The Touch of Salvation

28: Altocumulus

GOLIATH

Life seems to move in slow-motion. The only thing that brings me out of the stupor that is my consoling Adalind is the scent which causes my blood to warm. It's sweet and smells of roses; it's the perfect ideation of the day. And it makes me...

She gasps, pushing herself away from me, having felt how exactly how her heat makes me. She shakes her head. "Please...please don't touch me," she whispers. She's backing away from me... she's fearful, of me, of what is between my legs, of the prospect of me hurting her as she had been hurt before.

It makes teh heat in my blood run cold almost immediately. Not much can scare me. I've seen war and death. I've felt torture and inflicted it. I've lived through the murder of family members and have been scarred so viciously that I can hardly recognize myself.

But nothing, absolutely nothing, has ever scared me more than the sheer panic in my mate's eyes that is completely triggered by me.

I put my hands up and step further away from her. My scarred, scarred hands trembling, trying to wield the pain away from both of us - a futile attempt.

From where I had come from, beyond the highest tower, I hear Lux. Her voice is calculated and cold, brutally blunt as she says: "You need to leave now, Lucian."

"I need to see her." His voice is...different. And I know without seeing that his logic has fled in the midst of his most basic desire; find a suitable mate. I can hear Lux grunt as she forces the male away from the direction Adalind and I are in. I can't hear any others that had come with us. Not Daario, nor Xerxes or Espen. I can't even hear Demise and I wonder if he had left as well.

Something shoots in from the window and the man looks at me and then at Adalind. His mouth parts as he inhales. Another male stumbles in. Frantic. Almost entirely un-fae. No sense or thought behind those eyes as they shoot toward her.

Dead. They're dead, and I've killed them and somehow I don't even remember it. Just like they're in some sort of trance, I feel myself falling into one too. One that isn't the unyielding need to fuck. It's...deeper. It's darker. It's entirely primitive.

Another body. Three turns to nine. Nine turns to eighteen.

"Goliath!" Hands grip my head, forcing back from whatever blood-soaked oblivion I was drowning in. Demise is shaking me, only turning around to rip the jugular of another assailant. "You need to get her out of here."

I snarl, killing another.

"You cannot kill an entire kingdom!"

"Watch me."

"No!" He growls out, his bite almost breathless. "You need to get her out of here. Your mate is scared," he says. And it simmers the hatred within me and forces me to look at Adalind who is covering her head. She's soaked in blood. Blood that I have spilled. Blood of men that would have done vile, awful things to her if I had not been here.

I wonder if she would have fought or if she would have allowed it because she was just so...tired. She was exhausted. And this isn't about me. It isn't about my desire to kill any man who thinks about touching her. I stumble away from Demise. He nods at my silent request and defends us so I have time to go to her.

"Daylight." Wild bright eyes meet mine. "Stratus." Confusion. "Cirrus." Her lips part as she realizes what I am saying. "Cirrocumulus." She nods at my words and hesitantly whispers with me: "Cumulonimbus, altocumulus."

"Altocumulus clouds," she says delicately. "Are the most common type of cloud."

I nod. The need to push back a strand of wild hair assaults me, but I restrain myself. "I need you to be strong for just a little while longer, Daylight. Can you myst us somewhere, somewhere quiet, and without others?"