Page 50 of A World of Ruins

‘Have you ever fallen in love?’I’d asked Darius after he saved me from the Galgrs.

‘Yes.’

‘What’s it like?’

‘Frightening.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Love is different for everyone, Goldie. Sometimes, a simple glance is all it takes to fall in love with someone.’

‘I’ve only ever heard that in stories my mother would tell me.’

‘And how did your mother and father fall in love?’

‘On Noctura night, when they were children. My father saw her dancing as the gold dust fell from the sky, and he’s always said since that moment he loved her.’

Darius’s smile from that night flashes across my mind.

‘Well then,’I had said.‘How can you know when you’re in love with someone?’

‘When it hurts.’

As I return from the vivid words Darius once spoke to me, my heart stumbles over a beat.

I look up at him, my lips parted, as I try to catch a breath and ask the very question that stops time. ‘When do you know you’re in love?’

He is hit with a barrage of feelings all at once. His brows draw together, and his chest heaves as his attention suddenly shifts to the left. I can tell his head is swirling, trying to process the question I have laid on him.

I wait and wait and wait.

And when he finally looks me in the eye, it is pure agony. ‘When it hurts.’

Hearing those words is both a relief and a blow to the heart. He never says that he remembers or that he recognises the words from that same night, too, and I know that what I am about to say will make me lose. ‘Eight fives,’ I whisper, his eyes closing as if he knew I would bid a higher number.

‘Liar,’ he rasps, disappointment dripping from his deep voice.

We both lift our cups to reveal the amount we have on our dice. He has four fives and two sixes.

I shut my eyes and bite my lower lip before exhaling. ‘You win.’

He doesn’t sound satisfied. ‘I guess I did.’

I put on a brave face as I stand up and force myself to look at him. ‘You’re finally free to go.’ I don’t know where my voicewent, but it is no longer here with us. Clearing my throat, I fetch the keys out of my pocket. ‘No need to pick the locks any longer.’

He’s against the cell door now, his jaw cemented tight as I unlock the gate and hold on to the bars, believing that will keep me from wanting to collapse. I keep my concentrated gaze on the key wedged in the lock, sensing as Darius walks out of his cell.

How can you know when you’re in love with someone?

When it hurts.

Pain engulfs me as I clench my eyes, expecting him to have run off now to find Aurum.

But then he says, ‘Nara.’ And I turn.

I hardly have time to take in the look on his face before he’s on me in two quick strides, cupping my face so that his lips are firmly planted on mine.

A strangled noise between a moan and a plea tears through his lips against mine, and I take it. I take everything he is giving me. The soft strokes of his tongue with my own, the gentle touches of his hands in my hair, my back and my heart.

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