Fleeing Fate by Anya Richards

hers, trying
to stop her from tearing her hair out. Muscles locked, the straining tendons in
her neck seemed ready to snap, and beneath closed lids her eyeballs jumped and
rolled, as though she were living a nightmare.
    He didn’t dare release his grip on her fisted fingers. Even
if he did, Jakuta had no idea what to do to bring her out of whatever the hell
it was she was going through.
    “Gràinne!” He roared it, his heart leaping as she relaxed
fractionally. “Come back to me.”
    Desperation made his voice crackle with electricity and she
seemed to respond, her lips parting slightly, eyelids fluttering.
    “Come on.” He resisted the urge to shake her, to shout at
her some more. “Come on, little one. Come back to me.”
    She groaned softly, a wealth of pain in the sighing sound,
but her hands grew lax beneath his and fell to her sides when he let them go.
Although she was damp with perspiration she began to tremble and Jakuta pulled
her close to his chest, trying to share his warmth.
    “Oh Goddess, help me…” It was a raw, terror-stricken sound,
and Jakuta had never felt more helpless as he did hearing her prayer.
    “What happened?” Maybe it wasn’t the right time to press for
answers, but he couldn’t hold the words back.
    “I felt—I felt…”
    The trembling increased until she was quaking in his arms,
and Jakuta reached down, lifted her chin so he could meet her gaze.
    “I have you.” It was all he could think to say, and all he
could do was hold her, rub her back, let his concern and caring show. Maybe it
was what she needed. Her body calmed, but fear and agony still clouded her
eyes. Softly, insistently, he asked, “What did you feel?”
    “Everything.” The single word echoed with remembered horror.
“Everything.”
    His heart clenched, for although he didn’t understand what
she meant, her tone was enough to make him fear for her. A shudder moved
through her and, suddenly aware of her nakedness and the cool air in the room,
he wanted to cover her up. Not wanting to let her go, he shrugged one arm then
the other out of his shirt and draped the garment around her shoulders. She
pulled it close to her throat, her gaze steady on his face, searching, although
what she was looking for, he couldn’t tell.
    Something in her expression made his chest ache and he
smoothed the tangled hair away from her face, trying to find something to say.
Before he could, she said, “I heard you, calling to me.”
    “Did you?” The tightness around his heart eased and he
cupped her cheek, stroking away the last of her tears.
    She pressed into his palm, closing her eyes for a moment,
relaxing into the support of his hand. “Yes. I was going into the darkness,
trying to escape, but your voice pulled me back.”
    “What were you trying to get away from?”
    When her lashes lifted there was evidence of a struggle
reflected in her eyes. “Memories. Ones that meant nothing to me before, but
suddenly filled me with all the emotions a normal being would feel seeing them.
It overtook me, like a giant tornado with darkness in the center. It called to
me, and I knew I might die if I went into it but tried to get to it anyway.
Your voice stopped me, brought me out of the storm.”
    A shiver climbed his spine at the thought of what she must
have gone through. If she’d truly been around since the Great Purge, it
would’ve been several millennia of emotions barraging her all at once. How the
hell had she survived? Her strength was amazing.
    “I’m glad I could do that for you. Darkness comes for us all
eventually, but I wouldn’t want to lose you today.”
    And it was surprisingly true, Jakuta realized, his knees
suddenly going weak with the knowledge. It wasn’t just because of the way they
responded to each other physically. There was something about Gràinne that had
worked its way under his skin, become important in a ridiculously short period
of time. Yet, if there was one thing he’d learned, accepted, it was