“We are far from done, Cassie. You called for me.”

She laughed. “In your dreams.”

Trik smiled. She could tell that he knew something that she didn’t. Something about his smile told her that she wasn’t going to like it.

“Your soul did not like you touching another. It called to me. It called so loudly and with so much pain that it brought me to my knees.” Trik didn’t gloat, he simply stated the facts . Somehow that made Cassie even angrier.

“Well my soul is a dumbass who loves to be tortured.” Cassie decided to chalk that off as the alcohol talking but went ahead and went with it.

Trik moved slowly towards her and Cassie began to back away. She was being stalked by a predator, a very patient predator that was used to catching his prey.

Her butt hit something and she turned, only to realize that he had backed her against his bed. She closed her eyes and chanted to herself, stupid, stupid, stupid. When she opened her eyes , Trik stood mere inches from her. She felt his warm breath on her face. When he took another step closer, their bodies were touching. She could feel his heart beating against hers. He raised a hand and stroked her cheek gently. Though she tried not to , she leaned into his touch and nearly whimpered when his lips touched her ear.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. The warm breath brought goose bumps to her skin. She shivered.

“I’m so, so sorry,” he whispered again. The sincerity in his voice pounded against the floodgates she had so carefully barricaded inside. Like a damn bursting open , a sob wrenched from her chest and the tears began to flow freely. She hit his chest over and over. She knew that the alcohol was probably making her even more emotional but she was beyond caring.

“Why? Why would you do that to me? How could you touch her? How could you let her kiss you?”

“Because I’m an idiot, A'maelamin . Please , I beg of you. Forgive me.” Trik pulled back so that he could look into her tear stained face. The pain and betrayal that he saw there tore a hole inside him. He fell to his knees in front of her.

“Please Cassie. Please forgive me.”

“How do I ever trust you again?” She wiped tears from her face, smearing her black mascara while trying to regain her composure. She stared down into his silver eyes and gave in to the urge to touch him. She traced a finger across his forehead and down his cheek. Trik closed his eyes and let out a desperate breath.

“Arwenamin, I’ve missed you,” he told her but she only understood the last part.

“You hurt me Trik.”

“I know, baby. I know I did.” He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his face to her stomach. He breathed in her scent and pulled her closer. He had tried to do what he thought was right. He had tried to let her go, but he knew now that it was impossible. Neither could livewithout the other. Their souls would slowly begin to die until they were empty shells, like the leftover skin of a locust.

“I thought I was doing what you needed,” he told her, his voice muffled in her clothes.

She pulled his face back and looked at him. “You don’t make my decisions for me. It’s my choice if I want to be with you.”

Trik nodded once. “And do you? Want to be with me?”

Another tear escaped as he stood and looked down at her. He took her face in his large hands. As he looked into the face of her broken heart , he felt the first tear he’d shed in over a millennia slide down his own face.

“Yes,” she whispered. That simple word made Trik’s soul sing.

He pulled her to him and took her lips in a kiss that was nearly violent. He swept his tongue against her lips and she whimpered as she opened her mouth. Their tongues met and Trik slowed the kiss, enjoying the way she tasted. He walked her back and continued pressing until she lay on his bed. Cassie felt her fake wings crushed beneath her, but quickly pushed them from her mind as he climbed over her and slowly laid his body on top of hers. He felt her tremble underneath him and he smiled when his soul answered her own. The connection that drew them became so powerful that Trik wasn’t sure where one began and the other ended.

Cassie felt Trik wrap an arm around her, pulling her body closer to his. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on with everything she had, afraid that at any moment she would wake up and discover this had all been a dream. She gasped as his other hand slid down her hip to the back of her thigh and he pulled her leg up, bending it at the knee as he wrapped it around him. Cassie tilted her head back when he pulled away from her lips and began to kiss her jaw and then her neck. She moaned without shame as his tongue traced her collarbone. He nipped it with his teeth and she jumped beneath him drawing a chuckle from Trik. She leaned forward and bit his shoulder in retaliation and smiled to herself when he groaned. He pulled back and looked down at her. His hair falling over his shoulder created a dark curtain around them, closing them into their own private world.

“I don’t deserve a second chance,” he told her as he traced her brow.

“No, you don’t,” she agreed. “But I’m giving you one. Don’t screw it up.”

Trik grinned and Cassie’s heart jumped at the innocence that she saw there, an innocence she’d not seen in Trik before.

When he spoke again his words were in his own tongue and the beauty of it took her breath away.

“What did you just say?”

Trik blushed. He actually blushed. “You are my everything, the very breath I breathe, the water I drink, the food I eat; you are all that I need, all that I want and all that I am is yours.”