What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(40)

I turned to look back at the steep slope behind me, searching for a body on the shore with my eyes as I searched under the surface with my feet. If he’d managed to swim to land, the cold could have rendered him unable to move any farther. There was no sign of him, so I spun forward and prepared to dive back into the water.

I’d been meant to die with him anyway, so I’d search for him until I did.

Unforgiving hands wrapped around my waist and sent a shock of pain through my torso, lifting me off my feet as their owner walked us back toward the shore. “No!” I screamed, kicking my legs through the black water at our feet. “Let me go! I have to find him!”

“He’s gone, Little One,” Caelum murmured in my ear as he dragged me back. “You should be, too. What the fuck were you thinking with that stunt?”

A strangled sob climbed up my throat as I clawed at his arms in a last bid to get free. I’d barely managed to climb down on my own, stumbling over my own feet as I hurried down the last of the hill at the bottom of the cliff, but somehow Caelum navigated up with one arm wrapped around me, dragging me with him.

“Let go!” I screamed, the sound bouncing off his neck where he wrapped me in his embrace to haul me up the last of the hill.

“You have to be quiet,” he snapped, looking up at the top of the cliff where the Wild Hunt probably still waited for us. “Your brother is gone. He will not answer you from the Void, no matter how loudly you call to him. Nothing human could have survived that.”

“I did,” I argued, glancing back toward the water.

“And you are no longer human,” he said pointedly, touching a freezing hand to the Mark on my neck as we crested the hill, above the high tide line, and he settled us down flat against the dirt as he watched the cliff for any sign of movement. He laid his body atop mine, pressing me into the ground at my back with his weight as he spoke the words. They resonated with the part of me that had clung to my hope. Brann had always been stronger, more agile than I was, but even he wouldn’t have been skilled enough to climb down, especially not after being stabbed in the stomach. My body went lax beneath Caelum’s; all the fight draining out of me as reality settled over me.

My brother was gone. He’d never annoy me with his overprotectiveness again. He’d never smile at me when he thought I was being foolish but he loved me anyway.

He’d never live.

My bottom lip trembled as I shook my head, staring up into Caelum’s dark eyes as he dropped his forehead to mine. “I’m sorry, Little One,” he whispered, watching as I let my eyes drift closed. The urge to follow Brann into death like I’d promised plucked at the edges of my consciousness as the cold settled into my bones. “I need to get you warm.”

Caelum lifted himself off me, hauling me into his grip until my legs draped over one arm and he wrapped the other around my back. He carried me over the ledge at the base of the cliff, poking it with his toe every step he took.

My teeth chattered as I glanced down at the pea-green fabric of my dress, wincing when I realized how it clung to my skin. Caelum didn’t allow himself to be distracted by it, searching along the ground for something until he breathed a sigh of relief.

A cave just large enough for the two of us and high enough that we should be safe from the rising tide stared back at me when I turned my head to look at what he’d seen. He stepped inside it quickly, glancing up at the top of the cliff as he did, to make sure we weren’t spotted.

Once we were tucked as far back as the cave would allow, he gently lowered me to the ground and stripped off his cloak. Draping it around my shoulders and drawing the hood up to cover my wet hair, he didn’t so much as shiver as he gathered what wood and moss he could find from the cave entrance.

He pulled flint from his pocket, striking his dagger against it until sparks lit up the cave. He got a fire going with efficiency I’d never seen, stepping away as it touched the wood and started to emit heat. He came back to me, arranging himself behind me and pulling me against his chest.

I stared at the flames, watching them dance over the dirt walls of the cave that had offered us shelter. Caelum laid us down, curling his body into the back of mine. Indifferently, outside the numbness in my body and the numbness in my heart, I realized I’d never been held this way.

I’d never lain down with a man and just...been. In another time, another world, it might have been nice to fit together with someone so perfectly—to feel complete in another person’s arms—but in this one, it felt like a betrayal of everything Brann had warned me about.

I wept, watching the fire dance until my eyes drifted closed to the rhythmic sound of Caelum’s breath behind me, his heart beating in tandem with mine.





14





The smell of food cooking tickled my senses, pulling me from the depths of a dream clouded in nothing but darkness all around me. The threat of the Fae, the loss of my brother: all of it had led me to the darkest place I could ever imagine being.

My eyes fluttered open, landing on where Caelum squatted between me and the fire. He clutched a stick in each hand, a fish speared onto the end of it and roasting over the flames. I covered my mouth as I yawned, wincing at the metallic taste and wishing for a way to brush my teeth.

I shifted, lifting my head off the arm I’d used as a pillow and wiggling my stiff body to test the soreness in my limbs. Caelum turned, sensing my movement and giving me a cursory glance before he turned back to the fire and inspected the fish.