His swear hits my tongue, then a, “Please, may I?” skates past my ears.
I don’t know what I agree to. I just know that my garbled reply leaves vaguely affirmative.
He deepens the kiss, rewriting every interaction I have ever had with a man against my will. My knees buckle. He catches me, spins me, sets me on the railing without pulling back for an instant. I teeter on that edge, grabbing his broad shoulders as I float above air, losing every drop of it from my chest.
My heart. His heart. They sit—thundering—in the dark, oxygenless matter that’s left.
Pulling my hair again, Castor forces a break between us, and I gulp sweet, cool inhales, desperate to refill the atmosphere.
A tickle races through my stomach when his mouth plunges—hot and wet—against my neck.
“Castor,” I plead.
He licks a trail up to my ear and nips. Breathless, he rasps, “Yes, love?”
My insides constrict, and I become liquid in his palms.
It is truly a miracle I don’t plummet to my death off the side of the balcony rail.
One strong arm supports my back as he tiptoes the smallest kisses across my cheekbone to my nose. Barely still conscious, I grip the collar of his robes, drag myself up, and kiss his jaw. Hissmile flashes, violent, in the corner of my eye before he smothers me in a hug.
Delirious, I laugh.
His damp chuckle follows. Then, he sniffs. And I realize he’s shaking around me as he sobs quietly, feeding stilted breaths into his lungs.
My crazed mirth mellows. I cut my fingers sloppily through his long hair, accidentally loosening the pin holding his bun in place. Gripping it so it won’t fall, I murmur, “Castor? Are you all right?”
“I love you,” he says, swallowing hard. “I love you so much.”
Something bruised inside me swells, and I cling to whatever monstrosity this is.
Trembling, he says, “I’m not hurting you, am I?”
“No.”
He nestles himself against my neck, fitting perfectly. “I’m not going too far?”
His hair is like silk in my hands, and the coolness of his hair ornament grounds me. I murmur, “No.”
I feel the flick of his tongue against my clavicle when he wets his lips. “Tell me if I do something wrong. Please. I couldn’t bear to continue unwittingly distressing you.”
For the first time in my life, I decided to kiss someone.
I am the furthest fromdistressedI perhaps have ever been. So I hold him. “I’ll tell you, and you’ll listen, won’t you?”
“Always.”
Warmth spreads through me, starting at my toes. My eyes close, and I wait for something to prick, for unease to rise. Instead, soft swells of boundless peace respond. So I remind myself that this man I’ve just accepted as my soulmate put a knife through his hand with very little prompting.
Clearly, my delusion knows no bounds because my thoughts very swiftly descend into recalling that it was hisfavoriteknife, yet he traded it to Willow for my sake.
“Can we go home?” I ask. “Please?” I want to sleep. I want to wait and see if horror strikes me in the morning. I want breakfast. Pancakes, maybe. My eyes snap open. “Frel. I almost forgot about Frel.”
Castor tucks an arm beneath my legs and back to lift me off the balcony and settle me against his chest. His lips brush my forehead. “She’ll be fine.” Even though it’s trembling—cautious and ecstatic—his smile heals the aching inside me. “You are her origin. She will always be able to find her way back to you.”
“What exactly does being heroriginmean?” I ask, because I’ve heard the term a few times now, but without much explanation. I think it’s what a faerie is born from. Unfortunately, Castor doesn’t get a chance to reply before the door to the lavish pink room flies open.
Irate, wings flared, Cael marches forward. “Castor.” He stops in the center of the rug, beside the shoes I neglected earlier. His nostrils flare as his hands grip into fists.
