CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO #2
Like a half-drunk buffoon, Emmery studied the tendons straining in his neck as his throat worked.
Destonne’s hand rose to her jaw and he cupped it with such gentleness her breath snagged.
As he dragged his thumb across her bottom lip, desire followed that touch, and her lips parted for him.
Everything around her faded away as their eyes locked.
“Let me get that drool for you,” he said, his voice low, surprisingly husky.
Irritation flared inside her and she hissed, “It seems you’ve forgotten all my threats.” He chuckled as she slapped his hand away. “I’ll be sure to remind you more frequently.”
She walked numbly toward the pond until she stood at the water’s edge. Destonne wasted no time and jumped in with an effortless glide. He emerged only a few paces away and threw his head back to toss his wet hair out of his face. “Let’s try a short stretch first,” he said.
Toes curled over the edge, Emmery braced herself for the water’s weight and destabilizing pull of the soft current. She leapt.
As she submerged and the water engulfed her, all she saw was darkness.
No flashes of fear, terrifying images, or anything that could stop her.
She kicked and reached, skimming through the water with less elegance than Destonne, but more than she’d managed before.
She stretched until her fingers collided with soft skin over hard muscle.
Emmery’s head broke the surface and she sucked in a breath, only to meet his startled gaze. “Sorry. I thought you were farther away,” she sputtered and wiped her lips, her cheeks hot again.
Destonne cleared his throat, his voice a bit hoarse. “You’re fine.”
She gave him a silly smile and dunked under to splash him in the face. When she surfaced, he chuckled and returned the gesture.
With how things between them had been odd and unpredictable, this was nice.
Unanticipated, but nice. There were moments when they fell into an easy rhythm before they realized what they’d done and yanked themselves back behind that line.
But when they relaxed and simply existed, she started to believe they could be friends. Maybe they already were.
Emmery waved Destonne away. “Go farther.”
“Now who’s bossy?” A playful glimmer shone in his eyes, but he obliged, sank beneath the surface, and emerged at the water’s edge then propped his elbows on a ledge. “Is this where you want me?”
Heart in her throat, Emmery eyed the distance. If she could swim this stretch, she could make it to that damn cave. Her memories were so close she could nearly taste them; the sweet relief of finally knowing. Of understanding, well, everything.
Once more, Emmery dove.
Her arms cut through the water, legs kicked in a flurry, every stroke measured, every move intentional, and her head bobbed above the water to steal air before she submerged again.
Nothing would stop her. Nothing.
Her body responded in whispered joy as her muscles launched her with renewed strength.
With determination. Only a brief moment of panic stirred inside her when her lungs burned.
She didn’t let it win. When her hands found Destonne’s, she burst into the crisp night air and the realization struck her.
She’d done it.
Emmery’s blood hummed with pure adrenaline and her magic sang in her veins. She wanted to shout her victory from the rooftops.
Aera chittered from above and flapped her wings. Leaves rained down around them in hues of scarlet and tarnished gold like victorious confetti.
A smile curled her lips as her chest swelled with triumph. And Destonne studied her with an expression she’d never seen. One she couldn’t place.
“I tried to tell you,” he said. His attention belonged wholly to her as he plucked a leaf from her hair and tossed it aside.
His hand lingered and that touch tingled from her scalp to her toes.
“If you truly believed in yourself, you could hold this world in the palm of your hand. Anything you desire could be yours.”
He snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her flush against his naked chest. With her hips against his hard stomach, her entire body craved to lean into him. Almost on instinct, her hand rose to his neck.
She just stared at him, the mint on his breath and his body warmth flooding her senses. Now it was all she could taste or touch or feel. She wanted to melt into it. For it to be everywhere.
And Destonne just felt so damn good.
“I couldn't have done this without you,” she said hesitantly. He would surely add it to the pool of arrogant thoughts eternally swimming in his mind.
“I told you I’m a good teacher,” he hummed, his voice full of the thing lingering in the air, that tension they’d been dancing around. A giggle crawled up her throat, and she didn’t hold it back. She let herself revel in the joy of her accomplishment.
But she lost her breath when he did the unthinkable.
He smiled.
And it knocked her aback. Maybe from the adorable lines that kissed his cheeks and the spark that brightened his eyes like he came back to life, or maybe just that Emmery had never seen him share emotion. Not like this.
His smile was late summer sunshine, unfathomably warm and whole and an answer she hadn’t known she searched for.
A carefully kept secret. As if this joy was special and rare, a peek behind a curtain.
And she wanted to capture it, steal it, hoard it away like some treasure hungry dragon, and use it until she overflowed with his light.
He must have felt her melt into him, because his arms tightened and his gaze traced down her face to rest on her mouth, suddenly transfixed. Like he realized her answering smile was for him.
Her heart sped to a heated thrum in her throat and her attention narrowed on where their bodies met, how his skin glided against hers, how his embrace soothed something inside her, and damn her, Emmery’s betraying eyes drifted to his lips, too.
She couldn’t help herself.
Couldn’t help but wonder what they felt like. How soft they would be.
If he would kiss her back or laugh at her for ever thinking such things. If he would be gentle and hesitant, or rough and passionate. If the brush of his lips would entirely destroy her.
And if she would let it.
The urge to close that distance surfaced, small at first, but like a sponge plunged into water the desire to take that risk swelled, nonsensical and wrong.
Yet, for a moment, while he gazed at her as if she held the universe in her eyes, it felt like Destonne wanted to take the risk, too. To take it with her.
But as her fingers tightened on his neck and she leaned in, he … hesitated. Began to pull away. Gently circled her wrist to remove her hand.
Her heart sank, plummeted, and his hesitation knocked clarity into her.
All the extra touches, the sprinkled compliments, the harmless flirtation, and the threads of trust he sewed into her skin, warped into something ugly in her mind.
Was he playing with her again? If he was, this was his cruelest game yet.
As their bargain and the prophecy surfaced in her mind, guilt struck her all at once.
Shade. Her tethered, her implexus, the one who waited after begging her to find him. After all the nights he saved her from her own terrors, this was how she repaid him. Having another man’s hands on her waist, staring into his eyes, contemplating kissing him—
It was unforgivable.
Like he read her thoughts, Destonne’s smile diluted.
Blood streamed from his temples, dappled the water, and the thorns pressed against his flesh in a threat to tear free.
As he retreated from her, an empty aching coldness took his place, and washed away the magical insanity of the moment.
The spark in his eyes winked out, replaced by a strange medley of pain.
Unable to watch, Emmery tore her gaze from him.
Destonne’s toned chest flexed in the moonlight as he lifted himself onto the shore.
Emmery didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know how to filter what passed between them or make sense of it.
And when he offered a hand up, she didn’t take it.
Instead she swam to the shore, out of reach.
He retracted slowly, a glimmer of hurt in his eyes as he stared at the strangled rose scarred into his palm.
He traced it with his thumb like it hurt.
As if the scar, their bargain, remained an unhealing sore.
Struck silent, Emmery watched from the water. Whatever that moment was could only be dangerous and wrong and forbidden.
But they’d been too distracted to notice the rustling in the bushes. Too entranced by each other to hear the slinking footsteps.
And by the time several rows of jagged teeth clamped around Destonne’s shoulder, it was too late.