“That was supposed to be you,” she said, watching the flicker of the candlelight cast a warm glow on half his face.
He turned his head, his gaze locking into hers. “Think of all the fun we would’ve missed out on.” He smiled a taunting smile that lifted the weight from her heart and stole the air from her chest all at once. He was so handsome, so daringly, regally beautiful. And as they stood in one of the only places where she felt safe from the rest of the world, she realized she finally stood with the first person who’d ever made her feel the same way.
“Speaking of body counts,” she said with a sly look. “How many women have you…” She glanced down at the bed, letting her gaze finish the awkward question for her.
“Well...none.” The prince looked down as well, at the short space between their feet. He glanced back up, a darkness overshadowing the playful look in his eye. “I could never allow myself to get lost in that kind of passion. I couldn’t risk a catastrophe for a few moments of pleasure.”
“And that’s why you can hardly stand to touch me.” Caramyn blinked, a heaviness settling in the atmosphere. What kind of answer did she expect.
“When I touch you, I am nearly fractured at the seams. I fear I would bring down the world if we were to—” he straightened, a spark in his eye. “What about you? Did you ever have any fun with your trespassers before they met their untimely end?” The prince’s teasing smirk returned.
Caramyn twisted her face into a sneer as she rolled her eyes. “Do you really think I would ever trust anyone enough for that?”
She chuckled with a head toss as she said it, but something in her ached at the truth in it. She yearned for intimacy—of both body and heart. As a woman, of course she felt natural desires for a type of satisfaction she’d never known. But she’d learn to push them out long ago. Pleasure, like love, was not necessary for survival.
So then why did she feel as though she would shatter without them now, as she looked at Asterious?
He smiled, his gaze flicking from her eyes to her lips, and stepped away from the bed—everything she wanted, right in front of her, yet so far from her reach.
“I should start the fire. These candles aren’t doing much for warmth.” Caramyn drifted past him to the hearth and set the wood kindling.
She felt his eyes on her, but his footsteps were everywhere else, as he paced around the room. “I still can’t stop feeling like this is a place I’ve seen in my dreams.” He swallowed, his eyes sweeping from her bookshelf and map scrolls to her wooden dining table. “No, not just a dream—a memory.”
“When could you have possibly been here before?”
Asterious rubbed his forehead and looked up. “I remember staring at that thatched roof, hearing a woman sobbing. It’s blurry but it’s all coming back…bits and pieces. Yes—I remember…I was young, someone laid me on that table, after…” he pointed, nearly breathless. “After…after my mother carried me through that door.”
The room fell so silent it was almost tangible. Caramyn felt a chill, but it wasn’t from the winter air. He stared at her, eyes haunted, and she stared back as the realization settled over her like the snow on the ground. And then he spoke again, confirming what she was thinking. “This was Zera’s cottage. This was where she gave me the Blackheart.”
“Then…it is because of Zera that we have found each other. And I’m starting to think we were always meant to.” Caramyn shuddered. “Because my mother came her to ask her to save me, too. When I was supposed to die, as a Shadowblood’s child.”
Asterious stepped toward her and brushed that same stubborn lock of hair from her face that he always did, somehow managing to avoid her skin, though she burned for the feeling of his touch. “Then does that make us bound by some saving magic?”
“I think it makes us bound by something,” Caramyn whispered. “And it would explain why I’ve felt drawn to you since the day you carried me out of this forest.”
“You feel it, too?” His voice was low “That incessant pull that never goes away?” He closed the distance between them, so that she could feel his breath on her skin. The desperation lingered between them, as though the air between them dared them to find each other.
Caramyn turned her face away, unable to face what she wanted to give into so badly. “Like an invisible string,” she said.
He stood still as stone, but his eyes could not stop wandering her body, even as he finally said something, his voice low and breathy, like velvet night. “Do you know how dangerous this is? For me to be here alone with you right now.”
She suddenly noticed there was no more space left to separate them. One nudge, one inhale, and their lips would meet. “I do,” she breathed. “But dangerous doesn’t scare me.” She pressed her hands to his chest, looking up at him with pleading eyes, the growing fire in her concentrating in her core and pooling into a furnace between her thighs. “But the thought of losing you without even your touch to remember—that terrifies me. So please, I beg you, Asterious. Touch me.”
Asterious took her hands in his, sliding his palms over her arms and up to her elbows, where he held her tenderly as heplanted a kiss on her forehead. “I want you. More than anything, I want you, Cara. But it would mean damning us both.”
“Then damn me.”
He squeezed her arms in his grip like it would break him to let her go, his hands shaking. But then he did let go, and then he turned away and walked to the door with brash, hurried steps.
He reached for the doorknob, and Caramyn spat out the words without thinking. “The Shadows will kill you out there without me.” She thought she saw him turn an ear toward her. “Don’t you dare leave me here alone.”
For a long stretch of silence that felt endless, she stared at his back, waiting for him to either turn the knob or argue. But he did neither.
He whipped around and stalked toward her without a word. Then he scooped up her face in his hands and pressed his mouth against hers like she was the last thing he would ever taste.
She tasted moonlight, pine, satin, and wine as his lips coaxed hers into parting, and she invited his tongue to dance with hers. Before she could tell what was happening, her own hands were reaching up, dragging her fingers through his hair, around his neck, and across the stubble that had grown during their time traveling.
He pressed her to him, the hardness between his legs firm and hot against her stomach. And she sighed with desire at the thought of feeling him. He spoke her name into her mouth, and she played with his breath, drinking in more of his taste, moaning as he covered her lips with his.
