At the End There Was You (Blue Fairytales, #1)

by Wendy Heiss

“You’d make any man, God or not, fall on his knees and pray for damnation.”

“Nothing would be holier than to be r...

I want the shadows and the light both to know of the crime I’ve committed by making you mine. That I’ve ruined the one thing pure left in this world. That only I can do it. That they are forbidden to ever want to ruin you.

“I would have found you, Winter. Wherever you hid. From me, you, the world.”

“You do not regret it?” “Of course not.” “You looked away from me.” “I can’t look at you forever,” she said with an anxious laughter that wanned quickly. “I…I was just—” She swallowed. “Feeling a bit…uh, shy.”

“What if I ask you to look at me forever? Only at me. No one else.”

“We don’t have forever. We only have two days,” she whispered, choki...

“I will give you forever, I will make sure you get f...

She wanted to believe him, so she let herself pretend that she did. “Then I’d only ever look at you. Would you o...

“You don’t have to. I don’t think I’ve ever looked at anyone before.” He put a finger under her chin and lift...

“I don’t want to look out of the window, Winter, I have something better to look at.”

She turned to the seat to hide her smile, but stopped when he tugged at her cloak and pulled her against his chest. Azriel wrapped his arms around her body and rested his head on her shoulder, kissing her neck. “Why are you hiding from me under that cloak?”

“I should have just kept you in that dark and dingy library and had my fun with you on every single surface of it.”

“I don’t think what makes me happy is small by any means. Short, yes. Not small.” “Short?” “You.”

“The world might hear, they might want you for themselves if they know I am capable of being happy and that there is something out there that has made me capable.”

“So, I’ll just whisper it then. You said happiness comes in many forms. Mine is shaped like you. Has a mind shaped like yours, and a voice I never want out of my head.” He pressed a few kisses on her neck, his hand sliding from her waist and lower to her hip. “Among many other things.”

“Maybe I should just turn you into a rooted plant,” he muttered, following after her. “Then I’ll turn myself into a vine to wrap around you.”

Winter wanted to laugh, what he’d said was funny, but she often felt so deprived of touch that she’d give anything to be a rooted plant and for him to be a vine wrapped around her, even if he was poison ivy.

All of the sudden, she’d found her happy death. She’d want to die slowly, wrapped in poison. Held.

“She sees good where there is none.”

When he found a piece of thick yarn, he took off a ring bearing the red stone of his land and threaded the yarn through it before tying it around her neck.

“I’ll see you from afar, but you’re so stunning this close. This must be why they always warn to never fly so close to the sun.”

“It was my greatest honour,” she said, smiling up at him, her dark God. “One thousand times over, I’ll do it again, only so I could be with you even if it is only for seven days.”

“This world shall have another chance at living, but something worse than me will follow up next after I leave. Whoever will be angry next at what humanity has become will be merciless. After I leave, there will be no questioning it, and there will be pain.”

“Live, Winter. Live wanting. Live deciding. Live for you. And live…for me, too. Make it good, my little sun. Make it really good, I want to hear all about it. I will wait this time. I will wait for you. Do not come to me. Do not seek me. Not unless you wish to break my heart.”

The ground where they’d once stood was filled with daisies that never wilted, never disappeared in any season or the harsh cold. The path over the dried Lethe river poured with more of the white flowers, and each spirit grossing to Asphodel saw a piece of the gift Winter had given to the world.

But she’d lived for far too long and she missed him, all this time she’d lived without a piece of her. A piece of her had already died with him that day, a piece of her was already in the land of the dead. She only hoped he’d held onto it tightly and had not forgotten her like she had never forgotten him.

“Hello, Winter. I’ve waited for you.”

His voice—she’d always loved his voice and had never forgotten it even after so many years.