“After tasting your blood, I learned your father does not exist in Axus,” Rift says.

Where is my father if he is not here?

But after my exhilarating experience with Rift I don’t have time, nor want to think on what Rift just said of my father’s whereabouts.

The mist Rift created to conceal us dissipates and I rise from our place. Between my legs aches, but not in a painful way.

I look around. The jungle is thick around us and we are in some kind of mossy place. So that’s why the ground was so soft, I muse, but where are we?

“I need to wash off. Know of any nearby waterfalls or springs?” I ask him. Arlite, what a rush! Oh, but I’m self conscious with how sticky I am. What was going on in Rift’s head during that? Did he like doing that with me? Did he like it as much as I did?

“Yes, I know of a spring, do you want me to join you?” Rift asks suggestively.

“Sure, I could use a little help getting your semen off of me,” I throw back, maintaining whatever shred of my dignity I can gather while saying those words.

“Sorry about that.” Rift grins.

Damn, he is obviously not sorry.

I’m annoyed with myself for being drawn to his smugness, and liking him, a creature of dark magic, so much.

“You know what?” I say, deciding myself in denial of it all, “I can find my own spring!”

I spread my wings to take off.

“Wait, Kyla!” Rift says, “don’t be like that! Did you not like what happened between us?”

“Like it?” I snort, “Rift, I want to make something clear.” I land in front of him, so close that it sends thrills of memories through me and I try to block out what happened between us so I can think, and talk to him. “That was my first time and–and I liked it, everything about it… but that’s what scares me to pieces.” Tears well up in my eyes, not because I’m sad, but because I feel guilty. “I’m not supposed to like you. I don’t know why I did that with you. You are a dark mage and I shouldn’t have given in to my beast.”

“You’ve got all this guilt associated with what you’re supposed to be,” Rift asks, cocking his head with curiosity, like a cat. “Why can’t you just let things be what they are? I believe what we did was quite mutual.” He sighs, and his gaze drops from mine. “Is it I that disgusts you, or is it you that disgusts you?”

His words hit home, my pulse quickening at that truth, but I’m not ready to hear them. I wrinkle my nose in a snarl at him. “Shut up, Rift!” I snap, crossing my arms over my chest to cover myself.

“Stop being disgusted by yourself, Kyla.” Rift doesn’t listen. “For goodness sake, you’re going to kill yourself with all that guilt! I can see it in your eyes. It weighs on you because you can’t be like Helle or your mother.” He grasps me by my shoulders and gives me a single shake so I look up into his eyes, “But can’t you see you’re perfect to–to me?”

I don’t want to melt into his words. I don’t want to accept it. And his mention of my mother brings a whole other thing to mind, so I use it as an opportunity to change our discussion from this uncomfortable subject. “You told me my father was gone,” I continue and add an accusation for good measure, “Right after taking my virginity, you told me that. What kind of person does that?”

“I thought the whole point of my tasting your blood was to gain information on his whereabouts?” Rift asks, so calm I want to punch him in the face.

“Ugh!” I throw up my hands, “You say I have too much guilt? Well, you don’t have enough!”

“Kyla, come here,” Rift says, not even flinching at my poisonous words. He puts an arm around my shoulder, pulling me up against him, and suddenly I’m leaning into him and letting him hold me to his bare chest. He runs a hand over my hair and strokes my head like I am his pet. “I didn’t do that to you to check it off a list or put a notch in my belt. Kyla… I know it’s going to sound stupid, but I want to have you as mine forever. We’re mates. Chosen for each other by something bigger than ourselves. I know you feel it too.”

“Yes,” I murmur. “I do feel it. I’ve felt it pulling me toward you since I met you. And my beast wouldn’t have let you have me if I didn’t know… that this was real.”

“I’m sorry about your father,” Rift says, “I don’t know what it means that I can’t find him here in Axus. But I swear, I’m the only person I know of that had a dagger to kill a Cursed and I did not end his life.”

“Then is he actually dead?” I ask, my body building up a sob at the thought of losing him for good. I didn’t get to say a proper goodbye… Oh, Arlite, may this not mean he’s dead.

“There is another possibility,” Rift says, continuing to stroke my hair back over my scalp soothingly. “He could have gone over the Bridge to your mother’s world.”

“You mean to Earth?” I sniffle, and a glimmer of hope keeps me from breaking down into sobs. Then did Mother go there to join him? How will I even get him back? I don’t know how to use a Bridge to travel worlds, that act has been illegal since my mother’s permanent move here.

“If he is on Earth I may know of a way to find him, if we travel to that world I will be able to sense his presence,” Rift explains.

“Can you travel there and check for me?” I ask.

“The Bridge only opens briefly for short amounts of time and even then, this year is quite a slow one for available entries. I can check for his presence during the next available opening if that would bring you some peace,” Rift offers.

“I really do need some kind of bath,” I say, inhaling his scent, ingraining his touch in my memory, and terror grips me that I may be utterly in love with everything about Rift.

“We should probably return to Scenna and Helle. But first, let’s get you to that spring,” Rift murmurs, nuzzling his nose in my hair, “You smell like–”

I stop him from finishing what I know will be a crude sentence by shoving him away. Okay, maybe I utterly hate him too.