The temperature dropped. A shiver started in her chest and worked its way to her fingers and toes in a matter of seconds. It truly was the cold of death.
Anger started to stride back up at the thought of this curse on him, but she shoved it back down ruthlessly. He needed her right now. And she could do this, she could bring him back down from whatever precipice he teetered at. She didn’t understand it, didn’t even get it, but she’d help him because she knew if it was her struggling, he’d help her in a heartbeat.
“Let it go, Alrik. Just let go of whatever holds you. Hold me instead.” His heartbeat thudded hard, once, at her words. As if his heart skipped a beat.
She held her breath, closed her eyes and simply held him. Puffy white clouds formed at her mouth as she breathed. Time passed slowly. She couldn’t begin to know just how much, minutes maybe. An eternity.
What felt hours passed and then an arm came around her, she could feel it trembling and she hoped it wasn’t from the effort it took not to hurt her. Happiness burst inside her. She wanted to cheer for him. She didn’t know what was in this haunted demon’s mind, but after seeing him like this she’d find out.
His chest stopped pumping so hard, his heartbeat slowed to a normal dum, dum, dum. When his other arm wrapped around her waist, she sighed and pressed a kiss over his heart.
The cold started to recede. Her shivering died down, but her nose still felt cold and it surely looked bright red about now.
Still hesitant, she slowly looked up. His eyes would show her what she needed to know. That would be the final tell. But when she looked up, his eyes were pressed closed, a look of intense pain on his face.
“Alrik...what’s wrong?” she asked in her softest voice.
The muscles along his forehead and mouth twitched and jerked as if they were being zapped with electrical impulses.
“Look at me, baby,” she coaxed.
She clenched her fingers in his shirt. She wanted to cry. Just seeing the agony written all over his face made her hurt inside. He was grappling with something but she didn’t know what. It was all inside him with that black, evil energy clouding around him like noxious gas. She wanted to wipe it all away with a snap of her fingers.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed then slowly he opened his eyes. The all black recesses looked darker. How there were different shades of black she wasn’t sure, but his eyes hadn’t been that black before. A shiver passed over her.
“Alrik, honey?”
As if finally hearing her voice, his head slowly turned down to her. The tarry ink of his eyes looked like a river of oil, no whites, no distinguishing pupil, just darkness. He blinked once, twice, again. Before her very eyes, she watched the darkness fade—not completely—but enough to transform the black color back to what she was used to—something close to a deep shade of blue or the darkest form of gray.
Her stupid heart raced and she recognized the awful feeling inside her for what it was—fear. For the first time since being kidnapped by him, Abby saw the control the curse could have over him. In this instance, he’d been able to control it. What would happen if he didn’t?
Reaching up, she cupped his cheek. A wet tear escaped her eye and she quickly stood on tiptoe to press a kiss to his lips so he wouldn’t see it. Gasping, she jerked back from him.
His skin felt like ice.
A sob threatened to break from her throat but she held it back. What in the world was going on with him?
Gradually, slowly, he cocked his head, arms tightening around her, and his head dipped catching her lips. Warmth grew between them like the heat of the sun touching snow.
He reached, cupped her bottom in one big hand, and lifted her up against him with a growl. A surprised moan bubbled out of her. At this level their hips aligned and she could feel his cock, hard and ready pressing into her. The swift mood change had her struggling to keep up but she went with the flow, taking his kiss and giving it back.
His tongue dipped inside her mouth then retreated slowly, tasting her. As if some thread snapped, he dropped her to her feet in the next second and stormed away from her. He snatched his swords off the ground and slid them into the holster on his back. The man couldn’t even dress without keeping those sheathes on.
His eyes didn’t meet hers. “Let’s practice. I want you to try making fire now.” His voice sounded normal and not like the distorted demonic tone from before.
Abby was frozen in place, confused. So was this how they were going to play? Just act like nothing completely freaking bizarre had just happened? She didn’t think so.
“Wait, wait, wait, don’t you think you could explain what the heck just happened here?”
He started gathering up sticks and breaking them into pieces for a fire.
He didn’t look at her, and didn’t say a word
“You know, I don’t really take silent treatment so well.”
Alrik tossed some dried leaves on top of the pile of sticks and glared at her. “What do you care what happens to me?”
Her heart softened, eyes rounded. “I do care.” The admission felt like something so much more powerful that what she’d actually said.
He shook his head. “I told you already. It’s the curse.”
Abby sat down on a boulder sticking out the ground near the water. “I’ll try to start a fire and you are going to tell me all about it.” She made sure her voice left no room for argument. Besides, she knew something was off. They’d fought before but he hadn’t nearly hulked out like that. Well, maybe hulking out wasn’t quite the best term for it. He hadn’t been close to smashing the ground with his fists so much as...using dark magic. A nasty shudder passed over her.
Concentrating hard, she stared at the twigs and broken branches willing fire to spark and engulf it. Her temperature warmed almost as if she was already sitting near the warm flames.
“My mother cursed me with rage to control me. I never saw it, never felt the change overcome me. I’d actually,” he paused and rubbed a hand over the back his neck, “embraced it. It felt amazing to have that kind of power.”
Inside she stiffened her breath catching.
“Why would she do that?” she asked softly. Maybe it helped that she wasn’t looking straight at him and focused on her task of creating fire, but she wanted to jump up and down cheering because he was opening up to her.
“I don’t know exactly. She hated me, maybe. She was always a bitter, unhappy woman. After my father died, I became king since Telal abandoned us to live above the rift.” He made a derisive snort that told her just how he felt about his brother.
A burning sensation tingled along her fingertips like holding your hand too close to fire. Her breaths came faster and she reached closer to the wood imagining and feeling all the power inside her thrust up and out to the wood, burning it.
A spark caught—just a small explosion like a firework popping. Abby let out a happy squeal at her little victory while Alrik simply nodded once at her.
“Keep trying.”
Well, she supposed it was better than “that’s not good enough.”
She tried again.
“So you don’t get along with your brother I take it?” She remembered Telal from news reports. Governments across the world bought his weapons. He made things from knives to automatic rifles. Of course, his golden skin and blue hair made him stick out just a little in the human world.
He made a strangled sound, almost like a laugh and choke mixing. “No! He betrayed us to the vampires, to that bastard Tobius en Kulev. They brought war on us and shut us inside this rift like a bunch of caged animals. He had to create an entire army to do it. They called themselves the Atal Warriors. It took nearly a hundred years for them to break us, but they finally did. Nothing’s been the same since... Telal should have been king. He is the eldest. It was his duty.” His lip curled with disgust. “But he betrayed us to Tobius, and let his own people get slaughtered.”