“Kiss her like youmeanit. Like it’s the last chance you’ll ever have to do so. Kiss her like you did when you found her in that clearing a few days ago, like you are a dying man and she is death’s sweet embrace.” Signe leaned closer, eyes narrowing. “Kiss her like she’syours.”
Mariah’s heart hammered, cracking against her ribs. She tracked the bob of Andrian’s throat. Signe released him and stepped back, joining Callamus a few paces away from the cliff’s edge.
Slowly, Andrian turned to her. His scowl had fallen away, replaced by an open, broken smoothness. Ruined and vulnerable and questioning. The mountain winds swirled around him, pulling black strands of his hair onto his brow, into his tanzanite eyes.
Mariah’s breath hitched as he took a small step closer. Held herself perfectly still as he slid a warm, calloused hand across her cheek. He cupped the side of her face, fingers sinking into her hair. Energy crackled as he leaned into her, breath ghosting across her lips.
“That was true, you know.”
Mariah blinked. “What was?” she asked, voice breathy.
Andrian sighed, his grip tightening. “Everything she said.Everything, mynio.”
Mariah’s heart stalled in her chest when his lips finally met hers.
It was slow at first. Cautious and tentative. They’d kissed many times before—too many to count—but for some reason, this felt different. Like there was a question being asked, something being explored, a gentle peeling back of layers and a tumultuous crumbling of walls.
It’s okay, she tried to answer.No matter what happened, it will be okay. I claim you—every shattered, broken piece of you.
Andrian groaned, as if he’d heard her thoughts, a sound so full of pain and longing and desperation that it sent a shiver down Mariah’s spine. When his free hand gripped the other side of her face, when his fingers wound themselves deeper into her hair, the kiss changed.
No longer was he asking. He wastaking. And she gave to him willingly.
She opened beneath him as his tongue swept past her lips, as he devoured her like she truly was his last meal. She answered him with teeth and tongue and nails, just as she always had.
Just as she always would.
Wrapped in the taste of him, lost to everything the most simple and raw parts of her cried out so desperately for, shefeltit.
It started as a flutter, a weak pulse beneath the thrashing of her heart. It slowly gained strength, like an injured animal finally realizing it was healed. Meekly casting out a glance, then a tentative reach, then a bolder step.
Barely glowing threads unspooled within her, silver and gold shuddering to life. They glinted off opalescent scales, shone within a slitted forest-green eye.
Mariah was shoved back to the present with a gasping breath. She pulled back from Andrian, her chest heaving wildly. She met his blazing tanzanite stare, his cheeks also flushed, something crazed and wild etched onto him.
She knew she looked the same. Still panting and shaking, she felt those threads weaken again and fade, retreating into their darkened hole in the cavity under her ribs, taking the beast with them.
Mariah swallowed, her throat parched. Andrian pressed his forehead to hers, his skin hot, breath coasting across her skin. He opened his mouth, like he was about to say something, to speak the things that were carved so plainly in his eyes?—
“Fascinating.”
Reality crashed back in. Mariah blinked, cheeks flooding with heat for an entirely different reason. Andrian slowly—very,veryslowly—extricated himself from her. Like it caused him pain to release her. He didn’t let her go, not completely; his hand slid down her arm, fingers lacing with hers.
Matheo whistled. “Talk about a show, folks.”
Andrian whipped his head toward the younger man, already snarling. Matheo put his hands in the air in mock surrender. “Kidding,” he said, though he still wore a grin.
Mariah couldn’t help her soft chuckle. Andrian swung his gaze back to her, pupils still blown wide.
With a deep breath, Mariah turned to Callamus. “What’s fascinating?”
The god didn’t answer right away. He just watched them with a contemplative expression, shaking his head.
“It is nothing I can answer simply,” he finally explained. “And I therefore will not try.”
Mariah frowned. “Incredibly helpful,” she deadpanned.
Signe cackled.
