Merletta shook her head, a lump rising in her throat. “They don’t want to kill you, Heath. You should return to Valoria, and never look back. There’s no reason for you to die with us.”
“There’s every reason,” Heath said fiercely.
His grip on her shoulders tightened for a moment, then suddenly went slack. He slid his hands down her arms, cupping them under her elbows.
“You said it yourself,” he told her softly. “We’ll tackle it together.”
“I don’t want you to get yourself killed,” Merletta told him earnestly, tears pricking her eyes. “Even without this threat, there’s no future for us. The gulf between us is too big to bridge—not when neither of us can abandon the world we come from. You know it’s true. You’d be mad to die for a future that could never even happen.”
“No gulf is too big, Merletta,” Heath told her. “Not when you’re on the other side. I’d swim across the entire ocean if that’s what it took.”
Merletta couldn’t help giving a shaky laugh. “You’re not a good enough swimmer.”
Heath smiled briefly. “I’d count on you to rescue me when I started to sink, then.”
“Heath.” She was whispering again, tears welling up in spite of her best efforts. “If I’m going to lose everything else, I can’t bear to lose you, too.”
“We started this, Merletta,” Heath told her. “And we’ll see it through together.” He cupped her head with one hand, his fingers tangling through her wet hair, and his voice clear and certain. “Nothing you can say will convince me to abandon you now.”
Merletta searched his eyes, his words at the Winter Solstice Ball running through her mind. She’d never reciprocated—expressing those things wasn’t her greatest strength. But with death by dragon flame speeding toward her and her entire civilization, it seemed like the time to be bold.
“I love you, Heath,” she said. She laid a palm against his chest. “And if it was only me affected, I’d say it was all worth it.”
Heath’s eyes burned into hers for a moment, before he pulled her suddenly against him. The breath left her body in an involuntary exhale, then his lips were on hers. She pressed into him, her arms threading around his neck, and her heart on fire.
In spite of the worlds between them, in spite of the disaster hanging over them, she would choose Heath, every time. The knowledge that he chose her as well was enough to make her feel like she should have wings as well as legs and a tail.
As Heath kissed her with the reckless abandon of an uncertain tomorrow, there on the sand of Vazula’s beach, Merletta felt hope—foolish, illogical, defiantly persistent hope—sprout inside her. In spite of the dragons’ aggression, the Center’s deception, and the incredible odds stacked against them.
Impossible as it seemed, with Heath’s arms around her, she couldn’t help but have faith, even just for this moment.
Perhaps they could find a way through it after all. As long as they were in it together, there was surely hope.