“Devil!” I shrieked. But he was flying beside me, just like that first day in the Arden when he pushed me off the waterfall.
“Fly, Mayhem!” he laughed.
“I can’t!”
“You aren’t trying!”
“Oh, I hate you!” I desperately tried to move the new muscles in my back and shoulders, but they were unwieldy, and I was falling far too quickly. At the last moment, Devil angled himself beneath me, twisted onto his back, and sent a blast of air upward with his own wings. It was somehow enough to help unfurl mine and fill them. I tensed every single muscle and shut my eyes, concentrating like I had never done before. My descent slowed, and I found that channeling shadows around my body helped ease some of the strain. I finally came to a clumsy, hovering stop only ten feet above the trees. Devil perched on a branch nearby, grinning madly as he watched my new wings work.
“You are the world’s worst teacher!” I shouted, an uncontrollable note of amusement in my voice. He took off, soaring past me and crowing, apparently enjoying the feeling of his new heart. I held myself aloft and was finally able to turn enough to see that my wings were those of a Huntress moth—enormous, shimmering green, lined in deep purple and white, complete with eye spots and long, elegant tails that fluttered past my ankles.
“I think mine were made for more gentle flights.” I attempted to follow Devil’s trajectory as he swooped around me again and again. He dove, touching the leaves of his oak tree, then rose quickly and seized me around the waist, lifting us back up through the air.
“Let us test that theory!”
This time, I was far more prepared. Once we were high enough, he threw me up and I spread my wings, pulling myself into the night sky alone until I was shivering cold and could scarcely breathe. When I thought I might be able to kiss the glittering moon, I flexed my new muscles, tucked my legs, and let myself fall into a slow, semi-controlled dive. Devil was there waiting, and I allowed him to catch me around the thighs again, then hold me aloft as he lowered us back down.
“Thank you,” I said softly, holding his face between my hands, “for helping me find them.”
He gazed up at me, eyes shining, and murmured, “They are perfect. Beautiful and strong…like you.” We began to spin in a slow circle, a mid-air waltz, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. The heartbeat in his chest was steadier now, his face flushed in a way I’d never seen—alive, warm, solid. My blood in his veins, his magyk in mine. Again, I felt the clawing sensation inside me, like a rope tied between us, tugging me closer.
Ineededto be closer to him.
“Take me back down,” I whispered, brushing my thumb over his lip, which was now covered in dried, ruby-red blood.
“Are you afraid?” he asked with a smirk. “Your heart is beating awfully fast.”
“That is your doing. I think you enjoy making my heart race any chance you get.”
“Itisbecoming a cherished pastime of mine, yes.” Our feet touched the tree canopy and I folded my delicate wings as we dropped through, but he held me tightly and slowed us before we hit the mossy floor of his room. “Although, I ought to be afraid of reprisals, I suppose, now that I have a heart of my own. You are such a vengeful little thing, after all.”
I pulled away and walked slowly in a circle around him. “Hmm…I must think. What could I do to terrify the infamous Devil of Arden? To make his new heart stutter and jump?” He turned suddenly, stopping me in my tracks. Face-to-face, his long fingers crept up my arm, and his patchwork gaze lingered on my lips.
“I might be new to owning a heart, but I know terror is not the only thing that can make them race…” he whispered, threading his fingers into my hair just as our lips met. It was the same way he’d kissed me dozens of times before—soft and gentle—but this time there was a burning need behind it.
I wondered if he felt the same deep, primal pull I did. His kiss was certainly hungry enough for me to believe he did. The slow shuffle of our feet, moving us back toward the bed, made me believe he did. And the fact that he loved me did too. I knew it now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, and I also knew what I wanted. The pressure inside my body became increasingly unbearable as I grew more and more certain: I wanted it to be him.
Right or wrong, reckless or not, it was supposed to be him.
I broke our kiss suddenly and gasped, “Devil…I need you.”
“Need?” he chuckled against my mouth. “What exactly do youneed, May?”
My frustration swelled and I opened my eyes to glare at him. “You know what I mean.”
“Tell me,” Devil whispered, his hands roaming over my body, bringing spikes of desperate heat with them. “Show me.”
I held my glare a moment longer, debating how best to wipe the smirk from his face, then put my hands on his stomach and pushed. He fell backwards onto the foot of the bed, still grinning, as I began to unbuckle the belt around my waist. Once it was on the floor, I pulled at the ties of my ruined dress and let it fall open. Beneath, I still wore a pair of woolen leggings and a soft bodice around my chest, but Devil leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees, licking his lips. When I tried to pull the dress off over my shoulders, however, it caught on my folded wings, which had apparently punctured holes in the fabric when they’d appeared. Devil let out a faint laugh and gestured for me to spin around.
“We shall have to get Arachne to alter your clothes,” he said as he eased the garment down carefully and let it fall to the floor.
“I could glamour them away…couldn’t I?”
“Don’t youdare,” Devil murmured. I hardly noticed when he reached around me and began unlacing the bodice, because his lip brushed over one of my wing joints. Desire fluttered up from my stomach, racing along my limbs like quicksilver and dripping down into my core, where it pooled. I waited until he had also worked my leggings and undergarments off before turning to face him, wearing nothing but my wings and the cool moonlight. He had seen me without clothes—gods, he had actuallytastedme—but I felt far more exposed and vulnerable than ever before. Every wall I’d built to keep him out was crumbling at my feet, and not only was I allowing it, I was pulling the bricks away myself.
I will build them back up later, I thought,to shield both of us from the merciless world.
“Move back,” I whispered, pressing on his chest. He pushed himself to sit up against the wall at the top of the bed, spreading his great wings out either side of him, then I waved at his trousers. “Take them off.”
