It would seem that everyone had vanished. But Gola knew it not to be so. She was the one that was gone. Or would be if she didn't wake up soon.
She could hear faintly Levi and Ethan fighting. Growling, and butting horns. She was also certain of the weight of Nyx's presence beside her. Who was rousing from her own sleep with pained groans.
But there was someone else at her other side.
She felt him before she had any sense that he was there. She could feel his eyes on her face, the icy immortality in his veins. Now not even death could mask her memory of him.
"Gabriel?" She called out, her voice was hoarse and foreign to her own ears. Her arms outstretched to grasp at shadows.
They took a deep breath in sync but still he did not speak. Although he rested a heavy arm on her shoulder, forcing her to lay back down.
"You're getting what you always wanted." She wheezed, slapping his hand away with great effort. "My heart severed on a silver platter."
She was provoking him. She wanted to hear his voice. She didn't want to die with her loneliness.
The shadow prince was not as gentle when he thrusted her back to the ground a second time. "Remain still you fool." He demanded, lowly. Unable to hide the edge to his voice.
"This is all my fault. This is the price of my greed. All of this was supposed to be to protect you but I've only protected me."
She intertwined their hands and pressed the back of his to her heart. Hushing him she sighed, "What of it matters now? Breath with me."
Her breath was wearing with each second. His breaths were uneven and ragged.
He was about to watch the love of his life die, again. And for all his grasping at power. He was just as hopeless as the first time.
"But you must know, The witch was of no coincidence. Mother thought she, only a talented herbalist. But I knew she and her sister were witch doctors. The crows and I had long since been searching for them in fact."
Gola snorted, "I knew you were a crow boy."
Gabriel could feel her silly grin even in darkness. At it he felt some of the tension release from his shoulders. Feeling human, remembering the burden of the heart wasn't an easy thing. Especially with one so heavy.
"Offering protection wasn't hard. The two were being persecuted. Hunted down like dogs. In exchange the witches would offer each of us wish. They couldn't make our wishes come true but they could give us enough luck for the wishes to be impossible not to come true.
One crow facing family bankruptcy secured a fortune, another spoke one last time to deceased grandfather, one chose to become a bird. There were few other wishes, but me...I asked for you." He paused, his breaths becoming heavier and heavier.
But she soothes him, hushing and rubbing a warm thumb against his frosty skin. "Breath."
And he did. The shadow prince released a shaky breath. Only in Elenora's presence could he breath. Or feel alive at all.
When she touched him, the monster inside slept. And everything was suddenly vibrant in a tsunami of colorful emotions. She was sunrise after over a century of darkness.
"All my life my heart has been a void, ravenous for something for which it cannot name. That fateful night we accidentally danced, I saw it buried deep beneath the midnight winters of your eyes. A comprehension of chaos.
I am nothing if not an intense longing to be known. And you knew me, better than I."
His voice was low and throaty, a pure strain of desperation. "I have loved you as I have loved nothing else before. I have loved you as no one or anything will ever be loved again."
A Raven is squawking overhead. Preaching ill-fated omens. This is when she knows their time is up.
She is being consumed by the raging fires of his eyes when she says, "In death I may have forgotten your face, your voice, the feel of your skin on mine but I have never forgotten you. Not your eyes, your warmth or the way we used to breath in sync. You'll eternally be familiar to me."
And then Gola was gone. She awoke and remembered everything.
A/N: (I'd like to clarify that Gola is waking up from nearly dying and that this isn't the end of the story. Ok, bye.)
CHAPTER - THIRTY
Start from the beginning
