My vision narrows on his wide, quicksilver eyes ...
In my mind, they’re black.
They’re the eyes of those feral, circling creatures who choke my subconscious, because he’s restoring their power to ruin me.
He dances back, smooth and dextral, like he’s reading every move before I decide to make it.
I swing, he shifts.
I swing, he shifts.
My sword is an extension of my body, lashing at the man who’s standing between me and the pretty lie I paint over the jagged surface of my heart. And I don’t stop. Don’t relent.
But neither does he.
He’s just as hard, just as unbreakable as he always is, while my flesh yields for him every single day.
I’m not seeing any effort to overcome your fears, and my string of patience is thinning. Fast.
Something inside mesnaps.
A haunting sort of calm laces through my veins and sets like mortar, lining my insides with that concrete grace he wears so well.
Iblur.
Leaping forward, I drag the tip of my sword through his top. The material splits like a severed wound, and I slam to a stop, sobering, the weapon slipping from my hand.
My mouth falls open ...nothing comes out.
I’ve wounded him.
I stagger forward, splayed hands colliding with his warring chest, frantically peeling fabric back to inspect the damage.
There is none.
No cut exposing his insides ...
No blood.
Glancing up, I become hooked on his chilling stare, almost buckling under the weight of it.
His heart is a hammer against my palm, his beat slow.
Tooslow.
Whipping my hands away, I stumble back.
He lifts a brow, drops his gaze to the bare skin exposed from my brutal strike, and grunts. Crushing the tattered material in his fist, he snaps his arm down, ripping the shirt right off his back and tossing it aside.
I stare at him, unable to look away from the smooth slabs of muscle he’s made of—like every piece is a perfectly crafted stone. Stacked together, they form a work ofart.
He reminds me of my wall in Whispers, but instead of mortar holding him together, there arewords.Delicate words I don’t recognize, the script stained silver like the ocean goes when the sky is crammed full of clouds. Lines yield and interact with the phrases, linking them, so if I were to transfer his body art to a sheet of parchment, every detail would be connected in some way.
“Your tattoos,” I rasp, hand hovering in the space between us.
An illuminated pulse is throbbing through the markings, as if they have their own entity.
Their ownsoul.
