“Was he?” Thane asks with genuine curiosity.
“Yeah.” I peer up at him. He’s still examining the portrait. He seems so bare without his mask and buffers, like a part of him is missing. But he’s so very handsome. I wonder if he realizes just how beautiful he is.
I turn away before he can catch me ogling.
“My favorite is over here.” Thane turns on his heels and strides across the room, stopping in front of an oil painting: a boy dressed in all white with floppy brown hair. Gold rings of light surround him, and though he’s smiling, tears are in his eyes.
I lean in for a closer look. “This one kind of hurts my heart.”
“What do you see when you look at it?” he asks.
I pause, giving it a harder look before answering. “A sad boy who needs a hug.”
He tilts his head, analyzing it.
“What doyousee?” I ask.
He’s quiet for a moment, eyes roaming the art. “I saw the same thing at first.” He takes another pause. “But now I see a boy clinging desperately to hope.”
“Hmm.”
“Perhaps he does need a hug,” Thane says absently, still staring at the boy. “But it’s clear he has resilience. The world is bright and beautiful around him, he’s upset and hurting, yet he smiles through it. He perseveres because he knows there is better for him out there. He just has to find it.”
A calming silence wraps around us like a cocoon. Who knew he had such poetic thoughts in that dark mind of his?
One of Thane’s orbs hovers above my head before bouncing toward a sculpture of Orvena. She’s a beautiful goddess. All the stories and art depict her as a woman with umber skin and wavy, ebony hair. The stories say she radiated like a crystal in sunlight. That’s sort of how the sculpture looks now with the orb floating around it.
Radiant.
Hopeful.
When I stop in front of Orvena’s sculpture, I can feel Thane’s eyes on me from across the room.
“Is there something you want to ask?” I ask over my shoulder.
“No.”
“Has to be something. You’re staring.”
He strides up behind me, the heat of his body now on my back and his powerful aura wrapping around me.
“Why did you turn Enver’s kiss down?” His voice is low and deep while his lips are close to my ear.
Goose bumps crawl up my arms. “You were watching way too closely.” I try keeping my voice steady.
“Was it because it held no comparison to ours?” Something wraps around my middle and tugs me backward.
Hello, invisible hand.
My back presses to his chest, and I sigh, squeezing my eyes shut.
“Did you turn him down because I was on your mind, Zaira?”
“You’re overconfident.”
“You’re not denying it.”
The invisible hand slides up my belly and palms one of my breasts. I suppress a moan and instead open my eyes. When I twist around to face him, he’s already looking down at me, watching me with heated eyes, as if I’m something to behold.
