Firelight

His hand glides down my arm, folds over my hand. His fingers lace with mine, palms kissing. I can feel the fast thud of his heart through this single touch.

You cold?' He chafes my arms. I haven't been cold since I moved here. This is something else. 'No. But you can put your arms around me anyway.

A hunter in love with his prey.

You want to go out?" he asks suddenly. I blink. "As in a date?" "Yes. That's what a guy usually means when he asks that question.

Why do you care? I've ignored you for days." His smile fades. He looks serious, mockingly so. "Yeah. You got to stop that.

What good is safety if you're dead inside?

I stare into his eyes, I shake my head, sorry for the chance we lost. The chance we maybe never had. But not for saving him. I would do that again, no matter the cost.

After running for my life from hunters, a girl with too much lip gloss doesn't register on my fear radar.

I remember you. You were like burning firelight in that cave, all shimmery, dancing color." I lean closer over the island, mesmerized by his words, his hand on my face. If he keeps talking this way, he's going to see me like that again. "Tell me you thought about me. That you think about me now." "I thought about you," I whisper, "I've never stopped thinking about you." Somehow I doubt I ever will.

I'll find you. I will. We'll be together again.

I will never see him again. Never know why he let me go. Never learn if he really whispered what I think he did. Beautiful.

Because I know what it feels like to be used, valued only for what you can do... not who you are, not who you want to be.

He stares at me so darkly, so hungily that I can only nod. Agree. Of course, I feel it. "I do", I admit.

Yeah. A real date. Something official. You. Me. Tonight. We're long overdue.

I won't leave you! Do you know how unbearable it's been without you? You're not like the rest of them." His hand swipes through air almost savagely. I stare at him, my eyes wide and aching. "You're not some well-trained puppy content to go along with what you're told. You have fire." He laughs brokenly. "I don't mean literally, although there is that. There's something in you, Jacinda. You're the only thing real for me there, the only thing remotely interesting.

He turns slightly... and smiles. Just a small smile, but lovely. Sexy.

I like your sister. A lot." I look at him dumbly. He looks at me, lowers his voice to say, "I like you.

Ironic, huh? To keep that part of me alive, I have to be close to that which kills it.

What question?" I ask, breathless. "Whether you're as beautiful in the morning as you are during the rest of the day.

In this, with him... I'm as close to the sky as I've ever been.

He feels it, too. His eyes widen. A lovely hazel. Green with flecks of brown and gold. The colors I love. The colors of the earth.

I wont let him have you.

I respond, thoughts dropping away, like pebbles plopping one by one in water, sinking down, down into dark oblivion.

See you soon (but not soon enough).

You have my word. If you return with me, you won't be harmed. I'd die first.

In my mind, I see Will. Think how he has become the mist, the sky, everything, to me. I do more than survive here. I love.

I have Will. Here, he's my way back to the sky.

He steps onto the sidewalk and rocks on the balls of his feet. He looks beautiful standing there, and a familiar ache starts in my chest as I wonder how I can love and fear the sight of someone with the same intensity.

He couldn't live without being a draki, and I couldn't live without him.