Kelly Mendig - Three Days to Dead

My heart hammers. A chill worms down my spine, stirring up the sudden urge to vomit. “That’s not possible. Goblins and Bloods hate each other.”

“Normally, they do, but they hate humans and the Fey even more. An alliance like that would be a disaster to us and the Fey Council, and to everything we’ve managed to build over the last decade. It would force the other races to take sides, and not all of them would side with us.”

“How reliable is your intel?”

“No one jokes about something like that, Evy. If they’re hearing it, it’s happening. The question now becomes when, and why? If we can get a bead on those things, find something to give the Council that can prepare them for the possibility of a species war, it could go a long way toward getting the brass to listen to your side of the story. Right now, we’re under orders to shoot you on sight.”

I shudder. “Guess I’m lucky you found me first.”

“I’ll protect you, Evy.” He returns to the bed, sits down in front of me. “I promised I would, and I will. We’ll figure this all out together.”

His hands cup my cheeks and force me to look into eyes that seem to see right through me, right into my heart and soul. So protective and loving. I crave those things. If only they can be enough to make me believe in his promised happy ending.

His breath is sweet, like chocolate, and warm on my face. I feel every callus on his fingertips, every rough patch of skin on his palms. His thumb gently strokes across my cheek—a featherlight touch. The world is more vivid, if only for a moment.

Wyatt’s mouth captures mine, and the world goes away. I have nothing to lose, and he has everything to gain. He wants this. I don’t know if I do or not, but I submit. Instinct takes over. I reach for him.

Hands caress flesh. Clothing falls away, replaced by touches and kisses. I taste his sweat; he tastes mine. Our bodies are one—stroking, taking, needing. Time is nothing. The world means nothing. We take pleasure in each other, finding elusive comfort in this sudden intimacy.

It is over too soon. He holds me close, my back to his chest, still breathing hard against my neck. My body trembles, as much from the pleasure he has given me as from the fear of facing tomorrow. Everything has changed. There is no going back.

“I love you, Evy,” Wyatt whispers.

I do not reply.

56:06

Certain my death would come soon and on swift feet, I had felt no shame in allowing the seduction. Not that night. The shame consumed me a week later as I sat on the bottom stair of a dank library service stairwell. My body had lied to Wyatt, faking love when all it craved was sensation. Touch. One last hurrah before I died.

A perfect moment for both of us, if he’d let me stay dead.

“I’m sorry, Wyatt.” My voice echoed, harsh and piercing. I longed to pull out of his arms, put as much distance between us as possible, but found myself immobilized. Not by his embrace, but by my own emotions. I had felt alive during those intimate moments. Alive and wanted and necessary, able to face anything the Dregs threw at me. In that dank library stairwell, I wallowed in shame.

“Sorry for what?” Wyatt asked.

“I shouldn’t have slept with you.”

A ripple went through his body, and I felt it keenly. Not quite a shiver, but close. I wanted to take back those hurtful words, erase them from his memory. I saved him the trouble of pushing me away and stood up, untangling his arms from my waist. Two steps took me to the stairwell door. I pulled the knob. His hand slammed against the door and pushed it closed again. I yelped.

“Don’t run from me, Evy,” he said.

He grabbed my wrist. Instinct kicked in. I twisted my hand around, stepped to the left, and reversed the grip. Drew his arm up and behind his back, effectively pinning him face-first to the door. My free hand squeezed his shoulder. I’d snapped necks from this position, killed dozens of Halfies with a single, pointed blow through the heart. I didn’t want to hurt Wyatt. Far from it. I just needed room to think.

“Don’t do that,” I hissed into his ear. “Ever.”

“I’m sorry.”

I let go and moved to the other side of the tiny space. He stood still for a moment, then slowly turned around. His jaw was clenched, his mouth drawn into a straight line. The sight of him, so grim and desperate, deflated my anger.

“This was Tovin’s idea of a happy ending?” I asked. “Me dying, you putting yourself on the line to bring me back, and for what? To stop a war in a world that doesn’t want us here? That wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if we both keeled over and died? Is that what we’re fighting for?”

Wyatt shook his head. “No, I’m not fighting for this world. I’m fighting for you, because against my better judgment, Evangeline, I fell in love with you. With your sparkle and energy and wit. With the way you used to cut your own hair, even though it was never straight or even. With the look on your face when you drank hot chocolate. For everything you put into doing your job and never got back from it.”

His words cut like glass, right through a tough exterior I’d spent years erecting. I wanted to melt into the floor. Hide from his emotional soul-baring. Put the genie back in the bottle and pretend it had never come out.

But he wasn’t letting that happen. “I love you,” he said. “I didn’t know if you loved me, and now I don’t think you did. But that’s okay, because I never asked you to. Everything I did was my choice, and mine alone.” He started to add more, then stopped, searching for the right words.

“I’m not who I was before, Wyatt.” I was of two minds about his confession. The old part of me wanted to derail his love fest right then and there. The new me—the part of Chalice Frost that remained alive and attracted to Wyatt, the part that felt the invisible power tethering Wyatt to the magic of the Fey—rebelled. So many things warred against the me who wanted to let myself care again.

“You may look different, but you’re still you,” he said. “I wasn’t in love with your blond hair and blue eyes, Evy. It’s what’s inside that makes you who you are.”

“It isn’t enough if you’re not attracted to someone, too.”

His eyes narrowed. They roved up and down my borrowed body. I shrank under his scrutiny, unused to such a blatant perusal. “You’re right,” he said after a few seconds of silence. “I suppose I was a fool for thinking otherwise.”

Was that an insult? He quirked one eyebrow, telegraphing disappointment, disinterest. I bristled, fists balling by my sides. I covered the distance between us in two measured steps, intent on smacking him across the face.

He reached up, wrapped both hands around my neck, and kissed me so hard our teeth clashed. I responded, mouth and body surging against his. Hands tangled in my hair, roamed down my neck, across my shoulders. Our tongues danced, teasing and tasting.

I wanted to stop; I also wanted him. Unlike our first time, when I invited him into my body for his own pleasure, I now wanted him for mine—if it was really mine at all. My skin burned where he touched. I craved his scent, his taste, in a way I couldn’t explain. Could barely control.

I broke the dizzying kiss and stepped back. I couldn’t help noticing the slight bulge in his pants, or the curious glimmer in his eyes. I didn’t know what was me, what was memory, and what was Chalice. Too many people’s emotions in one head. And now wasn’t the time.

“I do love you, Wyatt,” I said. “I always have, but not romantically. I’m sorry if I made you think otherwise.”

“And now?”

“Now?” How much of love was physical attraction? I didn’t know, but my lips still burned from his kisses. My heart beat faster at the sight of him, red-cheeked and out of breath. I remembered how it felt to have him inside of me and something new—and entirely Chalice—wanted him there again. “Now? The things I crave aren’t appropriate for a public library.”