Page 508 of Coal Hearts

Just like I’d been drawn to him.

Because we were the same.

We were one.

And this was fate in all its agonising glory.

Maybe I’d feel different in the morning.

Perhaps I’d laugh at myself for entertaining such crazy things like twin flames but...as his body twitched in mine, and he sucked in a haggard inhale, another bubble of hope expanded.

If our destiny was to destroy each other, what if I made a different choice? A choice to save him instead?

Maybe that was what the Vedic astrologer had meant.

That ending up with him wasn’t a choice, but how I reacted to him was?

What if I stepped into his nightmares and maybe, just maybe...figured out how to drag him back into the light?

Ever so slowly, I shifted off my knees, disengaged, then sat back on his lap and wrapped my legs around him. My feet burrowed beneath his stacked pillows, and I hugged him.

I clung to him like a koala all while fresh pain waked through me.

He fell on me, wrapping me in the biggest bear hug of my life.

The way he held too tight.

The way his biceps bunched, and his face burrowed into my hair.

It hinted this might be his first true embrace.

A full body enveloping.

And if that was true, I was sad as well as grateful.

I grew drowsy.

A drugged kind of sluggishness that made my tongue far too free.

Keeping my wits just enough to be wary of the cameras, I pressed my lips to his ear. “If the man who told me to play along with him is still in there, then...play with me, Hen.”

His thighs stiffened to rock beneath me.

He sucked in a shallow breath.

I closed my eyes and poured my plea into his soul, all in order to save mine. “Play along with me, okay? You’re still in there. I know you are. You’re still good. We don’t have to destroy each other.” I kissed his ear as my eyes prickled with tears. “Get us out, Hen. Please...”

Sudden light-headedness tangled my tongue.

A rush of panic for asking such things.

And then nothing but deep, dreamless sleep.

Chapter Fourteen

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Henri