Page 33 of Love's Ace

“Wren? Are you okay? Did they hurt you… did they…” His gaze focused after a second, and I saw some clarity return. I watched him realize we weren’t outside anymore—we were in our room again—and then the pain came back, contorting his features.

Shit. When I tried to push myself up, he winced… and I saw it then. That same darkness in his chest that I’d seen when Sephtis first came to stop him from dying. It was trying to grow while I wasn’t looking. Trying to break him apart when the thread between us was the weakest.

I’d closed the door. It was just a fuckingdoor, but it was apparently enough to let it seep through.

When I was away from him. When I couldn’t see him—when I wasn’t touching him.

Impossible.

“It’s… Theo…” I shifted slowly, and he watched me with wary eyes as I stretched out on the bed beside him and slid my hand until my palm rested over his heart again. I felt it stutter, speed up… and then slowly calm. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

I didn’t have an explanation for it; I didn’t need to have one, apparently. The reality of the situation was in front of me. If I left him here… if I let him out of my sight… if I went too long without touching him… that darkness in his chest would eat him, eat up the line that ran from his heart to mine…

And we would both die.

And he’d probably made it worse when he helped me.

“Wren, I—”

“Just shut up.” I snarled the words, but my hands were gentle when I pulled him to rest flush against my chest. “Just… don’t talk, Theo.”

If I had to hear his voice sounding broken and lost instead of angry, instead of sullen or furious or dangerous, I didn’t know what I’d do. I just knew when he spoke in that tone, I could feel it along the lines of my skin, through that bond I’d never meant to forge.

I could feel it, and it made something inside me that was never meant tofeelburn.

At least he stopped speaking. It took him a few minutes to work up the courage to wrap his arm around me, and when he did, I could feel the way his fingers were trembling, the way his body pulsed for a moment before he settled against me like he was meant to be there all along.

I tried to ignore that every curve of him fit against every line of me, like two broken pieces finally coming together to be whole.

I was engulfed in flame. I wasn’t sure when I’d gone to sleep, but somewhere in the midst of it, Theo had half crawled on top of me. He was all I could feel, and the heat of him was a scalding thing that threatened to eat me whole. I couldn’t breathe around it, couldn’t think around it… couldn’t feel anything but the desire that was coming off him in palpable waves.

It was easy to say it was all his. It was better to pretend none of it was coming from the depths of my chest and the streak of warmth that pooled lower.

“Please.” He said it like he had earlier, but this time I wasn’t sure if he was awake when he spoke. I tried to pull back, but he kept his face buried against my neck as his arms spasmed and his lower body gave a small, needy thrust.

How had I not realized when I’d burst into his room earlier that Theo was completely naked?

“Theo, you need to wake up.” I murmured the words softer than I should have. I was still confused about why I was in here at all, with a half Enmity wrapped around me like an octopus. When I tried to gently push him away, he winced and opened his mouth.

The feel of his tongue swiping the column of my throat made me pause—his teeth catching just below my jaw and biting made me moan. The sound drew another rock from his hips and he whimpered again.

“Wren? Wren, it’s… Fuck, it’s all burning. I can’t breathe. Please… your hands, I—”

It didn’t make sense. I sat us both up with him still clinging to me, and glanced down at the line between us, pressed nearly flatwith how he was plastered to me. I’d seen the red of soulmates swirling in it… but… my eyes narrowed.

Pink. Lines of hot pink burning to crimson.

Lust.

Fuck.

My wings sprang from my back, and I wasn’t sure if it was in recognition of fight or flight. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. I…

“Theo… this isn’t really you. This isn’t what you want.” But it was. I knew how my arrows worked. They couldn’t influence someone who didn’twantwhat I was giving them, not really. My essence was pure, capable of detecting exactly what two souls needed. Proximity…touch…it always brought those feelings to the surface. Thoseneeds.It solidified the soulmate bond after I’d made it.

And apparently Theo needed—

“Wren.” He sobbed my name this time, and his teeth sank into the juncture between my shoulder and my neck. When his arms circled around me and his fingers clasped my wings to drag me closer, my whole body froze.

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