“No, no, no,” he mumbled. He reached for the dagger, but it turned to water before his eyes, melting away as if it had never existed. Blood welled up from Marcela’s wound like a macabre spring, gushing her life over her body to pool on the floor. Patricio put his hands over the wound, trying to apply pressure, but the blood kept flowing, impossibly fast. “No, Marcela, no,” he moaned.
Marcela grabbed Patricio’s arm, fingers curling around and digging into his skin with shaky, desperate movements. “Take me to the sea?” she begged.
Patricio stared at her through a haze of his own tears, still trying to keep her blood from rushing to meet the floor. “Marcela, hang on.”
“Her body will become sea foam,” a man’s voice said.
Patricio jerked his head toward the sin eater. The man sat on the bed, looking down at Marcela with true sadness in his soft brown eyes. Patricio bared his teeth and leaned over Marcela protectively, but the sin eater shook his head.
“You have nothing to fear from me, Your Highness. Emiliana’s love spell broke with her death and her enchanted tears are all dried up. I have no loyalty to the witch anymore.”
Patricio barely registered his words as he carefully gathered Marcela into his arms. He didn’t care what Emiliana had been or why the sin eater had helped her. He didn’t even care about the temptation the sin eater presented, could hardly smell the sin that had held him captive moments ago. All he cared about was that the woman he loved was dying in his arms. He wouldn’t waste the time he had left.
“I’ll return,” he mumbled. “After…”
The sin eater bowed his head. “I will take care of things here. Go.”
Patricio left the house and flew into the air. Marcela cuddled into his hold, her body heavy in his arms. He clutched her tighter to him, his eyes burning with tears at the thought that this would be the last time he held her small body in his arms.
He opened his mouth to say something, but found Marcela’s eyes closed, her chest no longer moving. A sob escaped his throat and he buried his face in her hair, inhaling deeply, wanting to imprint her scent on his mind forever. She grew lighter in his arms and he kept his eyes closed as he flew out over the cliff above the sea. He couldn’t bear to see her melt away, turn to foam and vanish from his life.
The weight slowly vanished from his arms, firm flesh turning softer and softer, growing moist and airy. As the sin eater had said, it wasn’t long before sea foam slid out of his arms, dripping down to join the sea. He let the damp clothing fall with it, still not opening his eyes, not wanting to see that she was really gone. As the last trace of her left him, Patricio tilted back his head and bellowed his pain to the sky, a long, agonized sound of rage and loss.
With a sharp snap of his wings, he shot up into the sky. Every angry beat of his wings carried him higher and higher, up into the clouds and beyond. The air grew thinner and his lungs burned with the need for oxygen, but he didn’t care and he didn’t stop. His heart hurt so badly, he could think of nothing beyond escaping that pain, moving into the blackness where it would cease to hurt him. Fog ate the edge of his vision and his movements grew sluggish. He pressed on, enough to where the physical pain started to compare to his mental anguish. He choked, unable to get a deep breath. Blackness pulled him down. He closed his eyes and let his body fall.
His life flashed before him. Moments of joy and satisfaction, all colored by the macabre splash of blood from his victims. His happiness had always come with a price for others, was it any wonder he’d thought himself evil?
Laughter. Marcela’s green eyes dancing with shades of blue. Her soft curves in his arms as he flew her over the ocean, trying to make her shriek as he bounced off waves and sent saltwater spraying into the air. He smiled.
Chapter Fifteen
The pain faded away. Marcela sighed as her body turned warm and liquid, melting away and leaving the agony and the blood behind. It was her time. Time for her to become sea foam and return to the sea, forever a part of it. A memory floating in the current, rushing in and out with the tide.
She blinked.
Blinked?
Marcela opened her eyes. She wasn’t in the water. She was hovering above it. She looked down at her body, but there was no body. She could feel herself, as sure as if she were flesh and blood, but there was nothing to see.[J1]
“Welcome, sister.”
Marcela whipped around. Something moved beside her, a shifting of the wind. She blinked as she realized she could make out the faint image of a woman. She was slender, all gentle curves and long sloping legs. Her arms were delicate, held out to the sides as though feeling the breeze as it swept through them. Her eyes were large and friendly.
“I am Paloma,” the ghostly form said, smiling warmly at Marcela. “I am one of the aura, the daughters of the air.”
“What happened to me?” Marcela looked down at the water. “I should be sea foam.”
“For your selfless act, you have been given a gift. You are one of the aura now.”
Marcela’s head spun as she tried to keep up with the madness that seemed to have taken over her life—and her death. “I don’t understand. How?”
“The sea witch is not the only one with transformative magic. You were known to us as soon as Prince Patricio tried to ease your homesickness for the sea with the caress of the wind. Your laughter called to us, as did the fact that you finally put a smile on the solemn angel’s face. Your loss to the world would be too great to contemplate. Live on and bring that laughter to others.” Paloma paused and looked up. “Perhaps you could start with him?”
Marcela followed Paloma’s gaze and gasped. “Patricio!”
She flew up to meet the angel’s body as it hurtled toward the sea. She didn’t think about how to move, she didn’t have time. All she knew was she had to stop his fall, had to stop him from plunging into the water and being dragged down by his wings. Her heart pounded. Patricio!
At the last moment, Patricio opened his wings and sailed out over the water, shooting over the waves like a star. Marcela shrieked as he headed straight for her.
Patricio startled as if he’d heard her and she held her breath as he sailed through her body as if she were nothing.
“You are as intangible as wind,” Paloma said.
Marcela whirled to face her. Flabbergasted to find the aura once again hovering peacefully beside her. “What?” Her heart still pounded as she searched for Patricio. She saw him circling over the water, as if searching for something.
“You will have no solid physical form until you will it,” Paloma continued. “Just as water can turn to mist and then settle back into water, so can you move from one form to another.” She looked down. “I recommend refraining from a physical form while you’re high in the air,” she added.
“Marcela?” Patricio whirled around, giant wings beating to keep himself in the air. “Marcela!” he shouted.
The desperation making his voice hoarse constricted Marcela’s chest. “I’m here,” she called out. She flew to Patricio, her body flowing and undulating, a wind over the sea. She curled around him as she reached him, brushing her hand across his cheek. “I’m here.”
Patricio’s eyes widened. “I…can barely see you. What’s happened?” His hand passed through her as he tried to touch her. “You look like one of the aura,” he murmured.
Marcela beamed, tears of joy hovering at the corners of her eyes. “I am.” She pressed against him, his hair waving about his shoulders in the breeze of her new form. “Come on, Patricio. A moment ago I was dying and now I’m alive. Fly with me!”
“Wait.”
There was a heaviness to his voice, a seriousness that halted her in her tracks, made her turn to face him. “What is it?” Concern encroached on her excitement. “Patricio, what’s wrong?”
“Come home with me.” Patricio’s eyes looked darker, midnight instead of the usual crystal blue.
“I will,” she promised, smiling. “But first I want—”
> “Marcela, please.”
Something in his voice snared her attention, dragged her out of her daze. She stopped to truly look into his eyes. The tears she saw there took her breath away and she put a hand over her mouth.
“Patricio…”
“Just come with me.” He tried to take her hand, his entire body jerking as his flesh once again passed through hers.
“I won’t have a tangible form until I’m on land.” She tried to comfort him and winced when her hand passed through his shoulder. “I’m all right, Patricio, really I am.”
“Come with me.”
He flew toward the palace, craning his neck to make sure she was following him. Marcela put a hand to her heart, touched at the power of his concern. She flew after him, trying to fly as close as possible, to reassure him as much as she could. His eyes remained too wide, his posture too stiff. He seemed in a constant state of panic, and there was nothing she could do to calm him, to reassure him.
Marcela flew faster, giving herself to the breeze, becoming one with it. It was a sensation unlike anything she had ever experienced. There was no weight to her body, no dread in her heart. Her spirits soared with the wind and she couldn’t help the laugh that trickled from her incorporeal throat.
She landed on the balcony to the palace and lifted her arms out and up relishing the hum of energy buzzing throughout her body. She looked down at herself, willing her body to be flesh and blood again. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing, or if she was doing it right, but Paloma’s soft voice whispered to her on the wind and confidence filled her. She took a deep breath and visualized her body, as she had been. She pictured her long red hair, her pale arms and torso. After a moment of hesitation, she pictured legs, the long slim limbs that she’d hated so much at first. Her eyes drifted closed and she grew heavier.
Before she could open her eyes to see if she’d been successful, strong hands wrapped around her waist, lifting her off the ground. She squeaked with surprise and her eyes flew open. Patricio turned her around. She had only a moment to look into his deep blue eyes, churning with emotion, before he was holding her a foot away from him, staring at her body.
A blush heated her cheeks at the intensity of his stare, growing hotter as he set her down facing him and ran his hands over her arms and shoulders, cupped her cheeks. His movements were quick, uneven, as if he was barely holding himself back, barely able to let himself believe she was really there.
“Patricio, I’m—”
He held her face and bent down, crushing his mouth to hers. The dominance, the mastery of his other kisses could not compare to the raging heat, the press of desperation that this kiss held. He kissed her as if he were punishing her, perhaps for leaving, for almost being lost to him. He licked at her lower lip, coaxing her to participate more in the kiss and she responded eagerly, excited to finally be with him, with no secrets or bad blood between them.
“Marcela, I thought you were dead.” He spoke between kisses, his mouth still pressed to her skin as if he were unwilling to part even to speak. “Please, I need to… I need to convince myself you’re really here, that you’re not…” He groaned, abandoning speech altogether as he bound his arms around her and held tight.
Marcela gasped as he lifted her up and started to carry her inside. She wrapped her legs around his waist, instinctively holding on. The heat of his body between her legs sent a delicious shiver through her body and she whimpered into his mouth. His grip around her bottom tightened, his fingers digging into her flesh. He took her mouth in another searing kiss, passion ratcheting up with every slide of his tongue against hers, every shift of his lips.
Cool silk met her back as Patricio lowered her to his bed and a thrill shot from between her legs, radiating throughout her body. She arched her hips, whimpering when she met only air. She opened her eyes, not having realized she’d closed them, just in time to see the robes fall from Patricio’s body.
The hard planes of his chest and stomach tempted her gaze down, encouraging her to follow the smooth ridges of his muscles down to the heavy length bobbing between his legs. She rose from the bed and stared, mesmerized by the sight, her lower body throbbing with a need she didn’t know how to fulfill. Patricio stepped forward, slowly but with purpose. She raised her eyes to his to find his eyes glowing with a silvery blue light. Her lips parted and she fell back against the sheets.
He covered her body with his, distracting her from the achingly sweet slide of hot skin on skin with another mind-melting kiss. The soft curves of her breasts pressed against the solid planes of his chest, her nipples dragging through the light dusting of chest hair. Sparks licked at the puckered flesh and she squirmed, rubbing herself against him, hungry for more.
He groaned, hands closing around her hips with bruising force. He opened his hands and closed them again. Marcela could feel the battle raging inside him. She lifted her hands to his cheeks, pulling away just enough to look into his eyes.
She held eye contact as she pushed to get him to lean back. He took a deep, shuddering breath, his eyes losing some of their shine as he started to get off of her, moving as if he intended to leave the bed. She gripped his face more firmly, keeping hold of him.
“Don’t go anywhere.” She waited until he met her eyes again. “Sit.”
Patricio’s eyes flashed and the corner of his mouth tilted up. He did as she bade him, sitting on his bed with his back against the massive headboard. Marcela braced herself, gathering her confidence around her like a cloak. She crawled into his lap, encouraged by the way his eyes seemed to grow brighter as they took in her heavy breasts. He raised his hands to caress the generous swells of flesh and she moaned as she settled herself with her legs on either side of him. He wrapped his wings around them and she caught her breath at the downy caress against her back. It was like being in their own private world, separate from the chaos of the outside.
Something hard and long slid against her lower body and Marcela hissed in a breath and threw her head back. Patricio leaned forward, latching his mouth onto her throat and sucking in smooth, rhythmic motions. Wet heat dripped from her lower body, creating the most incredible sensations as he slid against her flesh. She rocked with him, her hips moving without any conscious effort. The faster she moved, the more sparks flew, the more heat built. She ground against him, spurred on by the way his eyes nearly rolled back in his head. Still, something was missing, something just out of her reach.
Suddenly Patricio grabbed her hips, pushed her back and lifted her slightly. Marcela opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, a hot, heavy weight thrust inside her.
Pleasure like nothing she’d ever experienced before seized her body, tightening every muscle and causing every nerve to spasm. Pain rode the pleasure in a fine edge, burning hot and fast and then fizzling out. Patricio’s breath hitched and he pulled back, then thrust again. Marcela cried out, grasping his shoulders and digging her nails into his flesh. She couldn’t speak, could barely breathe. Patricio thrust again and this time she moved her hips, adding her own energy to the mix. Desire uncurled inside her and she jerked her hips back and forth, trying to wring every scrap of pleasure out of him that she could.
“Gods,” Patricio croaked, his voice hoarse.
He plunged into her, harder, deeper, his hands on her hips as he pulled her body down to meet each thrust. Marcela thrashed her head from side to side, her hair brushing his thighs as she threw her head back. A bright shining edge loomed before her and she tangled her hands in his hair, holding on for dear life as she pushed closer and closer.
The explosion that overcame her made every cell in her body cry out, made every fiber of her being sing. Patricio held her as she jerked in his lap, too lost to open her eyes, too overwhelmed to speak or even make a sound. Patricio growled and closed his hands around her waist like a vise. He went taut and his body deep inside her own pulsed.
The tension suddenly broke and Marcela collapsed against Patricio’s chest. Sweat covered
her body and her senses floated in a warm haze. She felt…alive. So alive.
Patricio’s arms banded around her like steel and he buried his face in her neck. Marcela stroked his hair as best she could, whispering soothing, nonsensical words into his ear. His body trembled as he held her.
“You’re really here,” he whispered.
Marcela smiled, tears welling in her eyes. “I’m here.”
Chapter Sixteen
Patricio held his breath as he stood in front of the witch’s cottage. He’d seen her go in just a few minutes ago, so he knew she was home. He carded a hand through his hair, shifting from one foot to the other.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”
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