Page 12 of Love's Ace

“This shouldn’t be happening,” he muttered, frustration clear on his face. He squeezed my wrists again, and when we both winced for a second time, I let my head fall back against the wall.

“I don’t think we’re imagining it, asshole.” If I was being honest, I’d take the echo of pain where he held me if it meant he kepttouchingme. I refused to admit that aloud, though. I didn’tlikebeing touched. Ihated it. Most of the time, my skinwanted to crawl when someone accidentally brushed against me. I’d spent too much of my life knowing all the ways a touch could hurt, all the ways it could shape and mold you into a broken thing.

Ikilledpeople who tried to touch me now.

But I was standing beneath the circle of his fingers like it was the most ordinary thing in the world for some feathered freak to pin me against the wall.

It didn’t make sense, and I wasn’t sure if there was any way I could wrap my mind around it to work it out.

I wasn’t sure it mattered, because he shifted his body forward and used his slender hips to pin me fully to the wall. I should have been struggling, panicking—some small part of me did. My heart hammered in my chest and a strange mixture of fear and revulsion tried to claw its way to the surface.

And… it was met with the barrier of howgoodit felt not to burn anymore. How good it felt to…

Fuck…

How good it felt to be touched.

How long had it been since someone had been this close to me?

“Get the fuck off me,” I snarled reflexively, but he just laughed.

“Why do you think you’re in charge here? For all I know, you’re going to change the second I take my eyes off you. I don’t knowhowthis happened.” His stare dropped between the two of us, to the shining red line… but this one didn’t burn across my vision.

It didn’thurtanymore.

While he was touching me, I couldn’t feel that burn at all.

But his words didn’t make sense.

“Change? Change intowhat?”

He pulled back enough to look at me while still keeping me pinned to the wall, and his head tilted slowly.

“An Enmity,” he finally said, testing the word like he was waiting to see if I knew what it was. Since I had no idea what he was talking about, I arched one brow, wrinkling my nose in irritation.

“What the fuck is that?” I glanced behind him—the wings from earlier were gone, but I knew I hadn’t imagined them. “And what the fuck are you?”

“I’m…” He paused, his full lower lip catching between his perfectly white teeth for just a second before he answered. “Wren.”

“Wren.” A name. Not awhat. “Are you an angel, Wren?” That would be just my luck. A god I didn’t believe in sending some kind of avenging asshole to smite me down for my misdeeds.

He scoffed.

“There are no angels. I’m a cupid.”

I blinked slowly, then started laughing before I could stop myself. Even the sensation of him squeezing my wrists and causing pain to lance through my body didn’t stop me. It took me a second to catch my breath long enough to look him up and down.

“You don’t look like some fat baby with a crossbow.”

Though hehadshot me with an arrow. And he had wings. He watched the realization slowly creep across my face with a smug expression.

“Right. What’s your name?”

I thought about not telling him—I thought about telling him to fuck off—but for some reason, the words caught at the back of my throat and got mixed up with the truth.

“Theo. My name’s Theo.” I paused, then added. “What the fuck is an Enmity, Wren?”

I thought he wasn’t going to answer me. When he did, he sounded almost reluctant.

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