The Deathly Kiss

Seven

"Koschei" A Lith young man with no face greeted them at the gate with the same telepathic ability that Ivan sometimes presented.

Koschei.

Ivan nodded. He held her close as they walked into a large courtyard. Large plants bloomed as clusters of deathless people moved within the structure with monk-like silence. They walked inside a doorway. A large doorway covered in what looked like bones.

Ivan led her up a stairwell to a separate wing. Inside it was draped in dark, soft fabrics and lit by candles that burned along the walls. A fire roared at the center before a tall bed with four wooden posts around it.

"Why did they call you Koschei?" He pulled her down onto the bed and held her close, nuzzling her neck. The touch made her eyes close, but she opened them quickly out of fear this all would disappear.

"It means Deathless one. We're all deathless...But I am the "Koschei" or the original deathless. I made all of them what they are. Each one yearned for life at the cusp of death so much that I heard them calling out. And so they were able to join me here."

"Where is here?" She touched his face, noting that the sense of regality she'd felt from him had been spot on in a sense.

"The Hill. It's not one set place. There are many doors and it exists everywhere... I could probably open one up right to your farm, but sadly it's much harder to do from the other side. The cave was the last one I'd come through."

"Why were you there? Why was an immortal king mucking horse stalls."

He ran fingers through her hair.

"I felt you. I was walking along a path one day and felt something pulling me to that cave. I felt helpless but to follow that tug...I ran through the woods for days. And it led me to your grandfather's farm. I scared the stable hand off and decided to wait. I wasn't sure why I was there, but weeks turned into months so quickly and suddenly you showed up with your hair wild and your dark eyes swallowing me up. I knew then I'd been pulled by fate to meet you, my to-be bonded one. My soulmate. I've been waiting a long time to find you." He kissed her lips gently.

"Soulmate? Then why did you run from me?" Those weeks of chasing him around and him vanishing away.

"When you saw me in the barn it caught me off guard. I planned to try and win your heart, but I'm pretty terrible at human social graces. I don't really understand your shame or your pride...How to flatter...How to charm. And when you saw me that day, I was covered in blood, raw, exposed...And you shouldn't have been able to see me at all. I was confused about if you were really who you said you were. I wondered if I was being tricked. If some other forces were attempting to fool me. But I couldn't leave you there like that...so."

"You bathed me. Kissed me...and then gave me the opportunity to run."

"Yes, I would have let you run. I don't know for how long before I would have to follow... When you didn't I thought you couldn't be real. I was terrifying, but you stayed. And I wanted to have you right there in that barn. It gets harder and harder to resist your touch every day, it seems. I stole your bag to see if there'd be anything revealing inside about your identity, but...Sadly I don't really understand how to use technology to the same extent as you."

"My iPad? Ivan..." She started laughing and couldn't contain how ridiculous it was that he'd be worried she was a danger to him. "I have wanted you probably since the moment I saw you. I can't explain why I wasn't afraid more...I was at times, but none of that seemed to matter. I grew up seeing scary things everywhere. This was a step beyond that, but I felt like it was right in my gut. I trust my gut."  She held his large hand in her small palm.