Chapter 46: Corpse

"Goddess, August, what happened?" Graeme asked, checking her over.

The blank expression on August's face melted away when she heard the desperation in Graeme's voice, but her eyes remained an eerie black. He reached up to cup the sides of her face, and the golden rays of her irises broke through as if the moon's shadow had passed over them, finally allowing their suns to return. She smiled at him, but her skin was freezing, and Graeme quickly gathered her in his arms.

"Graeme," she whispered as she put her arms around his neck, "Did you know that the forest parts at your presence? It's beautiful."

His eyebrows pinched together as he quickly climbed the steps around the tree. She seemed different. "What were you doing out here? You're freezing," he said.

"There was the crow and the tree… And… But I'm just looking now," she replied, dropping her gaze to stare into the distance once again.

He sighed, pushing back the panic that had flooded him upon seeing her motionless on the ground. "How long have you been out here?" he asked. But he was met with silence.

Once they were back in the treehouse, Graeme placed her on the bed and ran a warm bath. He returned to kneel next to the bed, grabbing hold of her hands that felt like they belonged to a corpse.

"August," he called when she didn't look at him but rather continued gazing out the window. Upon hearing her name, her eyes gradually found his again.

"Can you manage in the bath? You need to warm up," he said, noticing now in the light how her lips were blue. She nodded quietly and got up to go to the bathroom, leaving him on his knees to watch her leave.

A deep sigh escaped his lips, and with that a small measure of uncertainty took advantage to creep into his heart. It was eerie finding her like that—as if she were dead or possessed. Zosime's words from earlier echoed in his mind, 'You need to be careful of that mate of yours.' And all the horrifying tales of the alyko in that library… but he quickly shook them away. This was his story. His mate. He knew he shouldn't have left her. There was just no knowing what would happen next.

Nearly an hour had passed since Graeme heard August get into the tub, but she still hadn't come out. "August…" he called and rounded the privacy screen to find her looking up at the ceiling, her ears along with the rest of her submerged with the exception of her feet, which were floating. Graeme walked forward to feel the water had turned cold. August blinked a few times when he entered her vision and finally pulled her head out.

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"The water is cold. Are you okay?" he asked. She nodded silently. "I'm going to help you out," he said, watching her. The serenity of her expression didn't change with this information, and she sat still as he grabbed the towel and lifted her arm around his neck, pulling her out and into his toweled arms.

This new eerily quiet August sat wrapped in the towel on the bed while Graeme slipped out of his wet shirt and fetched his robe for her. He returned to the bed to sit next to her with the robe in his hands.

"Shall I dress you?" he asked patiently. At last, she turned to meet his eyes. Without dropping her gaze from his, she stood in front of him while leaving the towel on the bed. Graeme gulped softly seeing his naked mate standing before him with her eyes blazing golden, staring back into his.

August's whole demeanor was different. She reminded him of a child by the tree and in the bath, but now she seemed almost regal with the twin golden crowns in her eyes that didn't waver from his. Graeme stood and offered the arms of the robe for her to slip into, and his hands began to tremble being this close to her with her staring at him like that. Like she was piercing his soul. Like she was aware of how much he desired her.

August took the robe from him, but rather than wear it, she stepped closer to him, breaking the gaze they held to look instead at his lips. "I think you should mark me," she whispered against him.

"You do?" he returned the whisper, his heart thudding loudly against his chest. As if aware of it, August placed the tender skin of her wrinkled palm against his chest and looked back up into his eyes with her brows threaded together now.

"But you're not ready," she said, and his breath caught in his throat hearing the haunting loneliness of her voice. A mix of emotions pooled in her eyes.

He was about to tell her he had been ready—he had only been waiting for her, not wanting to pressure her like he had outside the council chambers. But just as soon as he opened his mouth to say it, she pushed her hand against his chest and then into it, wrapping her fingers around his heart.

His eyes went wide with shock feeling her hand inside of him, and he grabbed her arms in response, gasping for the air that suddenly wasn't in his lungs. She pulled her hand out, and he collapsed onto his knees in front of her, panting on the floor.

August groaned above him, squinting her eyes against the new darkness that she acquired through this action, feeling it spread up her arm and fan out across her own chest. She slipped on the robe before staggering back against the bed and curling up there into a fetal position while her body shook with soft sobs. Tears slid down her cheeks for Graeme's pain that she felt now as her own. The guilt of all the memories she had witnessed the previous day had been lodged deep inside of him, and now it had her in its grip instead.

August stayed like that, cloaked with the tremors of silent tears that had previously gone unshed, until she felt Graeme wrap his protective warmth around her without a word.. They fell asleep like that—one of them turned lighter while the other had turned heavier—a balance maintained in each other's arms.

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