Chapter 10
Mathias’s fierce blue eyes were on mine. He shoved me in an alcove, Ravenswood’s icy stones flat against my back, his hands cupped around my face. I was breathing heavily. The terrifying threat of Hemlock right behind me lingered at the base of my neck, lighting a fire there.
“Raine.Raine!Look at me. Look at me.”
My eyes drifted over his features, the familiar shadows of his face, his full lips, his eyes like brilliant oceans. “Don’t listen to his voice, please, Raine. Listen to mine.” His fingers warmed my skin, his eyes melted into mine. Around us, stones and rocks vibrated with heat and the snap of electric sparks.
Somewhere deep inside my mind, a symphony began to play, drowning out Hemlock’s voice and pulling Mathias’s out in front. An entire orchestra bringing my name on his lips into a song that reverberated through every part of my body. Drowning out the dead king’s words until they were nothing more than the whispers of the wind through dying leaves.
And all I saw—all I could hear—was Mathias.
I lifted up my hand and trailed my fingertips across his cheek. The left side of his jaw ticked as if he were holding himself back. I reached up with my other hand and slipped it to his chest, fisting his shirt into a tight ball between us.
His gaze slid down to my lips and my skin caught fire, engulfing my body in flames. I wanted to sink to my knees and melt into him, melt into whatever this was around us—the music that came from inside me, the sensation of his hands on my skin.
For a moment we were statues, eyes transfixed on one another, both of us barely breathing.
“I have never felt so much as I feel right in this moment.” His voice was a hoarse whisper, fluttering and pulsing through my veins. “I know you don’t yet—”
“I feel it,” I said, cutting his words short. “I feel you everywhere.” My eyes darted back and forth between his.
He smiled then, a little uncertain, not daring to believe me.
I swallowed hard, wanting to say all the words, all the feelings, but all I could find to do was lay my palm against his neck and watch the color bloom crimson in his cheeks.
He bent down, pressing his forehead against mine, a light weight against my skin—one that sent shivers through me, making every nerve I was made of tremble under his touch.
“I have belonged to you always, and that has always been enough, until now, I—” His voice broke over each word.
“If I lived a thousand lifetimes, I would belong with you in all of them, wouldn’t I?” It was more of a statement than a question. The answer was there right in front of me, against reason and reality.
He traced the edges of my lips with his fingertips. They trembled against my mouth. I could hear his breathing, heavy and strangled, and suddenly I thought how sad it was that there was too much space between us. I wanted him closer, I wanted more than his forehead on mine, more than the tips of his fingers trembling against my skin.
“Always.” His lips moved against my cheek, brushing it lightly. “But you need to leave here. You deserve more than this. More than me. You deserve everything good there is to have in life.”
Suddenly the air shifted around us, carrying a chill that froze the marrow in my bones.Was it Hemlock? Did he find us?
A deep blackness blanketed around our hiding place, wrapping us in a void of color and sight. I pressed my back to Ravenswood’s stone walls and they hummed and vibrated along the middle of my spine.
Not Hemlock, then.Erebus. The darkness of the underworld.
“Do you see it?” I whispered back to him.
His body stilled, hands gripping me tighter. “See what?” he asked slowly, pulling his head back to look into my eyes.
He didn’t notice the thick veil of nothingness cocooning us?
He tilted his head, and his eyes widened. “My father,” he began to mouth, but before he could say more, I covered his lips with the palm of my hand.
In the alleyway, a mere foot from where we hid, the king stood, four enormous guards flanking each side of him.
The darkness kept us hidden, as smooth as ice-cold silk, it rippled in the air around us. Mathias’s eyes narrowed on mine, not understanding. I slid my finger up to my lips and shook my head, heart racing, thudding thickly in the base of my throat.
Hemlock’s voice boomed out in muted tones I couldn’t understand. I couldn’t even listen. My brain, my entire body, was too busy focused on the man pressed up against me. My eyes stared into his, his eyes stared back into mine, both of us waiting, counting our breaths.
My hand dropped from my mouth and reached up, landing on the skin of his neck where his throat met his collarbone. His eyes closed for a moment and his breath was deep and long. I tilted my head closer to his and he swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing just below my fingertips.
Just before he opened his eyes, he sighed, and the sound spread warmth through my cheeks and down my neck.
