In seconds, the giant wave was gone. Only flat, crashing waves remained.
Finn’s expression was hard. He took in fast breaths as if he’d just sprinted five miles. Sweat dripped down his face.
Above, Jacob’s mechanical bird soared past, and he shot me a look.
All right? he seemed to ask.
I nodded. All right.
He smiled, and then both he and the metal bird disappeared, wrapped in a cloud of illusion.
Finn was still gripping my arms. He was holding me so close I could feel the quick rise and fall of his chest. I noticed he didn’t smell like cranberries and allspice anymore. Instead, he smelled like the salt of the ocean and thunder rumbling over a grassy meadow right before a summer storm.
Had death cured him of solange? Did he not need to take it anymore? But if not, then why was one eye still navy and silver?
Electricity crackled around us, arching with lightning intensity. The fog was beginning to clear, blowing away in great gusts of summer wind. Although the static in the air was fading, it was still pulsing between us.
Finn reached up and ran a single finger down my cheek, trailing the calloused tip over my skin until he stopped at the edge of my mouth. Slowly, he traced my bottom lip.
“There,” he said. “I saved the city. I didn’t kill Jacob. I haven’t harmed Griff. I’ve only touched you. Mari, give me a sign that you remember. That you came back. That you’re you.”
I stood on my tiptoes. Finn was always taller than me, no matter what body I came back in. This time, I was average height. Average everything. But he was still tall enough that the top of my head only came to his chin.
I put my hands on his shoulders.
Finn stared at me. One eye was clear; the other sparked with lightning. He watched me with an intensity that sucked me in and held me captive in its grip.
I licked my lips and caught his pointer finger with a gentle nip. He stared like a man watching his last sunset.
“Finn,” I whispered, and I didn’t know whether it was a plea or a promise. It should’ve been a warning.
Slowly, I pressed my mouth to his. He tasted of salt and sea. Of love, which I didn’t want and couldn’t have. He tasted of warm summer nights and cool breezes. Lying in the park, his arms around me as we watched the birds soaring overhead. He tasted of popcorn at the movies. Coffee at all-night diners and dancing in the dark. He tasted of forget-me-nots and daisy crowns. He tasted like my best friend and my husband and . . .
I bit his lip, drawing blood.
He groaned. A soft, vibrating sound that cascaded through me as he gripped my hips, yanked me closer, and lost himself.
I’d been slow. Licking, tasting, teasing. At my bite, he took over. Slanting his mouth over mine, he attacked my lips with a single-minded ferocity. Suddenly, he was in me, with me, devouring me. His mouth, his hands, his heat.
He set a rhythm that was as violent as a storm and just as mesmerizing. It rocketed through me and set me on fire. I was burning. I was a violent inferno. I was . . . scalding with pain.
I tugged out of the maelstrom and separated the pain in my blood from the pain of kissing Finn.
My locked door—all the love was leaking through hair-thin cracks. I shoved at it. Shored it up and shut it tight. All the while, Finn pressed kisses to my lips, tangled his tongue against mine, and murmured my name.
Jagger’s blood seared me. Don’t let any conjurer know you care.
“Mari,” Finn breathed. “Mari. I love?—”
He cut himself off, his words stopping on a stunned grunt.
I held the knife’s hilt where I’d shoved it into his back. I’d have shoved it deeper, but Darin was there. He’d woken up and grabbed my wrist just as I’d been about to slam the blade home.
As it was, the knife was an inch deep.
I jerked my hand free of Darin’s grip.
“There’s your sign,” I said, staring into Finn’s bright eyes.
