The Demon's Revenge (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 4) (10 page)

I nodded and rubbed my hands together. Did they feel coarser? Or thinner? Aged, in any way or form? “The Grail is gone and with it our immortality.”

He nodded. “Does it help?”

“To imagine that everyday there are less tomorrows?” Perhaps. Perhaps it meant I could wait a short while longer. Suicide felt suddenly redundant when there were a mere seventy years, give or take a few, left. I drank more wine. Images of Lila flashed before me. Of how they had taken her. My jaw clenched. “It helps,” I whispered to Merlin.

He moved closed to me. “And now lass, I’m sitting here waiting for you like I have been my whole life. I’m wondering what it’s going to be?”

I sighed. I drank more wine. “I suppose I might as well stick around and try to save Lila. But don’t think it means….”

I looked at him and then away.

“I know. I destroyed your Grail. I took the center of your life away. I know that what was between us is gone. It cannot come back. You are still my favorite person, regardless.”

I held his gaze. “And you,” I whispered. Tomorrow would bring a heartbroken Adam and the impossible feat of getting Lila back. But for right now… I drank more wine and then I reached for Merlin, like I had so many times over so many years.

I ripped his shirt collar in my hurry to get it off. I kissed him, all over his neck and chest, hard enough to leave bruises. Bruises that wouldn’t fade within minutes, and I was still here, and I was still alive, so I might as well be doing this. I might as well be losing myself in this man, this animal, this moment.

Tomorrow I would face this wrecked existence one more time, but for tonight, I let myself get lost.