Breathe for Me by Rhonda Helms Page A

the world. To learn and experience things for myself. Not to be attached to any one person, especially a man who would smother the life out of me by stealing my freedom.
    â€œThe night before our wedding, I hid under a big tree and cried, begging to God, to whomever was out there listening, that I needed help. And then he came.”
    â€œGod?” Dominic asked quietly.
    A bitter laugh slips from my lips. “No. Sitri . He’d slipped beside me so quietly I hadn’t even heard him approach. He was so kind, so empathetic, asking me why I was sad. Before I knew it, I’d told him everything.” I pause as I remember that night in vivid detail. How even the wind itself had silenced when Sitri spoke to me. “He told me there was a way out. A way to be free from the shackles and slavery of men.
    â€œI was dumb. I didn’t know better. All I saw in my haste were the immediate results. It wasn’t until afterward—” I pause, gather my breath. My fingers are white from being clenched so tightly. I release them and force myself to relax, turning my eyes back to his face. “It wasn’t until after I’d signed the contract that I realized exactly what I’d sold myself into.”
    A fate worse than marriage. Worse than death itself.
    â€œSitri is a—” say it, Isabel , “—a demon.”
    Dominic blinks, his eyebrows darting high. “What?”
    â€œI know, it sounds ridiculous. But it’s true. He granted my wish, but in the most hellish way possible. Yes, I get to travel—every few months, Sitri takes me to another new and exciting land. But he completely wipes my memory of the one before. And no man can tie me down—in fact, no one can touch me because my skin is cursed to burn any breathing, living being that comes in contact with it. And if I kiss, or am kissed, that person instantly dies.” The bitterness, the anger is spewing forth from me, and my words tumble out faster and faster. “So I lied to you. I lied to everyone. I’m not sick, but I can’t tell anyone why I have to dress and act the way I do.”
    He sits back in the seat, his gaze skittering away from me. “I don’t know what to say. This sounds…” His words fade off into incredulous silence.
    I feel him pulling away but make myself keep talking, turning my attention back to my hands. Now it’s a sick compulsion to get it all off my chest. “I know. That’s hard enough to swallow, right? But the worst part—” I scoff because really, it’s all bad, if I’m being honest with myself, “—is that Sitri has given me what he considers a ‘gift’—I can tell the lifespan of every living thing that draws a breath. A constant reminder of my immortality, my ties to him. I know when every person and every animal is going to die, assuming no trauma or accident happens. I literally see how many breaths are left in their bodies.”
    Hot tears flood my eyes, streak down my cheeks. I swipe them away. “So this has been my life. A bitter, vicious cycle I’ve been stuck in for hundreds and hundreds of years.” With the last of those words, I fall silent. I am sick, empty, drained from the liberation of telling someone my truth.
    When I finally dare to look over at Dominic, he stares at me, his face unreadable. After several long moments that stretch out into eternity, he opens his mouth. “Is this true?”
    I nod, embarrassed. Knowing how ridiculous I must sound, how impossible this story must be for him to believe. If I were him, I’d call me a crazy liar and storm out of the apartment. Gone forever.
    â€œCan you prove it?” he asks. His voice is cautious, not overly warm, but he’s not shutting me out.
    â€œWell, if I touch something living, I’ll burn it.” I shove my sleeve up my arm. “Feel my skin if you want, but do it quickly. It’s like touching a stove