Rage and dread filled my veins.
OH GOD NO.
No, please no. Not this. Not now.
I was back at the Yule Ball, the one that had just passed. The one I was at. Riah had stormed off, leaving me by the drink station and standing under a drone-driven mistletoe. Which meant…I peeled my eyes off of past-Riah just in time to see myself burst through the school doors. Past-me leapt through the door and chased after him wearing Savannah’s old prom dress, which wasn’t much different than the one Prince Thorne had forced me to wear.
As past-me jogged to catch up to past-Riah I desperately wanted to leave. To go anywhere other than where I was…because I knew what was coming and I didn’t want to see it again. Yet there I stood, frozen under the canopy of oak tree branches with strings of white lights on every branch.
Warm energy swept over my back and I straightened. I knew it was Riah in an instant. Even before that burning ember scent of his carried over the breeze. He’d found me. I wasn’t surprised. He didn’t find me when I was ambushed by demons in a wheat field, but he found me just in time for the show of when my heart started breaking. I didn’t turn to face him or even acknowledge him. My eyes were locked on the past versions of ourselves standing just beyond the line of trees I was currently hiding in.
Past-me grabbed past-Riah’s arm and pulled.
He stopped and spun on past-me and I gasped but didn’t step back. Past-me blinked up at him as the white lights made it look like it was raining glitter.
“Go inside,” past-Riah hissed. “You’ll freeze.”
“I’m not letting you run from me again.”
I groaned and a hot lump formed in my throat.
He sighed and started to turn but past-me gripped his sleeve tight. “Saraphina.”
Past-me pulled his sleeve to drag him closer but instead my feet slid over the snow. Past-me glared up at him. “Stop. Running.”
If only I had known.
“I said—”
“Nothing,” past-me snapped. “You said nothing. I want answers, Riah. I deserve answers. If you can kiss me, then you can talk to me.”
My chest tightened and tears pooled in my eyes.
Past-Riah narrowed his golden eyes. “What is it you want to know?”
“What are you? And don’t say human because we both know that’s not true.”
He looked away from me. “I am a Knight. A guardian.”
Oh, he’d been very clever. That hadn’t technically been a lie.
“That tells me nothing.”
“That tells you everything.”
I wished I could tell past-me to run away as fast as I could. This boy was no good.
My chest burned. My breathing was ragged and sharp.
“Why won’t you let yourself kiss me? And don’t lie to me. We both know you want to.”
“I just…” he sighed. “Can’t.”
Because it was all an act.
Past-me scoffed. “That’s not a good reason.”
“I can’t tell you.”
Past-me flinched and I felt it all over again. “Ever?”
“Yet,” he growled.
We’d been standing so close. Even from where I stood now I saw the electricity pulsing between us, melting the snow as it fell. I didn’t know how he’d faked all of that. How he’d managed to fool me so easily.
“But you will, one day?”
“I would love nothing more. But I have to stay away from you.”
“And you need me to let you.”
Past-Riah nodded.
Past-me stepped up closer and I wanted to scream at myself. I’d felt so brave and strong in that moment, fighting for what I wanted when I really had no idea how much he was going to hurt me.
Past-me pressed my palm to his stomach and fisted his sweater. “What if I say no?”
Past-Riah growled. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“I can. But first…kiss me. Just once. And not because I started it, but because you want to. Just once kiss me like you want to.”
To my horror, I actually cried out.
Past-Riah’s eyes widened. His face paled. And then he closed the distance between us and the world slowed down all over again. I was standing fifteen feet away watching but it felt like the first time. I didn’t want to watch this, it’d hurt enough as it was…but I couldn’t move. I was frozen in place. I couldn’t look away even as my heart broke more with each passing second.
Past-Riah reached up and cupped past-me’s face between both of his hands. His gaze swept over my face, then he dipped his head and pressed his lips to mine. Past-me sighed against his mouth and fell into his arms.
It wasn’t happening to me right then but I felt it like it was. That same heat bloomed in my stomach and those butterflies danced around. My heart fluttered, making my pulse skip erratically. I hated it. I hated that he held this much power over my heart. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t take it. It was too soon. Especially with the real him standing right behind me. I felt his aura on my back. I smelled him in the air. That kiss had destroyed me then…watching it was salt to the wound and I couldn’t breathe.
“Go dance with your friends. Yule is a time to enjoy.”
My eyes flew open at the sound of Past-Riah’s voice.
“Riah—”
“Just once,” Past-Riah whispered and held his finger to my mouth. Then he leaned down and pressed his lips to past-mine…then slowly backed away. “If only you knew.”
And then Past-Riah was gone, leaving past-me in the cold. I tried to watch where he went but still I missed it, even knowing who and what he was. The tears I’d been holding in burst free and rained down my face. I stared at myself, at past-me standing in the snow under the canopy of lights…just weeping.
Seeing my own pain just broke me.
Because past-me had no idea. I hadn’t known that I’d fallen in love with him three hundred and twenty-seven years prior. I hadn’t known that those feelings for him had never gone away…that I’d never truly gotten over him…that I’d never fixed that broken heart.
And I hadn’t known what he would do to me just days later.
I felt hollow inside. Like I’d been gutted. Like someone reached in and yanked my heart from my chest while it still beat.
“If you only knew,” I whispered through the hot lump in my throat. Tears rained down my face and tasted like salt as they passed my lips. “Why are you so heartless?”
I turned to face the real Riah standing behind me…and my breath left me in a rush.
He looked destroyed. He looked like how I felt on the inside. His gold eyes glistened like he had tears threatening to spill over as he watched past-me crying. “Please. Please let me explain—"
I pointed to where past-me stood in his wake still crying. “You had your chance. I asked you. You chose to lie. You could’ve told me the truth—”
“I couldn’t tell you—”
“WHY?” I screamed and my throat burned from crying. Tears burned paths down my cheeks. My hands trembled. My chest was on fire and I knew I wasn’t breathing. “Why do this to me? Why didn’t you just grab me that first night on the wharf when you had the chance? Why did you have to make me—"