“He’s gone.” Zadok spoke again in my silence, voice timid, as if he were dealing with a rabid animal. I didn’t have the energy to lash out at him.

I could hardly even find the will to live.

“Not yet,” I muttered. “I feel his soul. It’s clinging to me.”

Our bond had weakened, a faint ember in the ashes of a bonfire, but it hadn’t diminished entirely. I wanted to believe there was a chance he would return to me, that his soul was lingering for a reason other than the typical delay of a Fae’s life force rejoining nature. I would not abandon it, abandon him. As long as part of him remained, even just a spark, I would stay by his side, assured that he hadn’t the chance to feel alone. I never want him to feel alone.

“The last thing he said to me was ‘I love you,’” I mused aloud, voice distant even to my own ears, the memory of how those words sounded drilled into my brain. “It was muffled, but I heard it, and I didn’t say it back. How am I to let him go knowing the last words in his ears were not that I loved him too?”

“He’ll have known,” Zadok said, and I couldn’t comprehend the purpose of his statement. Condolence? Compassion? Support? There was only one way he could be of any service to me now, and it wasn’t with meaningless words.

“Kill me.”

“What?”

I swallowed around the lump in my throat, barely hearing myself speak as the sound cracked from my dry lips. “You are an outsider, you’re the only one who can. I know you don’t owe me anything, and I wouldn’t blame you for refusing because of what my father did to you, but please. Once the king is gone, once his head is the first offering at my mate’s graveside, let me join him in the afterlife.” I tore my gaze from my mate, tears blurring the edges of my vision as grief distorted the rest. “Let me tell him I love him.”

A solemn expression passed over Zadok’s face. Anguish. He squeezed my shoulder, but I was too numb to feel its comfort, too broken to know its sympathy. “I can’t do that, lad,” he said, guilt-ridden. “I’m sorry.”

He left, and I didn’t acknowledge it. Luca’s fingers were unbearably cold. He wasn’t fond of the cold, and I couldn’t let his soul drift away in a state of discomfort. Without hesitation, I climbed onto the bed, nestling beside him, careful not to hurt him. I placed my head on his chest as I hooked my leg over his shins and my arm over his belly. He would feel warmth as his soul left his body; he would be surrounded and safe. Two sensations he sought out in me.