“But if it were, would you?”
She looks at me, brow furrowed. “I think so. But just not because of the power…” She trails off. “I don’t want to share her secrets, as she isn’t very forthcoming. But not every cursed soul is such because they wanted to be. Sometimes, their only chance of really living is through these deals. Or so I gather.”
“So you are a friend, and you are a way for this… thing to live through you?”
“She used to be a woman. And, yes, I suppose. In some sense. But I’m also still me.”
“You are far too good and too pure for this world, Arlet,” I say. And then, a lump forms in my throat. I can’t help it—can’t keep the words from spilling out. “You have always been too good for me.”
She looks up, finally meeting my eyes. In the dim torchlight, she is as tragically beautiful as ever.
It seems she feels the heat, too, because she moves closer.
My heart, that beautiful, awful thing, speeds up in my chest just as it did when we kissed.
I crawl across the floor to be right in front of her.
“We might only have tonight, Arlet. I know I hurt you, but for the rest of my life, I swear never to again.”
She takes a deep breath, and it’s like I can see all her hostility melt away.
Her legs are slightly parted from her seated position.
“May I?” I ask.
She takes another shaky breath, and then nods and I tentatively make my way between them.
“There is nowhere else I’d rather be on the night before my possible death?—”
She squeezes her eyes shut, and I realize she’s been holding back tears because one falls down her cheek.
“Than with you, Firelocks. Arlet.”
Another tear falls.
“I would die beside my mate a thousand times if that was the only option given to me.”
At the word ‘mate,’ her eyes fly open. She opens her mouth, and I think she will protest again.
Push me away again.
But instead, she grabs my face and pulls me toward her. Her lips are warm, and her breath seems to breathe life right back into me.
But this time, I do not take.
I let her lead.
Arlet’s fingers are curled in my hair, trembling slightly, as if she cannot quite believe she is the one who closed the distance. I can taste salt from her tears, feel the fragile strength in the way she presses her mouth to mine. There is nothing fragile about the kiss itself. It is searching. Fierce. Desperate in a way that makes my pulse thunder.
When she pulls back, it is only a breath.
“Don’t swear your life away so easily,” she whispers, voice unsteady. “Not for me.”
“For you,” I murmur, brushing my thumb beneath her eye to catch another tear, “I would swear anything.”
Her throat works as she swallows. I see the moment the fear rises again—the reminder that tomorrow is not promised. Her hands shift from my hair to my shoulders, pressing there, grounding herself.
I move carefully between her parted legs, not with urgency, but with reverence. My hands rest on her thighs first, warm and steady, waiting for the slightest sign of hesitation.