Breathe for Me Read online

  I nod, grabbing my backpack. The warm air smacks me immediately, a striking contrast to the air-conditioned car. For a moment it feels like I’m breathing water. The realization of what that unique sensation will mean to me soon enough makes my stomach lurch. No, don’t think of that now.

  We make our way toward a nearby trail. There’s no one in sight, not even a ranger; everyone must be at work or school. The tall trees shelter us from the ever-strengthening sun as we take the dirt path. I can hear wildlife scuttling and chattering about in patches of high grasses, birds cooing to each other in a distant tree. Bold, green-tinted brush surrounds us on both sides and densely frames the path. The only sounds around us are those of nature and our hushed, steady breaths.

  “Amos used to take me and my brother here all the time when we’d visit him as kids,” Dominic finally says after a couple of minutes of walking. “He wanted us to respect our heritage, feel like we’re a part of this land. I hated coming here at first—always wanted to be reading or playing a game instead of walking around outside with the bugs and animals. But I grew to love it. I wanted you to see this before—well, before you left.”

  I nod and remain silent, letting him talk. Something tells me he needs to get this off his chest.

  “I miss him so much, Isabel. I don’t know when I’m going to stop hurting.” His voice breaks slightly and he stops in place, sucks in a ragged breath. “I realize he didn’t want to suffer anymore, that he knew he was close to dying. And I realize it killed him to watch us suffer because of him. I just…I can’t believe he actually did it.”

  With a shaky hand, I reach over and take his. He clings to it with both of his.

  “He loved you so much,” I whisper. “I could see it in his eyes every time he looked at you. You two had something special, and it’ll continue to be there in your heart forever.” Like you will be in mine. “Just because he’s not here anymore doesn’t mean he’s fully gone. Not if you don’t forget him.”

  My words aren’t only about Amos anymore. The shake in my hands grows stronger, shuddering my whole body, but I force myself to stare into his tear-streaked eyes. I never imagined leaving Dominic would rip me in two like this. I never imagined he could come to mean so much to me in such a short time.

  He seems to pick up on my thoughts. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about you, about us.” He blinks rapidly to clear the remaining tears from his eyes and rubs a hand across his face. He reaches over and plucks my backpack off my shoulders, tossing it over one of his like it weighs nothing, then tugs me back into walking again. “I know why you broke up with me. You’re trying to protect me.”

  My back cools down quickly once the backpack and shirt aren’t pressed against it. I slip the glove off my free hand, then reach out and stroke the tips of high brushes as we make our way deeper into the nestle of trees. The grass tickles the tips of my fingers. I want to absorb every second, every sensation of this moment with him, to lock it into my memory.

  “I hated doing it. But Sitri would hurt you if I didn’t,” I say with a sigh. And it would kill me if he laid one hand on Dominic.

  “He can’t hurt me any more than you have by pushing me away.” Stopping, he turns to me and grabs my gloved hand; his eyes peer intently into mine. Every emotion he feels is right there on his face, open for me to read. Making it so easy for me to wound him.

  “I’m so sorry, Dominic,” I push out past a throat closed by guilt. “You’ll never know how sorry I am about everything that’s happened. I wish I’d never caused you any pain, and I can’t change any of it, but it’s not because I wanted things to be like this.” The words are spilling out and I can’t seem to stop them. “I love you so much. If I could go back and do things differently, maybe save Amos from—”

  “No.” His lips pinch together as he furrows his brow, leaning close to my face. “My grandpa chose his path, for his own reasons. It’s not mine to regret. And I don’t regret you, either, even if it’s caused me pain. I don’t regret one single second of our time together. I hope you feel the same way.”

  I bite my lip and, with my gloved hand, caress his cheek, let my fingers play across the planes of his face. “You are the most amazing person I’ve ever known. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I’ll never forget this.”

  Dominic’s face takes on a strange, intense look. He stares at me for so long, it makes me want to squirm. He slides the backpack off his shoulder and drops it to the ground, his eyes remaining fixed on mine the whole time.

  “Um, I meant to tell you, I have some stuff in there for you,” I whisper.

  “Isabel,” he says slowly, ignoring my comment about the bag, “I know how to break the curse.”

  “What?” I can’t have heard him right. “What are you talking about?”

  “I can break the curse,” he repeats. “Do you trust me?”

  Those words again. But this time, they feel different. There’s a weight behind them that wasn’t there before. Yet even though I know I should, if only to ease his sadness, I can’t make myself nod—there’s no ending this hellish cycle, and lying about it wouldn’t do anyone any good.

  Instead, I stand in awkward silence, afraid, too afraid to believe him. I exude sadness.

  Dominic swallows, and I see a flight of emotions cross his face, the briefest flash of dark, complex feelings I don’t understand. He blinks, and it’s gone, replaced by a stone mask that looks nothing like his usual gentle expression.

  Wordlessly, he snakes an arm around my waist and slams me against the length of his body, thigh to thigh, pelvis to pelvis, breast to chest.

  I gasp in surprise.

  Before I realize what’s happening, his hot, hard mouth is on mine, his tongue slipping between my parted lips as he claims my mouth with a shockingly hot, utterly horrifying kiss.

  I shove him away, my stomach turning sour in a split second. “What have you done!” I cry out. Too late. It’s too late.

  His numbers descend rapidly.

  Dominic’s face grows pale, and he gives me a weak smile. “Breathe, Isabel,” he tells me as he collapses onto the dust.

  Oh God no no no I can’t—what do I—

  A strange tingle erupts across my skin. I shake it off and drop to my knees, pry Dominic’s jaw open and push my mouth against his cold gray lips, huffing deep rushes of air into his lungs. “Don’t you dare die!” I say in between bursts. I can’t stop sobbing, can’t seem to draw in enough fresh air.

  Why did he do this? Why?

  My body starts to shake, and a hot, painful throb pulses just under my skin, itches at the edge of my consciousness. But I can’t focus on me right now. Desperate fingers claw at Dominic’s mouth, forcing it to stay open.

  His lifeless blue eyes stare at me.

  His numbers have vanished.

  No. Nonononononono—

  I close my eyes and press my mouth fully onto his, inhale and exhale for both of us, mingle my air into his body, begging, begging, praying… God, don’t let him die. Please. Please. Please. My face is wet, my tears plopping onto his cheeks.

  Then I start to convulse, the startling jerking of my body overtaking me, tugging me away from his mouth. Something is wrong with me. Something terrible is happening.

  I’m turning. Dominic’s—sacrifice—it turned me.

  I’m becoming mortal again. He’s broken the curse.

  How ironic. I wanted to be mortal to be with him and instead I’m all alone. He’s gone.

  Forcing the last meager scraps of focus I can grasp onto, I grip the back of his head, pour every bit of oxygen from my lungs into his, then collapse on the ground, shaking in pain and dizziness, gasping for breath. Everything spins around me, and a surge of nausea threatens to overwhelm my stomach. I shake. I squirm. I can’t control anything about my body. I am crying uncontrollably as I jerk and contort, writhe in the dirt of the forest trail, mingling my tears with the dust.

  A sputter beside me.

  A cough.

/>   Dominic suddenly sits up and sucks in desperate wheezes, pressing a hand to his chest.

  I—I don’t—What’s—He’s alive. The words pierce through my vertigo, but I don’t understand.

  Then my body goes slack, the seizures and disorientation finally gone. Long moments pass before I can move my limbs. I force back the swell of lightheadedness and slowly sit up. For a minute, our two breaths form a syncopated rhythm, ripping through the woods, which have grown eerily quiet.

  I reach over, touch Dominic with my gloved hand. Shock, disbelief rattles just beneath my skin and I start sobbing again. “You died,” I say, still not coherent. “How did this—how did you—”

  “You did it. You saved me,” he whispers as he leans over, pressing his lips against the top of my head and wrapping my shaking body against his. We tremble together. “Breathing was… the key.” He gasps several times, hungry for air. “Sitri told me you had to kill me in order to live.”

  I stiffen, pull back. “What? Wait, what?”

  “He visited me after…after we broke up.” Breath. “I knew you’d try to resuscitate me after I died.”

  “Why didn’t you—”

  He gives me a sad smile. “If I told you, would you have agreed? Knowing the risks involved?”

  No, there’s no way in hell I would have gone along with that plan. Which is why, even after he asked me to trust him, he knew what he had to do. Because he knew I doubted him anyway.

  Hot, embarrassed tears sting my eyes. I let them slide unchecked down my face. “But you almost died to save me. What if it hadn’t worked? I couldn’t have—” I gulp, sobbing. My chest is clenched impossibly tight. “It could have failed, and you’d be dead.”

  “You still had the curse when you were breathing into my lungs. You were breathing that…immortal air into me.” He cups my cheek, strokes his thumb across the streaks of tears. “We were meant to be together. We saved each other, don’t you see?”

  I blink as I start to realize the enormity of what just happened. Dominic’s love and sacrifice from our first genuine kiss saved me because I delivered what Sitri demanded of me—a lifeless Dominic.

  And I saved him.

  We beat Sitri’s curse. I’m truly free. And Amos’s soul has been freed as well, since that was part of the bargain.

  “I don’t see any numbers over your head,” I say dumbly, then freeze when I realize Dominic’s caressing my face with his bare hand…but not being burned. The delicious sensation of his flesh on mine is almost too much for me to bear. “Oh, my God, you can touch me. That means you can also—”

  With a smile, he lowers his head, moving his mouth against mine, stealing my words in a soft kiss. His lips are warm. Inviting.

  Blindly, I rip off my other glove and let my hands hover just above his skin. Scared. Excited. I touch the contours of his face with my naked fingers as he deepens the kiss by slanting his mouth over mine.

  His skin is soft and firm. And so, so deliciously warm. My Dominic.

  I give myself without reservation to this moment of passion, threading my shaky hands through his thick, soft hair. Our hearts beat in unison, our breath mingling as we kiss away each other’s sorrows.

  epilogue

  SITRI

  She’s whistling.

  I stand on the balcony across the street from Isabel’s apartment and watch her smooth lips purse together as she whistles a Christmas song off-key. I didn’t even know she knew how to whistle. Not once did she do it the whole time we were together. With one slender hand, she plops a hunk of tinsel onto her tree. Her self-satisfied smile is infectious, and I can’t help but respond with a small twitch of my own lips.

  It’s never aimed at me, though.

  A long-forgotten sensation of loneliness, of isolation and disdain and bitter rage lies just beneath my skin. Human love, human emotion. Human weakness. A tragic flaw I can’t quite rid myself of, though I fight it like hell.

  Isabel’s eyes move from the tree to casually glance outside. She sees me across the way, her body freezing slightly, curly hair framing her face like a halo. Then she gives me a curt nod to acknowledge my presence and turns her focus back to her Christmas tree. No warmth in her look. Nothing that reflects the centuries we spent together. Now we’re strangers, perfectly formal.

  Perfectly nothing.

  A strange pang settles in my chest for the briefest of moments as I remember the softness of her small, warm hand on my arm. The airy scent of her hair, the natural perfume of her skin. The surprised gasp of breath when I transported her to somewhere new, just begging to be explored.

  Just a job, I tell myself for the hundredth time. Never anything more.

  She suddenly turns her attention to her door and flings it open, squealing and clapping in delight when several friends pour inside. Including him. The sacrificial lamb who, in the end, saved her. From me, the big, bad, mean monster.

  Really, I could laugh—so easy for them to paint life in black and white. Good and bad. So much harder to view the nuances, embrace the darkness in each of us.

  I used to be like them. Flitting about my life, clueless, yoked by blinders I never even knew about. But it was so long ago I can barely remember now. I was willingly reborn as a demon, given power I never had in my mortal shell. Once that power coursed through my veins, I didn’t look back…not like she did. Hundreds of years, and she couldn’t shake off the shackles of her humanity.

  I should pity her. But it’s hard to rouse pity when she’s obviously so damned happy without me.

  The boy gives her a hug, closing his eyes and breathing in her smell, and I have to look away. My gaze wanders down the street below, slips and glides over the faces of a hundred more sheep, mindless chattel clomping about their day, arms loaded down with presents and decorations and other ridiculous desires.

  A sharp cry on the corner draws my attention.

  There’s a painfully thin teenage girl, her eyes flooded with tears, her fingers clawing at the arms of the brawny guy in front of her. “Don’t do this, please,” she says, her voice watery and weak. Everything in her body screams desperation, from the frantic tremor in her hands to the gnawing on her lower lip. Heavy mascara streaks down her cheeks. “I’ll do whatever it takes. But I don’t want this to end.”

  “Sorry, but we’re done. This is over.” The guy pries her hands off his arm. His voice is firm but not unkind. “I can’t help how I feel. She makes me happy. And I haven’t felt that way with you for a long time now.”

  “But—”

  He shakes his head, turns and clips off at a rapid pace, leaving her staring, desolate, after his retreating form. Then her jaw tightens and she sucks in a ragged breath, crosses her arms in front of her chest. I can read her thoughts like I’m inside her head. There’s a glint of determination in her eyes—she doesn’t want to let him go so easily.

  She’ll do whatever it takes to make him see she’s perfect for him.

  The edges of a smile curl on my lips. Time to take my mind off what’s lost and focus on the opportunity in front of me.

  After all, there’s work to do.

  acknowledgments

  Thank you to Spencer Hill Press for acquiring this book and working with me to make it the best it can be.

  Thank you to Ari, my cover artist, for giving me a standout cover. I love it soooo much.

  Thank you to my agent, the foxy Courtney Miller-Callihan, for being the better half of our crime-fighting duo.;-)

  And last, thank you to YOU, the reader. Every excited message you sent me makes my heart grow bigger and bigger. I so hope you enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. ♥

  about the author

  RHONDA HELMS STARTED WRITING several years ago and loves writing teen and New Adult romance. She has a Master’s degree in English, a bachelor’s degree in creative writing, and also freelance edits manuscripts. When she isn’t writing, she likes to do amateur photography, dig her toes into the sand, read for hours at a time, and eat sc
ads of cheese. WAY too much cheese. Rhonda lives in Ohio with her husband, two kids, a dog and a really loud cat.

  colophon

  COCHIN IS AN ITALIAN, old-style typeface. It was originally produced in 1912 by Georges Peignot for Deberny & Peignot, a Paris foundry. It was based on the copper engravings of the French artist Nicholas Cochin, from which the typeface also derives its name. In 1997, the typeface was expanded by Matthew Carter for Linotype and is also available from Adobe. Cochin is renowned for its small x-height and long, sharp ascenders—features that lend elegance to the overall look of the typeface. A distinct and quirky font, Cochin is known for its individuality amongst modern, transitional, serif typefaces.