Chapter 21
Twenty-One
Ifell asleep on a velvet couch, wearing one of his black, billowy shirts, a heavy blanket tucked around me.
A slight disappointment filled me that he hadn’t tried to kiss me, seduce me, or press any advantage while I lay half-dressed.
But then I reprimanded myself. What kind of woman would I be if I let a man take advantage of my vulnerability?
Now, as I opened my eyes, I realized I’d been in a deep, dreamless sleep.
In the distance came the powerful tones of piano music, as though someone were playing out their heart.
I rose. The blanket slid from my lap in a whisper; his shirt skimmed my thighs as I crossed, barefoot, into the adjoining chamber.
Once again, I was on the stage, with the piano to the side, a sea of red cushions and curtains, empty seats and balconies before me. Above me, a great chandelier twinkled, glowing like diamonds in the candlelight.
I had danced on stages all my life, but never one like this.
What would it be like to stand here and move only because my body wished to, not to seal a wound or pin demons in the underworld?
To dance, not because it was a ritual to save, to shelter, to protect, but because I enjoyed it?
When was the last time I’d given myself wholly over to doing something for joy alone? For pleasure instead of pain.
Airen sat at the piano with his eyes closed, body swaying back and forth.
Candlelight burnished the severe line of his cheek, the dark fall of his hair, the breadth of his shoulders.
His hands moved over the keys with intensity, power, the music rising from his soul, as though he only played what he heard.
What passion, what bliss it must be to play like that.
To understand the music and let it beckon to one.
I stepped into the light and let my eyes fall shut.
The music filled me in a way I’d never felt before.
And beyond the piano, I heard echoes of strings, other instruments, other voices trying to participate, to let out their sound and soar.
They, too, were trapped in this darkness, in the hollows between worlds.
And I was the dancer who would set them free.
I heard their silent plea, for there were no words to the song, just an endless body of sound, the waves rising and falling. I recognized it as pure emotion. They were voiceless, yet I understood exactly what they said, the way their dreams lifted, soared, pure thought bleeding into music.
And for a moment, I thought I wouldn’t be able to stand it.
A longing rose, thick and impossible to let go, a yearning, a sorrow for what I’d never known. This was wrong, all wrong, not as it should be. And I stood, waiting for the full moon, the only barrier between them and the earth.
I thought of King Airen, who could hear his people but not free them.
Who had never seen the sun rise on a cold dawn, who never saw the way the radiant beams of golden light burned away the morning mist. He’d never seen the pink hues of the sunset, the rainbow of colors that painted the sky.
The indescribable beauty of night: the stars twinkling in the firmament and the face of the moon, round and white, slightly imperfect.
All this, he’d never seen.
He’d never tasted the fresh grapes during harvest, nor the fine wines from the cellars. He’d never celebrated a festival, a season, with his people.
That longing came back tenfold, and suddenly I was moving, dancing.
My limbs knew exactly what to do, even though I’d never danced this dance before.
My body flowed through graceful movements, hands lifted, legs stretching, spinning, reaching.
My hands formed symbols, taking all the barriers and releasing them, one by one.
I leaped, I twirled, and instead of exhaustion or weariness, I felt life within my body.
As though the dance was healing me and making me whole.
The longer I danced, the stronger I felt.
I spun harder, faster, and for the first time, the dance took nothing from me. There was no sickness in it, no draining pull, only a warmth that surged up through my legs and lungs. My body did not feel like an offering laid on someone’s altar. It felt like mine.
Mine. The word burned through me.
I wasn’t aware the music had stopped until, during one triage of spins, I caught him standing behind the piano, one hand braced on its polished edge.
The look on his face was one of worship, of wonder so undefended that it stopped me where I stood.
He looked at me as though I’d reached into the dark and come back holding the dawn.
The dance released me. My feet returned flat against the stage.
Yet I still heard the whispers of those strings, the music coaxing me to dance.
My arms lowered, and I remained, swaying where I stood, breathless and burning with life.
“Do you hear it?” I asked, a slight catch to my breath. “The wordless music.”
“I have always heard it.”
Tears blurred the chandelier into a hundred falling stars. I wiped them with the back of my hands. “I didn’t know music could be so beautiful.”
A faint smile came to his lips. “It’s the sound of my people. The Hollow Ones. I think it’s the essence of their magic, their dreams, their longing to wake and return to life. I’ve been trying to capture it.”
“I didn’t know,” I repeated. Helpless, unable to form the words I wanted to.
“The way you danced, just now, I’ve never seen you dance like that. It was as if you felt everything I felt, everything they have felt.”
I nodded. “I did not understand before. I thought I did, but now I feel it deeply. I cannot imagine knowing the world only through someone else’s stories.
I can’t imagine what it must be like, never to have seen the world I know and love.
Never to have walked the fields during spring, to see the flowers bloom, the plants grow.
To hear the laughter of children playing, the drums calling all to dance. To feast and fellowship. To touch.”
Airen came around the piano, his steps sure and steady.
He walked toward me and did not stop. But the closer he drew, the more I caught the tight set of his jaw, the flex of his fingers at his sides, the way his eyes had gone dark, smoking with a dangerous edge.
“I will have it all, thanks to you,” he said, his voice low.
“Now you feel what it’s like to have lost the meaning, the taste for what you once loved, and to have found it again.
It is not fair that suffering brings about the greatest change, but it is a lesson learned, and one you have to learn for yourself.
I can speak, and I can tell you what I need from you.
I can teach you the dance, but unless you feel it here.
” He spread out his fingers; his hand pressed against my heart.
“It will be meaningless to you unless you have a goal, a purpose, and a desire.”
The touch was heated, yet my whole body shivered.
“I have a reason now,” I said firmly, my gaze moving to his mouth.
“I can tell.” His thumb moved once, barely, across my heart.
I wasn’t sure who moved first, but suddenly his mouth was on mine.
This was not the kiss of before, but a raw, unbreaking kiss.
One of his hands rose to cradle my jaw while the other settled at the small of my back, pressing me closer, until I felt every inch of him.
The hardness of his chest, his lean muscle, the way he grew hard against me.
I answered by fisting both hands in his shirt, dragging him against me.
A sound broke from him, low and unkingly, as though he’d practiced restraint and, at last, was giving in.
It sent shivers of desire through me. I parted my lips, allowing him to deepen the kiss, welcoming the roughness that followed.
His teeth nipped at my lips; his fingers held me, cupping me hard enough to bruise.
I exposed my throat to him, and he kissed me there, too, working his way down to my collarbones, pressing lips, then teeth, sucking, tasting, taking. Then returning to my mouth again.
And I felt—his desire and mine, both at once. The yearning rose until I thought my heart would break from it.
I wanted things I’d never wanted before.
To feel the weight of a man, to taste him, to be one with him.
I wanted to rip his clothes off his body, to be like I was in the bath, submerged in him.
I wanted all of him and nothing more. He was my drug, the one who would give me strength, the one who gave me a purpose.
And me? I was his salvation.
His hands found the hem of the shirt I wore—his shirt—and I lifted my arms before he could ask.
He drew it from me with intense slowness, as though savoring each inch of bare flesh.
Cool air whispered around my skin like ghost fingers, then his warm hands returned, sure and steady, pale fingers spreading across my honey-brown skin.
He looked at me as he had when I danced, as though I were something sacred.
Someone of unutterable worth. As if I were worthy, and no one had looked at me that way before.
No one made me feel this way, as though I were deserving of this. Of love.
I reached for him, eager to press my hands against his skin, to see him bare the way he saw me.
He bent his dark head, his mouth consuming mine again, and a sound broke, a desperate groan.
It sent vibrations up my spine, and I relished it as his hands moved over my skin, as though memorizing every inch.
He laid me back on the pooled velvet at the edge of the stage.
The dead roses crushed beneath us. I opened my mouth, consuming him, but he broke the kiss and moved lower.
To my throat, the wild drum of my pulse.
Lower still until my spine bowed off the floor and the sounds that spilled out of me, partway between a whimper and a cry of pleasure, were like nothing I’d known I could make.
All of my discipline deserted me, as did any shame, any self-consciousness.
He took his time with me, as though it amused him, seeing what his touch, his tongue, his fingers could do to me. How he could wind me so tight and back away before I reached my release.
I was shaking when he rose over me, shedding his clothes. He was beautiful in the candlelight. His skin pale, unmarred by any life—a beauty that made me want to weep, to know the terribleness of being trapped in the hollows. To be alone.
I rose on one elbow and pulled him to me, taking his mouth, his weight. He settled between my legs, and I held him tight, anchoring my fingers around his neck. A slow, bright burning pain arched over me, turning silver then gold.
“Gazelle,” he whispered.
“Please,” I begged.
Because the waiting, the tension, the holding back was too much.
We moved together. And at last, I understood what he’d been trying to tell me through the dance.
I’d been broken. Ruined. My soul stolen, but the dance, him, he was healing me.
I felt life flow through me. I felt it as though he’d taken the missing pieces of my soul and brought them back together.
An energy flooded through me, similar to what the dance had given me, but more powerful.
His gift wasn’t taking from me; it was giving me back to myself and so much more.
He whispered things to me, against my ear, my mouth, my throat, my collarbone, the swells of my breasts.
Filthy and worshipful, and I answered in kind.
We ascended the heights together as though we were floating in a starlit sky, and it was a long time before I came back to myself, before I found myself in his arms, breathing, my body humming with pleasure.
His fingers twisted in my curls, playing with them gently, breathing me in just as I breathed him in.
“Airen,” I whispered, because there was nothing more to say, other than to feel the shape of his name on my tongue. And I thought it didn’t matter what would happen next, if I could have him, if I could have this.