Kelly Mendig - Three Days to Dead

He didn’t reply. Not long ago, he’d said I looked like a goddess. Even with the wine stain and our most recent argument, the sentiment was reflected in his expression. I remembered yesterday’s kiss. The heat of his lips, the spicy taste of him. The way my heart had raced, and how strongly this body wanted him. Then I remembered the moment memory overcame desire, and I’d pulled away. God damn Kelsa for what she’d done.

So many words perched on the tip of my tongue. Reasons why and why not. Words of comfort, and words to shut him down. Standing one day from oblivion, I didn’t know what I wanted, so I chose silence. Words were useless while my mind remained uncertain, muddled by fear and indecision—two weaknesses I despised, both in myself and others.

I sat on the corner of the grand, silk-covered bed. The sheer dress whispered around my ankles. An answering rustle of fabric accompanied Wyatt across the room. He knelt in front of me, eye-level now, warm hands gently grasping my thighs just above the knee. The touch of his skin, both innocent and urgent, loosed those damned butterflies. Heat speared my abdomen, as welcome as it was uninvited.

“You know what I have in mind, Evy,” he said, a husky edge to his voice that made my heart hammer. Onyx eyes seemed to look right through me. I wanted to ask what he saw there, if he could read me better than I could read myself. Could he see the real Evy buried deep inside? The one he loved so much?

I licked my lips, mouth dry. He interpreted it as an invitation. I closed my eyes and allowed the kiss. His lips moved against mine, soft but insistent. No clashing teeth, no inhibiting steel bars. Just us and the tingling heat everywhere we touched. His fingers caressed my throat and wandered back to tangle in my hair. My lips parted, allowing him entrance to my mouth, and for a moment we shared the same breath. His tongue traced along my upper lip, sending delicious tingles through my belly.

I parted my knees, allowing him closer. He shifted forward. The flimsy material of our clothing created a meager barrier. I felt the heat of his arousal straining against my inner thigh. A tremor surged through my chest, down to my legs, but it brought no warmth—only a bracing chill and a weak cry deep in my throat.

His tongue darted into my mouth, stroked across my teeth, misinterpreting that cry. I tried to meet his tongue with mine, but no longer felt his heat. I felt only cold and a new, terrible ache deep in my gut. He trailed cool fingertips along my back. I raked my fingers down his bare chest and earned a soft moan. His hand stopped to caress the sensitive small of my back.

No longer so sensitive. Phantom agony speared my stomach, from belly button to spine. I felt cold skin all over me, and putrid breath in my face. Misery and death moving in and out of me with brutal strokes. Memories of torture awoken so innocently by the love of a man who had risked his life and bargained away his free will, and all for me.

I shuddered. He broke the kiss. Warm hands cupped my cheeks. Thumbs brushed away tears I hadn’t felt fall. I grabbed his wrists and squeezed. My chest was tight. My legs trembled. I didn’t open my eyes.

“Evy?”

I concentrated on breathing, on keeping those memories at bay, lest I break into unfixable pieces. I couldn’t acknowledge them, not while Wyatt held me in his arms. If I did, I would never see him, only the goblin. I wouldn’t feel Wyatt’s skin or taste his mouth or know his touch without remembering.

“Please, Evy, look at me.”

The anguish in his voice, so like what I’d heard as I lay dying, drew me out. I opened my eyes and blinked away a film of tears. His cheeks were flushed, twin roses of color that highlighted the tumultuous emotions warring in his eyes. His entire body seemed to vibrate.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He blanched and, for the briefest moment, I thought he would burst into tears. “You’re sorry? Evy, no.”

“I want to, Wyatt.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Truth, in so many ways, and yet the simple platitude did something entirely unexpected. Instead of tamping down my emotions, I exploded into a rage. It bubbled up from a place I never knew existed, as scorching and destructive as magma. My face heated, and I pushed Wyatt away with shaking hands. He tumbled backward, unprepared, and fell on his ass with a surprised cry. I stood and stalked to the other side of the room, bare feet making unsatisfying slaps on the stone floor. I balled my fists, but could not stop them shaking.

“Evy—”

“Don’t tell me it’s not my fault, Wyatt,” I said, rounding to face him. “It is my fault, because I’m fucking stronger than this!”

He didn’t move from the floor, frozen there by the fury of my outburst. I couldn’t read his expression, nor did I care to try. Fuck what he was feeling; it wasn’t about him. It wasn’t even about me. It was about the goddamned goblin and getting the goddamned thing out of my head.

“Do you remember the Halfies we took out last summer?” I asked, words streaming from my mouth. “Remember how one of them held me down and systematically broke every finger of my left hand? I healed; I moved on. Or the were-cat who stabbed me two years ago, or all the broken bones when I was pushed off a three-story building three Christmases ago?

“It’s what I do, Wyatt, I heal. I bounce back, and I go on with my life. Hell, this time I didn’t even have to heal. Fate just gave me a new body and said, ‘Have fun again, girlfriend.’ She was even cruel enough to give me one that insists on knowing how we fit together naked, and I can’t even kiss you without remembering that fucking goblin. Goddamnit!”

He slowly stood up, but smartly kept his distance. My fists ached to slam into something soft, and he was the only available target. I clenched and unclenched my hands, nails digging into my palms. The room tilted. I clung to my fury, the only lifeline keeping me from shattering.

“Why did I have to remember it?” I whispered—a plea to whatever gods existed to give me some answers. To help me understand why I’d traded oblivion for purgatory, and forgetfulness for the memories of a living Hell.

“I wish I could take it back,” Wyatt said. “All of it. Erase everything that happened in that closet, but I can’t.”

I snarled. “Why, so you can kiss me without triggering a flashback?”

“No, Evy. Because I couldn’t save you from it the first time, and because now I’m making you relive it. You don’t deserve this.”

“Maybe I do.”

His jaw dropped.

I didn’t give him a chance. “I’m a killer, Wyatt. I’ve done horrible things to living creatures, deserving of it or not. I shot an innocent man yesterday. I got Alex killed. I got the Owlkins wiped out. So many have died because of me, and I keep bouncing back. The unkillable Evy Stone. Why the hell do I get nine lives?”

“Don’t do this.” Wyatt crossed the room with long, purposeful strides. I retreated until my back hit the wall, hands up, ready to strike. He kept coming, stopping with only a foot’s distance between us, never touching me. I flinched, nowhere left to go.

“What Kelsa did to you?” he said. “You didn’t deserve it then, and you sure as hell don’t deserve it now. You’re a good person. You’ve saved lives, a hundred times as many as you’ve ever taken.”

I turned my head, fixing on a spot by the curtained tub. I didn’t want his placating words. I wanted to stew in my own rage, to give in to the despair in my heart. To mourn everything I’d lost.

He touched my cheek. I punched him in the mouth. My fist ached, and he was on the ground before I realized what I’d done. He stared up at me, a thin line of blood beading on his split lip. I watched the blood rise until it trickled down his chin. I couldn’t look away from what I’d done. Hurting someone I cared about out of anger. Blind rage, if I was honest with myself. I closed my eyes. Twin tears scorched down my cheeks. When I opened them again, he was starting to stand. At a safer distance.