Chapter 61

Cool drops of water scatter upon my blazing skin, luring me from my smokescreen sleep. I heave a strangled breath, the salty smell of the ocean filling my lungs.

Subtle taps puff against me like little blows of air …

Familiar.

Impossible.

I drag my eyes open, seeing a smudge of white hair and deeply tanned flesh. Seeing piles of sparkly things that bounce piercing shards of light that hurt my squishy brain.

A groan bubbles up my throat as I scan my blurry surroundings, trying to hone my vision, panic clawing at my lungs. Shredding them.

Tightening a noose around my throat.

“Where—”

“It’s okay, Treasure. It’s okay …”

Kai …

Sobbing, I squeeze my eyes shut.

“I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

I’m not.

“I have to remove the bolt, Treasure. I need to snap it first, then pull it out.”

A deep throbbing pain penetrates my senses, and I shift my hazy gaze to my arm, mind barreling back to visions of him saddled in arrows.

He was crouched over me, bleeding.

Faltering.

Protecting.

I whimper, releasing a string of tears as I squeeze my eyes shut.

“Are you ready?”

No.

“Yes,” I whisper, giving a tight nod.

He takes my arm and gently lays it across my chest, a stab of fiery pain searing through me. There’s a snapping sound, a devastating ricochet, and a scream bludgeons up my throat when the shaft slides free, grating past bruised and tender bone.

My body convulses in muscle-munching pain as I tumble toward a pall of sleepy darkness … hoping this is a nightmare. That I’ll wake in a cavern wrapped around him—high on the smell and the feel and the ache of us.

Loving us.

Hoping …

* * *

Blinking my eyes open, I take in the damp, salty smell of my smudged surroundings, shot through with a cold bolt of disappointment.

It wasn’t a nightmare …

I didn’t wake in a nest of crunchy leaves curled around the man I love, tending buttery blooms of relief and a bursting heart. Instead, my entire body is one big hurt. Even the simple task of moving my lids hurts so much I want to weep.

An agonizing slug of lava blazes through my veins, my arm cropped across my chest—alight with a fiery itch, as though grubs are gnawing at the underside of my skin, tearing off chunks of flesh. I feel that same gluttonous grubbing in my lungs, like the meat is being consumed in gobbled bites.

I cough and sputter, tasting blood and the rancid tang of sour milk, certain every muscle in my body is being kneaded, stretched, or snapped.

Exhaustion gores its thumbs into my eyes, threatening to burst them. Heavy lures tug at my lids, and I choke through another gargled breath that feels like the beginning of the end …

My head flops to the side, lids growing heavier.

Heavier.

Through the haze of my vision, I see a deeply tanned man with white hair emerging from behind a pile of sparkly things.

He looks like Kai.

He can’t be Kai.

“Treasure, you’re awake …”

The lures tugging at my lids win the war, and I tumble back into an inky sleep that wraps me in its black, leathery wings.

This is real. I’m dying—the end beneath my feet, waiting to open its maw and chomp. To weigh the heavy regret in my heart, then spit me out as dust.

And all I want is him.

* * *

TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.

I release a groan that jerks my chest into a foray of violent coughs, panic crushing its hands around my ribs—certain I’m drowning from the inside out. Deep, wet hacks shred my lungs, and I tip my head to the side, retching the blood that bubbles up with each soggy heave.

“That’s it, Treasure. Get it up …”

Fire seeps from my pores. Drips off me in rivulets that do nothing to quell this raging inferno.

The spasm abates, panic loosening as my head flops. I draw a rattling breath and squint into a pair of emerald eyes.

Kai …

“I’m s-so sorry,” I rasp, not wanting to die without him knowing the weight of my regret, hacking through another round of chest-cleaving coughs as I try to scrub the masticating lava grubs from my leg.

My arm.

“No, Treasure … Don’t be sorry.” He cups my cheek with a warm hand I nuzzle against, then wail at the pain, feeling as if my skin is sliding off the bone. “Fuck.”

My wail turns into a wet, rancid cough, and I arch to the side in an agonizing roll, retching curdled, lumpy stuff that tastes like my rotted insides coming away in chunks.

“I failed you from the start.”

I don’t know what he means.

But it doesn’t matter—not anymore.

I’m bereft at the thought as I vomit another lumpy mouthful into a bowl I can barely make out. A premature death has always felt imminent, like a shadow slithering around me. Watching me.

Ticking down my days.

But the look in that Vruk’s big, inky eyes as the world crumbled beneath me will haunt me to the end. Like I punched my fist through his chest and ripped out his heart, clutching it in my bloody hand as I fell.

Kai tilts me back and tips my head to the side. There’s a swishing sound before something slippery, cold, and wet is laid upon the searing hurt that feels as though it spans half my cheek.

I reach up, try to peel it off, but Kai gently eases my hand away.

“It will help, Treasure. You must leave it on.”

I wish he’d score his fingers across the hurt instead. Tear out the things that are gnawing at me.

TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.

The sound splits my skull, and I groan.

“Shh-shh-shh … It’s okay, Treasure. You’re doing so well. We’re going to get you through this. I just need you to hold on a bit longer, okay? Keep being strong,” he says, patting the sore, its sizzling roots wiggling down into my skull.

My jaw.

Much like the hungry welt on my hand. My foot.

Everything hurts, and the world’s shaking to the beat of that tapping—the cavern, the water lapping at the treasured shore made of sparkly things that tinkle.

I must be in Kai’s trove …

I wish I could see it properly. Appreciate it. Tell him how beautiful it is and fawn over all of his pretty, precious keepsakes.

I shut my eyes, my vision useless anyway—a grub in each one, munching on my corneas, grating their teeth around my pupils.

Distorting things.

TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.     TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.    TAP.

“That sound,” I gurgle, feeling it peck at my skull with each incessant tap.

Kai snarls as inky claws grip my consciousness, crushing it in their tightening fists.