Page 87 of One Last Wish

“I am bewitched ineverythingthat involves you, Alora. Haven’t you worked that out yet?” A smile was playing on his beautiful lips.

“Because you love me.” The words fell out of my mouth before I could stop them. Darce’s body tensed for a few short moments. Then his eyes got softer, but held so much pain.What had I done?His gaze was breaking me piece by piece. “I know you told me you loved me once at an event similar to this.” I had to remove that suffering and fear from his eyes.

“How? When did you...?”

“I had a flashback before the dance started,” I interrupted. “You told me that we were doomed. Is that still the case? Is there really no hope?”

“There is always hope, my love,” Darce breathed, leaning down to brush his nose against mine. “I still stand by my words that night, though.” Tilting my head, I looked up at him, pleading with my eyes for him to continue. “I willneversacrifice your immortal soul. I would rather die first.”

“Iamimmortal, then?”

“Oh, you are so muchmorethan that.”

“Andyouare immortal?” Darce nodded. “I wish I could remember.” The quartet seemed to be coming to the end of their song, so Darce stilled us both on the dance floor.

“You might get that as one last wish in your human form,” he whispered, taking two steps back from me. The music changed and shifted into something that felt like a distant memory to me...a dream long forgotten. Darce was watching me intently, and I knew this was the piece of music from my past.

Subconsciously, I sank to the ground in a deep bow. Darce held his hand out to me, and I took it, rising slowly to my feet. My moves became instinctive. Darce raised his hand in the air, leading me to glide around his body. The melody was so beautiful. The single violinist looked emotional playing as I caught her eye for a split second. I did a few turns around Darce's body, switching directions for each turn, before the tempo slowly began to increase. Everyone had cleared the dance floor to watch us dance. Darce radiated confidence, and in his safe arms, I had no fear of being watched by everyone in this room. His one arm cupped the side of my waist and we began to drift across the dance floor. My arms moved to the rhythm of the violin, as if the song had made my body come alive.Love.That’s what this was! Pure, never ending, suffocatinglovefor Darce. Taking a deep breath, I welcomed it. I wanted nothing more than to have this immortal being dance with me forever. Doomed or not, my love for him would never fade. We took another turn across the dance floor before standing in front of each other. This time, our hands were almost palm to palm, but not touching as we swayed back and forth. The current charging between us was making wisps of dark and light swirls in the small space between our fingertips. Light and dark, it appeared perfectly balanced to me.

“I love you,” I breathed with tears in my eyes. The tempo became more powerful, the song approaching its finale. He gripped my waist, lifting me high in the air. The music increased as the rest of the string quartet joined the soloist. Darce spun me around again as my feet touched the floor. His eyes seemed mesmerised while we danced palm to palm once more. “I havealwaysloved you, Darce. I’m not afraid of what’s to come. Together, we can defeat anything. I can feel that deep in my bones.” He lifted me as the tempo increased one last time, and when I began to slide down his body, Darce captured my lips with his, answering me with the most soul-breaking kiss. With my arms wrapped around his neck, I closed any distance between us. My entire body felt like it was on fire. I didn’t break from the kiss until my back hit something hard.

Gazing up, I gasped. We were in the secure, coded room with the rare and expensive books at the back of the store. I was currently lying on the corner of the old wooden table with Darce between my legs. “H...How? Did people just witness usdisappear?”

“It’s okay,” he soothed. “I enchantedeveryonethe second I portaled us here.”

“Why?” I swallowed, watching a fire burning deep in his eyes.

“Look at your arms, Alora.” My skin was ablaze with light. It was so bright that I could make out the golden patterns on the inside of my arms: three spiralling golden suns. I had seen them before in my dreams, and then briefly on my date with Theo.

“Did everyone see?”

“No, I covered us in shadows before anyone could.”

“What’s happening?”

“You are remembering,” he breathed. “Your powers are beginning to awaken.”

“Please, Darce. WhatamI?” I begged, kissing down his neck. “Tell me! I can’t stand it any longer!” His hands gripped my thighs, pushing the material of my dress up my body. “Youloveme! You would doanythingfor me!Please!I need to know! Whatever we have to face, we will do ittogether. I can never lose you! You are myentireheart! Dancing with you...I...I could feel the connection and how deeply rooted it is for both of us. If we are doomed...we will go downtogether.All I want...all I willeverwant...is you foreternity.”

His lips crashed furiously against mine. The urgency of his kiss was unlike anything I’d felt from him before.

“You need to be sure, Alora. There will benogoing back from here.” Darce was asking my permission about something, but I had no idea what he meant. “I’m going to claim you now.”OH!“The last time we did this for thefirsttime...it got pretty intense.” Hehadclaimed me before. Shadows began to surround us, so I gave him a quizzical look. “This is for your own protection. Enchanting the whole of New York would take me a few moments that we might not have.”

“You’re making me sound like a dangerous weapon.”

“The shadows are for my benefit as much as yours. I’m about to lose control for the first time in overa thousandyears.” Did I hear him correctly?A thousand years?Had Darce been celibate for a millennium while he waited for me? “What is going on in that beautiful mind of yours, Alora?” Darce had deflowered me, I could feel it deep inside me. We had claimed each other. I was his, just as he was mine.

“I’m not a virgin and this isn't our first time. You deflowered melongago, didn’t you?” Darce raised his eyebrows, shocked that I knew that fact. “Don’t hold back, Darce. Fuck me like you mean it, okay?” The snarl that escaped his lips was primal. In one swift motion, shadows ripped the dress from my body, leaving me in only my black lace panties.

“You’re in trouble now, Starshine,” he smirked, licking his lips.

Starshine?

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