Touch (Dark Gods: Selfish Myths #1)

39

“I would have destroyed those rulers,” Andrew vows, his tone rough from sex and murderous. “For what they did to you, I would have massacred them one by one.”

“As would have I, for what they did to you,” Love confides, glaring at him while splayed atop his torso in front of the fire. “I thought you’d died out in that blizzard. It was careless to—”

“Don’t expect me to apologize. I wanted you alive. Anything else was a dealbreaker.” Andrew glides a solitary finger over the curves of her ass. “Tell me.”

“You collapsed in the snow.” Love slaps his chest. “What the devil were you thinking?”

“That you’d just put an arrow through my heart. Literally instead of figuratively this time.”

For a moment, Love ducks her head. They lay sprawled across the floor, having not moved an inch since the third round of fucking.

“It was wrong to deny you a choice about when I’d take aim.” Her eyes sting. “But I ran out of time. That limit had been reached, which I also hadn’t mentioned, but as I said, The Court would have killed you, and—”

“Look at me.” When she does, his mouth quirks. “I would raise hell about this if I weren’t a forgiving man. There I was, with my mate-to-be, expecting sparks to fly, but all I felt was the wind knocking the shit out of me. Holly felt the same when you nailed her in the chest. The storm was brutal, so Georgie had to stop Holly from bolting to Griffin’s house in a panic. After the shock of what happened, she was desperate to be with him. Meanwhile, you ran off into a deadly storm, wearing nothing but my coat and a half yard of fabric.”

“You’ve seen me handle winter,” Love berates.

“That’s not how my instinct works when it comes to you. Love goes into a tempest, I go after her. By the way, I want names.” Andrew takes her bandaged hand, his eyes flaring a mercenary shade of gray, like a forged weapon. “Who did this to you?”

Despite the venom in his words, Love admires the way he traces the dressing, triple checking that it’s been tied correctly. Although Sorrow had stitched the injury, Andrew had been the one to staunch the bleeding first, after carrying Love to the cottage.

Calmness settles over her. She speaks while watching his fingers caress her bandage, the contact bringing solace to her wounded hand. She tells him what happened in the bookshop and the forest, how the arrow hadn’t worked on him, that she’d cut herself with her own weapon, that it hadn’t affected her, and why.

Love sees the moment it hits Andrew. His touch stalls. He lifts his head, his gaze traveling along her skin, then reaching her eyes.

“You’re mortal,” he rasps.

“Yes,” she says.

Finally, the truth comes out about The Stars, the myth about loving a human and thus becoming one. This mortal should be mesmerized. However, Love knows him better than that.

Andrew’s expression darkens with vengeance as he examines her human irises and wingless body. “That’s why they’re gone.”

Her voice cracks. “I wish…”

That she had appreciated the wings when they’d been there. That she’d flaunted them with pride instead of doubt. That she’d fluttered them at Andrew, impressing him with the vastness of her wingspan, the majesty of her plumage. She wishes that she had let them flare wide while fucking him, that she’d used them to flirt, to fly into the hemisphere, to take joy in soaring.

Andrew understands what she leaves unspoken. He clasps her against him, brushing the scars. “Do they hurt?”

“No,” she croaks. “It happened while we slept. They just faded.”

“I’ll kill those fuckers for this.”

“The Court had nothing to do with it.”

“You didn’t see what that explosion did to your wings. You weren’t conscious in the aftermath.”

“Fair enough, but The Court did not amputate them. The transformation simply happened. Still I… miss my wings… more than I imagined. I wish you had seen them sooner.”

Andrew makes startled noise, awe gripping his voice. “That’s why I was able to see you in the first place.” When Love furrows her brow, he explains, “It’s only fucking hitting me now why neither of us figured out which passage tapped into the truth about deities. The key isn’t in my current books. It’s in the one I’m working on. I’ve been writing a new series about gods and goddesses, and the main character is the only deity of her people who has wings—a feature she resents because they set her apart. Eventually, she takes a blade to them.”

“Except I never slashed my wings. I kept them hidden.”

“But by concealing them, denying their existence, rejecting them, you might as well have severed yourself from the wings. It’s an allegory. And don’t allegories reflect the truth of existence? Not least of all, I never knew your reasons for hiding them. That’s why I didn’t make the connection.”

He sketches her wing scars. “My sight doesn’t come from the truth about all Dark Gods. It comes from the truth about you.”

Love’s breath hitches. That must be it. All this time, she hadn’t considered the key to his sight residing in a future work.

Even before he knew her, this mortal had thought of Love, shaped an image of her in his mind, linked himself to her. As if this had been fated.

They stare at one another, digesting this revelation. In hindsight, it’s incredibly simple, therefore easy to overlook.

Andrew holds her gaze. “With or without those beautiful wings, your heart is still the same. Like your strength, your courage, and your worth. You’re still you, Little Myth.”

Nonetheless, he wavers. “How do you feel about being human?”

His concern warms her flesh, alleviating the ache inside her. Always, this man tends to Love’s feelings before his own. “It hurts to lose my powers,” she admits. “But it would hurt more to be without you. Your touch gives me happiness.”

A devilish grin works its way across his face. Sitting up, he gathers Love onto his lap. “Then I’ll spend every second of my life touching you.”

“You’re not disillusioned?” she marvels. “After everything that’s happened? Not even disenchanted?”

“You’ll never disenchant me. Yes, you’re gorgeous while firing a fatal weapon smeared in blood, stealing and destroying my possessions, and moaning with your thighs splayed around me. But you stop my fucking heart no matter what you do or who you are. Wield an immortal bow or a human one. Slip through my skin or not. If your voice is the same, nothing else matters.” He nips her lower lip. “Be ready, because I’m going to make your happiness my life’s work.”

Who takes care of you?

Love wraps herself around her mate, all muscles and skin, and treasures the privilege. As much as she would rather savor the feel of his cock inside her once again, they’re not finished talking.

Her mate shakes his head. “You stole my heart that first day, the second we finally stopped firing arrows at each other. But I should have been blunter, told you how I felt from the beginning. All of this would have been different.”

“You don’t believe that would have been better,” Love argues.

If Andrew had convinced her earlier, had proven his feelings exceeded infatuation or beguilement, she might have pursued another path with him, made an extraordinary choice. Indeed, their time might have been less complicated, less painful. But they would have missed out on other things.

Sacred moments. Forbidden confessions. Desperate touches.

Perhaps The Stars had hoped for this. When they had advised Love to match Andrew, they might have had a greater plan. Possibly they’d known this would happen. Or possibly they had known nothing.

Andrew sets her bandaged hand to his heart. “Right here. It’s all you.”

Love swallows. “I don’t deserve it—”

She yelps when Andrew jerks her flush against him. Across her lips, he husks, “My word against yours.”

Very well. She kisses him back, giving him her mouth and taking his. They haven’t loved as flawlessly as her matches, yet she cherishes their imperfect bond. They won’t remember all that has strengthened it, but this isn’t the end. Rather, it’s a beginning. She and Andrew have only just started, and something tells her more trials are forthcoming. They shall make new mistakes, strive all over again, and grow stronger.

Andrew pries his mouth from hers. “I dreamed about you while I was sick.”

“Mmm,” she hums. “Did I sneak into your bedroom again?”

“No. I was here. Matter of fact, I was wreaking havoc with your sheets when you said something spectacular.”

He searches her face. She knows what he wants to hear.

But not yet. There’s more.

Love forces out the next truth. “We will forget.”

It’s a hushed pronouncement. There and gone, lost to the air, as their memories will soon be, as this glass cottage will be. It rinses the rapture from Andrew’s face.

Revealing the final kernel of their story tarnishes the moment, yet this man has always been as insubordinate as Love. Therefore, he looks at her, rattled but not defeated.

Not him. Not them.

Their arms entwine, the future an uncharted road. Love is not alone. There’s her beloved, by her side with his intoxicating scent, storyteller voice, and protective arms. Those things aren’t going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Love has had time to think. And to decide. The battle of fate versus free will shall continue, and her crew will need help. She won’t give up her place in this conflict without a fight.

When she confides as much, Andrew doesn’t hesitate. “There are loopholes. We can write down the memories.”

“We can,” she says. “Yet in which manner?”

Forgetting would keep her people alive, as well as Andrew and herself. Whereas documenting uncensored facts is dangerous. If they’re going to preserve their past, they must do so safely, protecting themselves and The Dark Fates.

Time will be against them. If the memories dissipate before they find a solution, they must have a contingency plan, a way to communicate with themselves later. The details cannot be explicit, nor resurrect their awareness quickly. They must unravel slowly and carefully, lest The Fate Court should get wind of this tactic.

Their story must be coded in a way only they will understand.

Being mated to an author helps. Being a former goddess, Love also knows which parts of her existence to hint and which to exclude.

For a while, they share ideas and theories. The first step is establishing an outlet for them to recall everything later, without compromising her world.

Until then…

“I have no place to go,” she realizes. “No home. No family.”

“You have me.” Andrew hugs Love to his chest. “You’re mine, and I’m never letting you out of my sight. If your crew says we’ll remember falling for each other—minus the details—we won’t be surprised waking up naked together. So you’ll be new to Evershire, suffering from memory loss after an accident, which’ll be true soon. We’ll tell people we met—”

“—at the abandoned archery range,” she declares. “Where I beat you in several consecutive rounds.”

“Just like that, it was over for me. I became addicted.” His lips skim her throat. “We’ll spin a tale and write it down, like a fictional journal entry.”

“So we’ll lie to ourselves.”

“Partially. Whatever code we come up with about the truth, it’ll be hidden there.”

“Then we have a task to set in motion,” she says.

Andrew nods. In addition to recording their tale, relics of her previous existence will be preserved. Love hadn’t noticed until later that her blood-stained dress had vanished like her wings. Yet she has Andrew’s coat, her silken loungewear, and the black plume Anger had recovered from the snow, as well as her bow and…

Wait. She owns a bow? What is she doing with a bow?

Her thoughts waver, but she clenches her molars. She was matchmaking, that’s what. At one time, she’d been a matchmaker. And Andrew had been her next target.

Love relaxes her teeth. Of course, she remembers her bow. She has good aim, and the arrows are forged of… of iron, like the weaponry of another archer she’d once known. She’s certain of it.

There’s another memento that can trigger the past. She plucks Andrew’s note from the nightstand, their own piece of magic archiving the hour they’d met. Words she had torn apart and put back together.

They approach the crackling hearth. Andrew stands naked behind Love, encircling her waist with his chin propped on her shoulder. It would be easy to toss the object into the fire, to watch the blaze curl its fingers around the evidence. Instead, Love uses the light to guide her, folding the paper into the shape of a star, which will find a safe place in Andrew’s home, along with more proof of what has been. And what shall be again someday.

When the time comes, they’ll rise from these ashes with their souls fully resurrected. In the meantime, who shall Love become without her powers? Until she and Andrew reclaim their memories and join the battle, she has a chance to do good in this world. She will jot down the possibilities, including hints about her former identity and what purpose she can serve.

She nestles into Andrew’s embrace. Above all, the greatest thing she can do is love someone unconditionally. As a woman named Love—or Iris—that much is for her to decide.

“So,” she says.

“So,” he echoes.

“If I say that spectacular thing now, will we remember it later?”

Andrew’s voice brushes her flesh like silk. “I’d welcome the challenge.”

Of her own free will, she whispers, “I love you, foolish mortal.”

“Welcome to my world,” he murmurs, his lips pressing against her ear. “It loves you too.”