I was still in shock that I had just spent the day surrounded by people who had known me in another life. It was starting to sink in more, and the more I accepted it, the more comfortable I was around everyone.
“Hey.”
I turned slightly, finding Gavin leaning on one of the columns separating the bedroom from the outside balcony. No doors or glass windows separated the spaces, only audacious columns and long white sheer curtains that billowed in the slight breeze.
“Hey,” I said, giving him a small smile.
He had gone downstairs to get a few things he said we needed for the night while I had showered.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
“I’m…” I sighed, setting the hairbrush down on the small table beside me. “I’m okay,” I answered. “Yeah. I’m okay. Dinner was—“
“A shitshow.” He pushed off the column and strode toward me, a crooked smile rising on his lips. “I warned you earlier.”
“It was fun,” I said, recalling the drama that had ensued.
“There will be more of us tomorrow. It’s only going to get worse,” Gavin said. He pushed my hair back, his palm landing on my cheek. “Have you felt anything else?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I sighed.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered with a slight shake of his head. “I thought this might help us both.”
“It isn’t over,” I said. “However, it is frustrating whenyouhave your memory—when all of you have it. Everyone knows me, and yet all I know is this familiar feeling. Do you know how maddening it is to have everyone around you remember your past when you don’t know anything?”
His arms slipped around me. “You’re cute when you’re flustered.”
I shoved him slightly, and he chuckled. “Shut up.” I rubbed my hands up his muscular arms to his chest, feeling his heartbeat beneath my palms. Gavin leaned in, his forehead pressing to mine, hands squeezing on my waist.
“I don’t know what I’ll do when I find out what happened,” he said. “So, I want to apologize now for the person I’ll become once that happens—ifthat happens.”
I pulled back slightly. “What do you mean?”
“Someone stole you from me. They took you, and I have wandered for centuries wondering why I felt a part of me was missing.” His hand pressed to my cheek, and the pain in his eyes made my heart hurt. “I don’t know the amount of rage I’ll feel or if I’ll be able to stop it. I don’t want you to run.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, reassuring him.
But his grip tightened as though if he held me close enough, no one could ever take me away again.
“I would tear this world apart if anyone tried to take you again,” he said in a low rasp.
“You would drive this world mad with lust?” I asked, almost smiling.
“Lust. Power. Insatiable desire. Love is the most powerful emotion ever to exist,” he replied. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s for a being, an object, or an idea, or if it’s one’s reaction in the absence of it… People lose their minds because of love, and I am no different.”
There was an edge to the way he spoke, as though his magic dripped within those words, within that promise. He wasn’t joking. He wasn’t smiling. He was making a vow, one that could have made the earth beneath us tremble had he let his magic free.
It made me realize just how powerful he indeed was.
“You don’t want to know the things I’ve done, the things I could do with that power,” he said in a dark voice. “I said a long time ago that I was done taking things to that extreme, that I would only use it for pranks and mischievous deeds from then on. But I swear to you now, if someone dares to try and steal you again, I will use it in ways far worse than any mortal or god could ever imagine.”
My heart stumbled. A thread of promise attached itself to those words, wrapping its way from my heart to his, securing that vow for all eternity.
I felt it in his touch. I heard it in his words.
“Have you ever used it on me?” I asked.
He wrapped his hand on my cheek, brows narrowing. “Why would you think that?”
