The Nameless Luna – Book Three: For Her, He Falls: Chapter 16

Tristan’s eyes widen as if I’d just asked him to jump off a cliff. I suppose it’s not that different from what I’m actually suggesting.
‘No,’ he says, his voice low and raspy as if the word pained him.
‘Hear me out.’
‘No,’ he says again, more firmly this time, but when he moves to pull away from me, I take his hand.
‘Tristan, just listen to me. I don’t—’
‘Iris, no. I want to be with you, but not if it’s going to cost you your life. I want us to have a future, not just spend one night together only for it to kill you,’ he says almost frantically, but he doesn’t move his hand away from mine.
‘I know. I get that, and I wouldn’t be suggesting it if I didn’t think there was a chance for us to have that future together. Is it dangerous? Yes. Stupid? Arguably. Deadly? Possibly. But it’s a chance.’
This isn’t exactly a promising pitch, but I have to be completely honest with him if we’re going to try this. As far as I know, it might not just be my life on the line.
‘What are you talking about? Iris, you still bear the mark of the Goddess. That curse could kill you.’
‘Yes, I know that. But the Goddess is the only one who can remove it.’
‘What?’ He shakes his head in disbelief. I take a deep breath and hold his gaze, willing him to just calm down and listen.
‘Where do wolves go when they die?’ I ask slowly.
‘Our souls return to the Moon Goddess. Her magic created us and allows us to live, and in death, we return to the source. But what does that… wait… no….’ he trails off, and his golden eyes widen as his own words sink in. ‘Oh, you can’t be serious.’
But I am. I don’t think I’ve ever been more serious about something in my life.
‘You want to let the Goddess’s curse kill you… so you can ask the Goddess to remove her curse?’ Tristan asks, staring at me intently. ‘That’s insane.’
‘I didn’t say it was smart. I said it was a chance. It’s our only chance. Unless you know of any other way to get an audience with the Moon Goddess herself?’
‘Well, no, but—’
‘Exactly. The curse is connected to my heart somehow. That’s where the pain originates whenever we try to get close, and that’s where the mark is. I think if we push our luck enough, the curse will stop my heart entirely.’
‘I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. You would die, Iris. You would actually, literally die.’
He yanks his hand away from mine and looks away as if the thought is too much to bear.
‘But I might not have to stay dead,’ I say, my voice pleading and insistent. I need him to at least consider it. ‘I’ve been helping out at the infirmary, and I’ve spoken to some of the healers. If someone’s heart stops, under the right circumstances, the person can be revived in as much as half an hour after they died! That’s just for a regular individual; just imagine how much better my odds are as a hybrid. I have the healing powers of a nightwalker and a wolf.’
‘But that’s assuming the curse acts the same way as cardiac arrest. It could just as easily destroy you beyond saving. Besides, who’s to say you’ll actually see the Goddess if you die? She cursed you for being half nightwalker, so how can you be sure she’d collect your soul like all the rest? Or what if she does, but you can’t talk to her? No one knows for certain what happens after death. What if it’s just your essence that returns to the Goddess and not your consciousness?’
This is a perfectly valid point for which I have no counterargument.
‘I know. You’re right, and that’s not even the worst part,’ I sigh.
He whirls around to look at me again, the muscles of his jaw clenching and unclenching as he tries to wrap his mind around what I’m proposing.
‘What’s the worst part?’
‘Do you want to know why I didn’t go back to say goodbye after I found out the truth of the curse?’ I ask him softly, and something about the shift in my tone makes some of the tension melt from his eyes, softening into a gentler kind of concern. ‘It wasn’t just because the thought of saying goodbye to you hurts more than anything. It was because I couldn’t risk you. The Goddess punished me for what my parents did. So, it’s perfectly possible that she would punish my mate for what I do. The curse is in my heart; I know that much. I can feel it inside me when I touch you. But if we do this, there’s a chance that it won’t just stop my heart.’
It could stop his too.
It hurt him in ways I dare not imagine.
‘What changed?’ he asks, and there is something devastatingly tender behind the question when he steps back toward me, searching my eyes. ‘You weren’t willing to take that chance before, and now you have so much more to lose. You have a name. You have a family.’
That’s exactly what changed.
‘I have hope,’ I reply. ‘And I know that I’m not alone now. I thought I could face a lifetime of loneliness because that was all I’d ever known, but I was wrong. It’s true, I have more to lose now, but that also means I have more to fight for, and this time, I wouldn’t be fighting alone.’
It’s far from a perfect plan, but nothing in life is perfect. Not even love. Love defies all logic and laws. Elaine betrayed Ector, but he still loved her until he died. Mark and Lucy are complete opposites and always argue, but the siblings would do anything for each other. Helena and Sophie are from enemy species, but they’re friends. Marco can never mark Vanessa, but they are still mates.
Impossible bonds exist all around us, and every day the world is changing. Our bond may be cursed, but while love can be unbearable, messy, agonizing, complicated, and confusing, it is never cruel.
The Goddess was wrong. Maybe if we try to mate, we can show her. Maybe gods can change their minds too. Or maybe not.
‘I know what I’m saying is crazy, and not too long ago, I would have believed that I didn’t have the right to ask for anything at all. But you taught me to want things for myself. And I want you.’
He closes the distance between us, and his hand brushes against mine.
‘You would sacrifice everything for this? For us?’ he asks, his fingertips slowly moving up along my forearm, his touch tauntingly delicate.
‘It’s not a sacrifice. It’s a risk,’ I answer, my breath hitching at the way his eyes flicker down to the mark on my chest. ‘But I am not the only one with something to lose. So if you don’t want to do this, I get it. If you want to walk out of this room and never see me again, I’ll understand. Because you’re right; there’s no guarantee either one of us will survive this. There’s no way of knowing if this will work or what could happen, and if you don’t want to take that chance, then I respect that. But I’m tired of making decisions as if I were alone when I’m not. Whatever comes next, I want us to choose it together… even if that choice is for us to be apart.’
He leans down to press his lips against my own, so soft and unhurried compared to how he kissed me before. This time the kiss is not about satisfying a need or giving in to desire. It’s an answer, louder and clear than any word he could speak aloud.
Nothing can keep us apart.
The tension building in my chest eases as he pulls away to look at me, and I take a shaky breath to steady myself.
‘If the idea is to let the curse temporarily stop your heart… or our hearts…’ he says tentatively. ‘Then shouldn’t we get Helena, Lucy, or one of the healers to help? If we both die, there won’t be anyone to resuscitate us.’
I thought about that too, but I get the feeling that it won’t work that way. The idea is that we only need a few minutes to talk to the Goddess and convince her to lift the curse and send us back. But it’s like Tristan said; I doubt the curse works exactly the same as cardiac arrest. I can’t explain it exactly, but I get the sense that unless we get through to Selene, the best CPR in the world wouldn’t be enough to revive us.
Plus, none of the healers would want to allow it. Lucy told me to stop avoiding Tristan, but I doubt this is what she had in mind.
‘Would you support me taking this risk if you weren’t taking it with me?’ I ask him pointedly. ‘Besides, we need the curse that connects me to the Goddess, not a defibrillator, and I hardly think you. Not to mention that we can mate properly with a team of physicians on standby.’
He nods, and from the way his muscles go taut, I can tell he hates the idea of anyone else being in the room even more than I do.
‘Okay. Just you and me then,’ he says. ‘Gods forgive me.’ He pulls me close to him, bringing his lips back to mine once again.
Gods forgive us indeed.