“You shouldn’t be up here.”
How true. I didn’t say it. I refused to give him the satisfaction.
“I’m not ready to go back.”
The moon sparkled through his golden curls as he descended the remaining two steps and claimed the seat beside me. I shifted away, pressing myself into the cool post rather than let his warmth tempt me.
“You can’t stay,” he said as though I hadn’t already known.
I knew! I knew I couldn’t. I felt unnatural. Everything around me pulled and swayed, pushing me out like a virus in a human body. Even nature, the one thing I had always felt at one with, rippled with a sort of suppressed anger that left me feeling cold and… so unwanted.
Maybe it was my punishment for breaking the rules; my just deserts. I really didn’t belong there, with people... with humans.
“Come back with me.” He reached for my hand.
I jerked away, not ready to succumb.
His hand stilled in mid-reach. His long fingers, finger that had once traced every inch of my body, curled into a tight fist. The knuckles surged white against his naturally pale tone.
“Don’t do this.” I winced at the plea, at the emotion lacing his words.
My jaw creaked beneath the pressure. I turned my face into the post, squeezing my eyes closed against the rising film. The hands I had squished together and stuffed between my knees trembled.
“Just leave me alone.” I knew it was useless to ask. He would never leave me. He promised. There were times I even loved him for it.
The night whispered around us with its many voices. It pulsed a deep, velvety blue that captured the dancing ripples over the lake. Fireflies lit the far distance, dancing to some melody only they could hear. A bullfrog groaned. Crickets chirped. I drowned myself in the magic, in the moment, prolonging the journey I would inevitably have to take.
I glanced down at my wrist, at the spot my thumb anxiously kept tracing. It was bare for the first time in eons. The disappearance of my prized possession lodged a lump in my throat.
“I lost it,” I whispered, more to myself then the unmoving figure beside me.
Maybe my broken statement sounded like an invitation, but the next second his cool fingers had wrapped around the spot, hiding the nakedness from sight as he drew my hand towards him.
“It must have broken off.”
I couldn’t find the strength to roll my eyes and mutter ‘duh’ but something in my face must have said it; he smiled, the first real smile I’d seen in…
“How long has it been?”
His lips felt warm against my knuckles. “Too long.”
I glanced back over my shoulder at the dark cabin looming over us. “The others…?”
“They’ve gone.”
So, it was just us. We were the only ones still there, because of me, because I didn’t want to return to the fires promised me for eternity.
“I don’t want to go back.”
He moved so quickly, going from sitting to standing in the blink of an eye. His shadow slipped over me as he bent at the waist, face inches from mine. “You can’t stay.”
Blue eyes bore into mine with an intensity that penetrated my very soul. His smile lit my blood on fire as he touched the side of my face, leaving the skin tingling in his wake.
“It’s not fair,” I said at least, collecting my senses.
“What isn’t fair is you making me come up here every other century looking for you.” There was no anger in his tone, no annoyance, just a simple amusement that only prickled my own impatience.
I rose to my feet, nowhere near as intimidating as him with my height, but I bumped my toes with his and met his gaze head on. “I didn’t ask you to come looking for me!”
That’s when his hands found their way to me, gliding up my shoulders, caressing my face, slipping back into my unbound hair. He cupped the back of my head, drawing me close. My lungs ceased working. I stared paralyzed up into his face, my heart tripping over itself. His teeth flashed in the darkness.
“Silly demon,” he raised a hand. The moonlight caught my dangling bracelet he held between his thumb and index, “as if you could be rid of me that easily.”
I let him clasp the cool chain back around my wrist. The sleek plate gleamed in the moonlight, illuminating the two words etched into the silver, Never Alone. For the first time in years, the weight shifted off my shoulders.
I smiled, raising my eyes to his. “I’ll be back you know.”
His face dropped to mine, his eyes dancing with silent laughter. “And I’ll be right there with you.”