"I would know it in any world, any life, any form, anywhere in time and space. I would die for these lavender eyes to glitter with warmth - anytime, anywhere."
His words constrict around my heart like golden barbs. The beauty of them excruciating.
...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
He is standing all alone in the thin woods that our backyard dissolves into. Well, it is thin for a while only before thickening into impenetrable darkness.
Darkness that I remember visiting and playing in. With him.
I try to brush off Alyssandra's unnerving eyes as they raved over my very form, my moonlight-white coat and then my pale skin. Like a predator assessing their prey.
I try to brush her words off my mind.
Now that you have shifted, it will be beautiful to see you find a mate.
She had said those apparently harmless words in a way that had made my skin prickle with an eerie emptiness. Had she truly not noticed what had transpired between me and Ashton? Had she truly not noticed the bond forming?
The bond that I can now feel between us, like an alive stream. It bubbles and flows and the utter peace and security of the mere touch of its waters makes a smile tug at my lips.
But what is getting to me, slowly but steadily, as if sneaking up on me like some deadly panther, is the fact that all of the water flowed from none but me. All of the love, all of the longing. His essence poured into it at times, in short, trembling gushes, as if they had mistakenly escaped from behind a wall so high, so thick, so impenetrable.
I shake off the thoughts and take quick steps towards where he stands at an imperious stature. I wouldn't call myself short - far from it - but his towering build dims out the height that usually gives me an apparent authoritative advantage on most.
"Ashton?", I call softly to him, and a tremor seems to shoot through him. He takes his time and a few deep breaths before slowly - very slowly - turning around, his dark T-shirt clinging tightly to every taut inch of his muscles, a tension having made its home under his very skin.
I want to reach out, see if my touch soothes the tension that his dark T-shirt and jeans seem to try to hide, but a look into the yin-yang eyes of emerald and silver, and every movement is halted.
Those eyes are filled to the brim with so many words that I am afraid - just as he is - that he won't be able to say them all fast enough, well enough.
But he speaks.
"The Goddess has erred, Elle.", his words, so steady yet so calmly desperate, actually halt my heart for a flickering moment. In that flickering moment I see all colour suddenly drain from his face, and a flash of pain - so unimaginably excruciating - blossom in his eyes.
Then, it is gone as soon as my blood starts hammering in my ears once again.
He takes a deep breath, as if building up all the resolve that had drained from him, all over again - I wish he didn't - and says, "This is not possible, Elle, and you know why."
I look at him. Really look at him. And just keep looking.
The words shred my heart into bloody nothings, but I listen, and I speak.
