Forget Me Not (The Ceruleans: Book 2) by Megan Tayte Read Free Book Online

coastguard, you mean? Don’t be ridiculous. What if you
can’t hold on that long? I can pull you up. Just grab my hands.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Do it!’
    ‘NO!’
    ‘Why on earth not?!’
    ‘You’ll let go! You want me to die!’
    ‘No, Scarlett – not now, not like this! This is horrific!
Please, take my hands – I won’t let you fall. I promise!’
    I looked up at him. His eyes were wide and wild, and he was
reaching down to me with both hands.
    ‘Please, Scarlett – do it now. Quickly.’
    ‘I don’t want to die.’
    ‘I won’t let you die.’
    ‘Promise me.’
    ‘I promise.’
    I took a final breath. Then, in a quick movement, I let go
of the root with one hand and stretched it up. He grabbed it and squeezed it
tight enough to break it.
    ‘The other one. Now!’
    I did it fast, and in a moment I was entirely at his mercy.
    ‘Just hold on,’ he said. ‘I’ve got you.’
    ‘Don’t let go...’ I pleaded, but already I was moving
upwards. He threw all his weight back, every sinew in his body standing out
with the effort, and hauled me up. I tried to help, kicking at the rock for a
foothold, but there was nothing. My shoulders reached the top of the cliff, and
he switched his grip quickly to grab me under the arms. Then he was pulling me
back, well away from the edge, and tripping on my abandoned surfboard and kit,
and we were falling, but this time away from the cliff, into undergrowth.
    We lay panting, him beneath me, me on top. I stared at the
pulse beating frantically in his throat and let the rhythm of his breathing
move me up, down, up, down. I was saved. He had saved me. Jude. I closed my
eyes.
    He shifted underneath me, and gently slid me off his chest
and out of the prickly gorse and onto my back on the cliff path.
    Somewhere nearby Chester whimpered. ‘Quiet,’ Jude said. The
whining stopped.
    A hand stroked down my face.
    ‘Scarlett?’
    I opened my eyes. Jude was eclipsing the sun, making him a
shadowy silhouette trimmed with gold. I couldn’t work out where to look: the
darkness or the light.
    ‘Are you all right? Are you hurt?’
    I shook my head.
    ‘Which – you’re not all right or you’re not hurt?’
    ‘Not hurt.’
    ‘What happened? How did you end up…’
    ‘I fell.’
    ‘But how?’
    ‘I fell off a cliff, Jude!’
    ‘I saw that. What happened?’
    I thought about it. Chester. He was so excited. After all
these days being subdued, getting his groove back had been really, really
exciting. ‘Chester was behind me,’ I said. ‘He shoved me. It was an accident.’
    Jude frowned. ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘What, you think I’m that much of a klutz that I just
tripped and fell off?’
    ‘No, that’s not what I meant.’
    I struggled to sit up. Chester came to me and buried his
nose in my lap, and I stroked his trembling body and told him quietly, ‘It’s
okay. We’re okay.’
    ‘Scarlett, listen to me…’
    When I ignored Jude, he reached out a hand and patted my
arm. I couldn’t hide the instinctive wince as my graze complained at the
contact.
    ‘What is it? You are hurt – let me see.’ Before I
could do anything he was pushing my sleeve up and inspecting my arm. ‘What is
this? This isn’t from today.’
    I grabbed the sleeve and tugged it down. ‘It’s no big deal.
I tried to heal it, but…’
    ‘You can’t heal yourself, Scarlett. It doesn’t work that
way.’
    He brushed a hand lightly over the scab. There was a sense
of warmth and the slightest suggestion of a bluish haze, and then – pale, even,
healthy skin. I shouldn’t have been shocked, but I was. Shocked, and awed.
    ‘What happened?’ he said. ‘How did you hurt your arm?’
    I told him.
    He looked appalled.And angry. ‘You have to be more
careful, Scarlett!’
    ‘Hey, don’t blame me that you didn’t show up.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Well, you plucked me off a cliff today – where were you in
the graveyard?’
    ‘Scarlett, we’ve been through this. I’m not some guardian
angel who