She holds her palm to my cheek a few seconds more, then places her hands over Dorian’s chest. Her lips part in song, her eerie melody filling the space around us. I watch Dorian with bated breath, trembling as she finishes her tune.
Violet shatters around me and the beach returns in a rush of color and sound. I blink against the change in light, seized by a moment of vertigo. My vision clears just in time to find Dorian surging forward on an intake of breath, followed by a few violent coughs.
“Dorian!” I feel his cheeks, his forehead, finding them warm and full of life. His coughing fit subsides and his eyes find me.
“Maisie. Are we both alive? Or…both dead?”
I throw my arms around his neck and sob into his shoulder. “We’re alive.”
He hugs me back, his embrace growing stronger with every breath we take. We stay like that for what feels like an eternity. Then the feel of water begins to lap around us. The tide is coming in. With a startle, I remember Nimue. Whirling around, I look toward the sea. It’s empty. There’s no sign of her on the beach. No evidence of her tail rippling the surface of the water. Then a patch of gray fur catches my eye a little farther up the shore. It’s my sealskin. I run to it, hugging it to my chest and relishing the familiar weight of it. Dorian joins me, his moves only slightly slower than normal. That’s the only lingering evidence that he was—for a short time—dead.
“That’s your selkie skin?”
“Yes.” I begin to wrap it around me. Dorian helps, and we settle it about my shoulders like a cape, the head behind my own like a pulled-down hood. All that remains of my clothing is Dorian’s partially singed shirt. He, however, is in nothing but trousers.
“It’s beautiful. I’d like to see you as a seal sometime.” He brushes a wind-strewn strand of pink hair away from my face. Our eyes lock, and I nibble my lip. I’m desperate to feel his mouth against mine, especially now that I know my curse is broken. Only anger can make me kill, and I feel nothing close to that. Doubt plagues me, and I lean slightly away from him. Taking my hand, he pulls me closer. “Kiss me,” he says.
“I’m afraid.”
“I’m not.”
“Dorian, I could still kill you.”
“Are you angry right now?”
I grin. “Not at all, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be someday. What if we fight? What if our lips meet in the tide of anger-fueled passion? What if I kiss you and accidentally feel a flash of rage?”
“Then we’ll learn to treat our kisses with respect. We’ll learn to only come together in kindness.”
“It’s still dangerous. I’m dangerous. I’ll always be deadly.”
A corner of his mouth lifts. “I already told you. I like a little danger.”
The heat in his voice has my stomach doing a flip. My heart pounds, warm with relief. Exhilaration. Love.
Letting only those feelings wrap around me, I press my lips to his.
45
We kiss for what feels like a pleasurable eternity. I lose myself in the feel of his soft mouth against mine, of his tongue caressing my own. Every sensation is new, a gift, a luxury. I think we’d probably kiss all the way until sundown if not for the sound of approaching footsteps. We slowly break away and turn toward the interloper. I frown, finding an unfamiliar figure walking toward us from the bottom of the bluff.
He looks slightly younger than me with seafoam-green hair, just a little longer than Dorian’s. He wears gray trousers and a matching waistcoat, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows. His expression brims with uncertainty. Or is it guilt? He stops several feet away, shifting from foot to foot before he brings the tips of his fingers together and anxiously taps them.
My eyes lock on his hands. I recognize that gesture.
He freezes, then looks down at his fingers, fluttering them before shoving them into his trouser pockets.
Stepping forward, I assess the man with fresh eyes. The color of his hair is so similar to a certain creature’s carapace. And that outfit. I’ve seen it before, in the dressing room at the Vulture’s Prose.
“Podaxis?”
He gives me a wary grin. “I know. I’m…I’m too skinny, aren’t I?”
It’s so strange hearing my friend’s voice come out of this man’s mouth. I run the rest of the way to him and fling my arms around his neck. “No, Podaxis. You’re perfect.”
He awkwardly pats my back before seeming to understand the proper motions to return a hug. “You’re not angry with me?”
I pull back from him. “Why would I be angry?”
