Page 160 of Creatures that Breathe

Cross.

Mine.

The muscles in his hand flex infinitesimally around mine, just enough for me to register, and his throat bobs with the crash of the waves against the shore.

Last week, he caught me off guard when he found me huddled in the sand at dawn, offering his hand for a walk, claiming that sometimes in the first moments of the sunrise, he can’t find me because my hair is the exact azure as the sea and my eyes dazzle like the frothed foam on its surface. He insisted he needed to hold me tight for fear of walking into the sea to find me.

So now we walk each morning in the gradually warming sand, fingers intertwined, steps lopsided, both of us too distracted to admire Helios’s legion of fiery stallions streaking across the sky.

He hasn’t lost me yet.

I nudge him with my shoulder, heart rapping in my chest. “You already admitted your favorite color was pink. I can handle whatever your answer is here too.” I hope.

His mouth dusts the top of my head with a kiss, but tension lines his body. “Neon pink,” he corrects.

“Answer the question, spymaster.”

He stops in his tracks to drag his gaze over me, pupils spilling partway over glittering irises. His shadows roam across the sand like well-trained snakes trailing their master, undulating and snapping, revealing the extent of Cross’s restraint to keep from covering me in black to block my short PJ shorts and slinky satin tank top from the realm.

“No,” he states firmly.

Refusing to answer. Not good.

“That’s it? No?” I pop my hip to the side, picking up rounded green sea-glass and rolling it between my fingers. “Then cough it up. You owe me your pants for skipping that one.”

His eyes flare with heat, low chuckle tickling my skin as he pulls me closer, reminding me how many times I’ve wanted to ask and chickened out for a tumble with my spy instead.

Ignorance is bliss.

I lift my mouth toward his, inhaling his natural clean smell, and the lingering fruitiness from the clementine he peeled me for breakfast. “Think we’ll make it to the house this time?” I ask, arms wrapping around him, neck craning. “Or will sand become part of my genetic code?”

“You are the most tempting creature in the universe,” he offers silkily.

I can’t stop the smile, basking in the intensity of his gaze, even as a nagging feeling creeps in, reminding me of his rejection.

Ignore it! Don’t ruin this. I reach for his belt, fingers accidentally-on-purpose brushing against the soft cotton of his shirt, teasing the solid abs beneath.

Before I can venture further, he stops me with a husky voice and a firm grip on my wrists. “No,” he says definitively. “No to everything. No to your question and no to its implications.”

No?

Oh, that was better than hot syrup on—wait. “What? You don’t like me?”

“If you were to forget me every morning, Leni, I would spend every waking moment trying to make you love me half as much as I love you,” he confesses gravely, drawing my fingers to his mouth for a kiss. “I would forget to eat, forget to fight, forget to breathe if it meant seeing you smile. More and more, I think the entire universe needed to forget me just so I could remind you of who you are, and it makes every second of my loneliness worth it.”

Shock nearly buckles my knees. “Me?” I ask, heart thumping in my chest. “As in me now. Not me from before?”

“You. Now. But make no mistake, I’ll love you in this life and your next, and every one after that.” He’s half smug as he traces two fingertips along the writing on my cheek while his thumb scorches the seam of my lips. “I’ll love you in the lives you despise me, Leni, in the ones you choose Atlas, and in the ones you need solitude. I’ll love you and protect you and cherish any part of you that you’re willing to give, even if I don’t deserve any of it. I’d take it gladly, stupidly, happily. Greedily. But only if you gave it.”

His confession ignites an fire deep within me.

My flawed, fearless male, who lives and breathes for good and rejects any of it for himself. I crave his touch, melting into him, toes digging into the sand as I cling to a male of shadow and hope. “Do you ever think the Fates intertwine two strings? That there may be creatures destined to be together?”

“It’s all I believe,” he replies, certainty unwavering. “Why else would you and I have crossed paths? Why would I feel like my life was meaningless before you? Like I was searching for something I didn’t even know existed and you came, and the search stopped.” He cups my face in both hands, beholding me with a love that steals my breath away. “Some days, I still can’t believe you’re really here. That this isn’t some cruel dream my curse has concocted just to rip away from me.”

I hold onto his wrist, his curse as my chest clenches and rise to my tip toes to get kiss him. “I’m here. I’m real. And I love you with everything that I am.” Our pasts may be filled with more anguish than joy, but together we can endure anything, and will for each other.

His eyes heat, and in one smooth motion he lifts me against him, caging me into his chest, supporting me. I gasp as our bodies align, my skin prickling with awareness.

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