My fingers seemed to hover over his skin like the glow could wrap itself around my hands. I don’t know why, but a lump formed in my throat. My heart began to ache. An emotion that I couldn’t resist bubbled to the surface.
He was… so familiar. His appearance tugged on something in the back of my mind. A memory knocking on the door—no,beatingon the door. Desperate to break free. It felt like a word on the tip of my tongue meant to drive me to madness.
Something moved behind him, and I stepped out of his grasp.
Wings.
They weren’t full wings of perfect white feathers, spread wide and glorious in the moonlight. No. They were an outline in the air, a shimmering whisper when he moved.
“This is just a portion of my true form,” he said. “I’d hate to blind you with my complete self. Not until…”
His voice trailed, but I didn’t care to ask what he meant. I wanted to tell him he was beautiful, that I didn’t care if I went blind, so long as I got to truly see him before I did.
However, all I could think about was that feeling threading through my bones and becoming more profound with every passing second.
Gavin reached behind him, pulled a long golden arrow from thin air, and twirled it in his fingers. “I don’t really need these anymore,” he said. “Haven’t used them in a long while. Still… the memories are fond.”
My ears began to ring as nausea crept up my throat. I blinked profusely, to the point that he seemed to notice. His brows narrowed, and he reached out for my hand.
The moment his incandescent fingers laid atop mine, something shifted within me.
It was like a knot had broken free and set my limbs and heart loose from whatever restraint had been forced around them. I wobbled on my feet. A foreign yearning made its way to the surface from my subconsciousness, making me restless and insatiable for the man standing before me. I wasn’t in my own body. It was as if my soul had removed itself, and I was looking at Gavin the way he was always meant to be.
“Whoa—“ he grabbed my arm. “Chloe?”
I stared at him, my eyes wide. Unable to catch my breath. But I knew this version of him. Iknewhim. I knew him in the glow of candlelight. I knew him with his arms around me in the darkness. I knew him as every touch I’d felt on me in the middle of the night. I knew him as happiness and joy and pure desire.
I knew him as my…
I felt faint. I tripped over my feet, and as Gavin caught me, my face went numb.
“Gavin, what’s… what’s wrong with me?” I asked, thinking it had to be part of his magic. “Why does seeing you like this, why does it feel so….”
But I couldn’t get the words out. I didn’t know them. It was overwhelming. My chest began to ache as I was sure I had stopped breathing.
Gavin sat me down in a garden chair and knelt at my side. “What do you see?” he asked, no longer glowing. “Tell me.”
I finally met his eyes again, jaw shaking as I resisted the strange emotion daring to surface. “All I know is that I feel you,” I whispered. “I’vealwaysfelt you. In every darkness. In every shadow. You’ve been there. And I don’t know why that is.”
His jaw set, lips pressing into a thin line as he caressed my cheek.
There was something he wasn’t telling me.
“You know why, don’t you?” I asked.
He swallowed. “I don’t want to scare you,” he said.
“Tell me,” I begged.
I had to know. I had to understand why.
“Tell me what this feeling is,” I said. “Why do I know you in that form? Why does it make me feel this way?”
“Chloe, please,” he said.
“Tell me.” I pulled away from him and stood, prompting him to also rise to his feet.
He threaded his hands behind his head, and I could see that reluctance in his gaze. It was something big. Something bigger than he wanted to admit.
