That I let him.
I let him drag me away, take me wherever he wants to.
Only I think the problem is that I’m not fast enough for him. That I can’t match his long and lunging strides. So he stops and swivels to face me again but before I go crashing against him, he bends down and picks me up.
He throws me over his shoulders like I weigh nothing at all.
And maybe to him, I don’t.
Maybe to him I’m featherlight and made of moondust.
Like to me, he’s safe and his strong body is made of my favorite season.
So I don’t even make a sound except maybe a few gasps and low moans when my tummy hits his strong shoulder and his corded arms wrap around the backs of my bare thighs. And then he’s walking again and I grip his t-shirt, burying my nose in the small of his back, and closing my eyes.
God.
He’s here. Somehow he’s here.
Somehow I’m in his arms again. I can smell him again, feel his heat. Feel how vital and alive he is as his chest goes up and down against me.
A couple of minutes later, he comes to a halt and puts me down.
Settling his arms on the scratchy trunk, he crowds me against a tree and going all loose, I arch up, thrusting my body even closer. Breathing heavily, he sweeps his eyes all over my face, over my craned neck and my bowed body. And while he’s doing that, I do my own sweep.
I drink him in with my eyes.
Even though it’s only been eighteen hours and forty-one minutes since I last saw him, I missed him.
God, I missed him so much.
“How did you…” I whisper, my fingers still clutching onto his t-shirt. “How did you know I was here?”
His eyes come back to my face and his features tighten up and flicker with violence. “Because he’s here.”
“I’m… Reign, I —”
He leans closer, his biceps straining on either side of me. “It didn’t work.”
“What?”
“Your stupid fucking plan,” he says, his teeth clenched, “didn’twork.”
My lips part on a choppy breath. “Reign, l-listen —”
“No, I’m done listening. I’mdone,” he says, his eyes brimming with mayhem. “I saw you first. Back then. Ifoundyou first. And then I waited a whole fucking year to see you again. I waited a whole fucking year to see the girl I saw in the woods that one night. And then, I waited and waited and fuckingwaitedfour years to kiss her. Even though she was my Servant Girl. She worked for my fucking family and so for all intents and purposes,Ihad the right. Me. To do whatever the fuck I wanted with her. But instead of exercising that right, I watched her. For those four years. Iwatchedher be in love with my best friend and hated myself for it. I hatedherfor it. I hated and hated so much that it made me sick.Shemade me sick. But here’s the kicker, see. She wasn’t done. She wasn’t done making me sick, so then two years later after she kissed me, after she came on to me herself, she came to me again. She said that she wanted me to take her cherry. Because she had a plan. A very stupid fucking plan of curing my sickness. Of curing hers too, by the way. So she could fix everything. So she could stop the suffering, the pain. So she could go back to my asshole of a best friend. But…”
My heart is gripped in a vise.
A vise that’s choking me.
Making it hard for it to beat. Making it hard to breathe.
“Reign, please listen to me. I —”
“But it failed,” he says in a guttural, abraded voice. “Not only did it fail epically, it actually made everything worse. I’m sicker now. Than I was before. I’m crazier. More insane, more obsessed. I’m fucking possessed, do you understand? And it hurts.” He thumps a hand on his chest. “Here. It fucking hurts, Echo. Even more than it did before. So now,” he licks his lips, “Ihave a plan.”
I twist my fists in his t-shirt. “What plan?”