“I know.” She smiled a little. “I don’t want to hurt you, either.”
Cautiously they came together. Her hand brushed his arm and then she jerked her fingers away; Tyr felt the shock reverberating through his body.
Always before, they had stopped at that point.
Now, she moved again, stepping into his space. For a moment she looked at him, gazing into his face from those gorgeous eyes. Tyr made his move, but she was already leaning up, and their noses brushed. For a second time, they jerked apart, Cela gasping and Tyr cursing. His entire head seemed to reverberate with pulses of pain.
“It’s not going to work,” Cela panted. “There’s no reason to think our lips will be any different.”
Tyr had to stop himself from stepping away. The idea of bringing pain to her hurt him almost as badly as the shock he’d just taken. But instead he said, “I’m willing to try if you are. We can stop if it gets too bad.”
Cela blinked her eyes, where tears of pain and frustration had risen. She dashed them away and nodded.
“Are you sure you want this?” Tyr asked, finding his resolve crumbling at the visible evidence of her pain.
“More than anything,” she declared, and this time, she surged forward without stopping. There was no pause, no flinch away. Her lips slammed into his, and at the same time, she brought her arms up around him. Tyr flung his arms around her before he could think twice.
It hurt. Oh, it hurt. For the first instant, blinding pain was all he was aware of. Cela shuddered violently in his arms. If she had pulled away, even for an instant, he would have let go.
But she didn’t, and neither did he.
They remained locked together, and gradually he became aware of things beyond the pain: the softness of her lips, the feeling of her in his arms, the fact that neither of them had died or gone insane from it. The pain was bearable.
Sometimes, the monster in the dark was only the shadow of a broom handle in the hall closet, after all.
And then, with a strange sensation like a rubber band snapping in the back of his skull, Tyr felt a sudden surge of nearly unbearable agony—and then nothing.
Nothing at all, except Cela in his arms and her lips on his and her hair tickling the side of his face.
No pain.
He had to open his eyes to make sure they were still on the rock, and not—dead, or something, he didn’t know. But they were just as they’d been. Cela’s eyes had closed. Toonear to focus, he could only get an impression of her pale lashes casting a sun-shadow on her cheek.
The thing that finally made them stop kissing wasn’t even the need for air; he felt as if he could have kissed her forever without breath. It was a startled exclamation from Kav.
CELA
Cela managedto break away from her endless, glorious kiss with Tyr and turned to find her former mate staring at his tattooed arm as if it had turned into a snake attached to his shoulder.
A rustling murmur of shock passed among the other griffins up on the rock pillars; even the elders seemed to have lost their composure. Lirin clamped a hand to her arm.
The only people who didn’t seem to be affected were the two of them and Peyton. Cela looked from her friend to Tyr.
“What’s wrong with them?” Tyr murmured. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Better than fine.” Although she didn’t want to, she released him and stepped back, then allowed Tyr to sweep her into his arms to make sure they could do it again.
And they could. There was no pain at all this time.
“You mean ...” Cela gazed up into his face. She was half smiling. “We could have done that at any time?”
“I read something wise in a book once,” Tyr said, grinning down at her. “Sometimes you have to travel many miles tofind out where home truly is. It looks like that’s what’s happened to us.”
Cela grinned up at him, then turned to call to Peyton across the gap between them. “Thank you so much, thank you, thank you.”
“It worked?” Peyton asked. “It worked!” She jumped and clapped her hands. Then she looked around at the griffins. “What’s wrong with everybody?”
Cela had no idea. Two of the elders were staring at each other as if they’d never seen each other before. Cela recalled from clan events in the past that those two were mated to each other according to the island’s customs. Some of the others looked nervous or uncomfortable.
