Chapter 15 #3
Then, the individual portals began to move, drawn inward by some force she was exerting, pulled toward the central point she’d designated. They converged slowly at first, then faster, the silver light intensifying as they compressed.
The pressure was immense. I could feel it pushing against my stabilizing shell, a force like a tide trying to drag everything inward. My arms burned with the effort of holding the line. Sweat ran down my temples, my jaw locked so tight I thought my teeth might crack.
The portals were merging. I could see it happening, the individual circles blurring and overlapping, the light between them fusing into something brighter and more coherent. Sixty portals became thirty. Thirty became fifteen.
She screamed.
The sound tore out of her, and the remaining portals detonated outward in a shockwave of silver light and concussive force.
The blast hit me like a tank, throwing me backward, but I held onto her shoulders, dragging her with me, my body taking the brunt of the impact as we slammed into the stone shelf behind us.
Books rained down around us and the lantern shattered against the far wall.
Jupiter went limp in my arms. Her head fell back against my chest, her hair spilling across my forearm, and for one terrible second I thought she was unconscious. Then she breathed—a shuddering, ragged inhale—and her eyes opened, unfocused, staring up at the vaulted ceiling.
“Fuuuck,” she whispered.
My arms were wrapped around her torso, her back pressed against my chest, my chin nearly resting on the top of her head. She was warm and solid and shaking, and the bond between us was wide open and screaming with residual magic and adrenaline and something that felt terrifyingly close to relief.
She turned her head. Just slightly. Just enough that her cheek brushed my jaw, and her mouth was right there, inches from mine, close enough that I could feel her breath against my lips.
Her eyes found mine. Silver and beautiful and enormous. There was something in them, something unguarded and aching, that I hadn’t seen in months. Not since before. Not since the night everything went wrong.
The distance between our mouths was nothing.
Less than nothing. A breath. A heartbeat.
I could feel the heat of her, could smell the sweat and the sweet, maddening scent of her skin.
Every cell in my body was screaming at me to close the gap.
To take what she was offering. To kiss her like I’d been dying to kiss her for weeks, for months, for what felt like my entire fucking life.
Her lips parted. Just barely. A barely-there movement that sent a bolt of white-hot want through me so intense it nearly blinded me.
But I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t break her trust. Not after she’d given me even a sliver of it. I wasn’t that guy anymore.
I pulled back. Not far, but just enough. Just enough that the moment broke, the spell shattered, and the cold reality of what I’d almost done came crashing down on me like ice water.
I set her upright as we both struggled to our feet slowly, my hands leaving her body like I’d been burned, and stepped back. Two steps. Three. The distance between us was suddenly enormous.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t—I wasn’t—” I dragged a hand through my hair, gripping it hard enough to hurt. “That was—I’m sorry.”
She was staring at me. Her chest was still heaving, her cheeks flushed, her eyes wide and unreadable. The bond between us was a wreck, flooded with too many emotions to separate. Mine. Hers. Both tangled together so tightly I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
“I should, uh…” I gestured vaguely toward the stairs. “Professor Saris wanted me to uh—the combat drills, I—”
I was already moving. My feet carried me toward the staircase before my brain had fully caught up, and I took the steps two at a time, not looking back, not trusting myself to look back, because if I looked back and she was still standing there with that expression on her face then it was all over.
I made it to the top of the stairs and out into the corridor before I stopped, bracing both hands against the cold stone wall, my forehead pressed against it, breathing hard.
My hands were shaking. My whole body was shaking.
The bond was screaming, howling in my chest, and I could feel her confusion, her hurt.
I’d almost kissed her. I’d almost kissed her, and if I had, it would have destroyed everything. Every day of restraint, every careful distance, every moment of proving myself worthy—gone. Shattered in a single moment of weakness.
She’d trusted me. She’d asked me to stabilize her magic, and I’d used it as an excuse to hold her, to feel her body against mine, and then I’d almost—
I pushed off the wall and kept walking. I kept walking until I was outside, the biting cold of the night sinking past my sweater, until my teeth were chattering. I kept walking past the tower, past the grove, and into the darkness of the forest where I could be alone.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. What mattered was that she trusted me. She trusted me. I needed her to trust me.