issues, and—”

“I get your point.” His voice is dust dry and coated in irritation. “Where I’m standing is more protected if anyone should happen by, even above in the cliffs. They would be less likely to see us or overhear. That’s why.”

Valid. I’m really starting to hate valid and logic.

I brush the small gravelly rocks off the bottoms of my feet and slip my shoes on, then pick my way around the pool into the denser foliage nearer the waterfall, eventually having to go farther out from the water before returning down a very narrow path. I find him standing in a pool of moonlight with his back to the water, waiting for me.

The way he’s looking at me, with one eye kind of squinted, I wonder if he’s trying to make up his mind about something that has to do with me.

“Shall we sit?” He waves a hand at the ground.

Together, we find a large, flat rock right at the edge, and sit facing the water. It’s easier this way, with no eye contact.

It also reminds me of a long-ago night sitting beside a rushing river in Wildernyss. And another time in a water garden. More memories to etch into my mind with a chisel so they can’t be erased. Or maybe I should be burying them with all the other distracting things like trust and friendship.

Maybe to rule is to be isolated so that emotion doesn’t enter the picture.

We sit in silence longer than is comfortable. Long enough that I start rolling little gravel pieces around on my rock with my fingertips, lining them up like a little army under my command.

Not so long ago, when he shadowed me out of my own palace and away from Eidolon, we sat like this in the desert outside Oaesys, neither knowing what to say or do. Eventually, he groaned and lifted me onto his lap and kissed me within an inch of my life. We were both so desperate for each other.

I miss that. I miss him.

Tell him. I open my mouth—

“I have no idea what to think of you,” he gets in first. The words drop between us, closer to an accusation than anything.

I swallow my first knee-jerk response of you’re not the only one .

“It must be hard.” I feel more than see him glance over. “I mean, not remembering. I imagine it feels like someone else stole your body and your life, then did and said and felt all these things, but now he’s gone and you’re back, trying to make sense of it. To live your life and not another man’s.”

“So you agree?” he asks. “That the Reven you fell in love with was another man?”

My heart pinches. Trying to ease the ache, I lean back on my hands and accidentally brush against his fingers. He scoots away, and my heart pinches more.

“In some ways, I agree,” I admit. “I’ve also been around Eidolon. He looks and talks like you, but he is not you. That man is an entirely different person with thoughts you would never have, actions you’d never take. You, though… There are little things, like you’ll give me a look, or walk a certain way, or use a turn of phrase. But more than that, the way you think and act are all… you . All Reven.”

“Like what?” Doubt lines his voice.

“Like showing up here to talk when I don’t want to. Like not trusting me as far as you can throw me but trying to protect me anyway.” I miss that, too.

“Is it hard to be around me?”

“Yes.”

His eyes slowly narrow as he searches my expression. “Because of Eidolon’s Shadows?”

I shake my head. “It’s because I lost you, and I was…terrified I’d never get you back. But now you’re back but not, and…” I prop my chin on my shoulder, letting my gaze trail over the harsh planes of his face, to look into eyes that used to look back at me differently. “I guess in a way I’m still missing you, and that…makes me sad.”

And I’m definitely still terrified that I’ve lost him.

“Is that why you let me stay alone in my tent for days? Because I make you sad?”

“No.” Only, that’s not quite true. “Maybe a little,” I admit. “I…wanted to give you time, to see things and decide for yourself.”

Choose me again. I want to say the words to him. But if I beg, what if he gives in out of pity? I won’t beg.

Make him love you.

My heart shrinks a little. For the second time tonight, I’m not sure if that thought was me or the Shadows. Reven doesn’t blink, though. Not a good sign since he seems to sense when my control slips. I almost wish that was the Shadows because the only kind of love I want from Reven is the kind that is freely given.

“Thank you for that.” There’s a heaviness to his voice. Is he…disappointed? His mouth sort of twists.

“And we didn’t stop you, so we passed your test.”

He shakes his head. “It wasn’t a test. I was actually going to leave. But it…hurt.”

Hurt? More bubbles in my stomach, insidious hope trying to float up again. “Hurt how?”

“An ache at first, here.” He points to the center of his chest. “But the farther I got, it spread, everything too tight like my mind was leaving, but my body was trying to rip away and stay.”

Hells. I think I know why—our bond—but I don’t want him staying because of that, either. Love should be a choice every single time.

It’s like there’s this glass wall between us. I can see him, but he’s still as far from me as when he was trapped inside Eidolon.

“And I don’t like it when I can’t see you,” he admits, each word a grudging growl.

I can’t help the way I straighten, because that sounds more like the stirrings of…something. “Why?”

“Damned if I can figure it out.” His crooked lips hitch in a self-deprecating smile. “It’s not pain. It’s more like a sense of panic.”

I deflate a little. Panic doesn’t sound like love.

Tabra’s voice rings in my memory. Only yesterday she was telling me all sorts of ways to, as she put it, open up to him. “Tabra says I should be more vulnerable with you.”

His brows draw together, and a small part of me smiles. I love those thick, expressive brows. “What does that mean?” he asks.

A short, sharp laugh pops from me. “Hells if I can figure it out.” I toss his phrasing back at him.

That crooked smile widens to a small grin, only a little reluctant. “Were you vulnerable before?”

My own amusement fades as I think about that. “Eventually, yes,” I say slowly. “But it came from knowing each other, trusting each other. Until you can do that, it…” I shake my head. “It doesn’t feel…” Right isn’t the word. Awkward, either, although it is. “Fair to you.”

He looks out over the water. “That makes a certain kind of sense.”

“I’m glad you get it because mostly I’m confused.” And frustrated with myself. Where did that girl who would fearlessly do anything for him go? Or maybe that’s who’s in charge? She’s protecting him? I don’t know. I’ve never been in a relationship, let alone bonded, let alone…whatever this is now. I’m only nineteen. I have so little experience in life to draw on for what I’m facing.

Has anybody in the history of Nova had to face this?

Probably not. It seems to be my lot in life to be the outlier.

I peek at Reven to find his focus still on the water, but… Is that a smile hovering around his mouth?

“You love your sister,” he says.

Okay, I guess we’re done talking about that. “Of course.”

“No.”

The stark, low word snags my attention. He’s watching me again, different this time, and I try to ignore the shiver that feathers over my skin. “No?”

“I imagine most people in your position would have resented the sibling who wasn’t…what do you call yourself?”

“Expendable.”

Darkness flashes through his eyes. “I don’t like that word any more than Tabra does.”

That’s something at least.

“I watched you with her today,” he says. “When she was kissing that Achlys woman, you looked…”

“Pathetic, probably,” I grumble.

“No. You looked heartbroken. Just for a second, but the pain looked…real. Deep.”

Everything about me constricts, like he wrapped a corset around me and tied it up tight. “Oh.”

“And then you looked at me. And your heart was in your eyes. I could see it.” He swallows, the first show of vulnerability I’ve seen from him. “I could feel it, like you’d reached out and punched me in the gut.”

Oh goddess. What was my heart saying to him without my knowing it? All I remember is yelling at myself to say something.

He lets out a breath that sounds all kinds of frustrated. “That’s the first time I realized just how much you care. How much pain I’ve caused you.”