Page 62 of Fated In Forever
Fuck.
You taste like power.She licked her lips, peering at me with her head tipped to the side, her lips wet and puffy.Like the darkness of this place come alive. Rich and salty and you make me want to eat you up.
My breath was uneven, my heart pounding erraticallywhen I gathered her against me again, hands slightly shaking. I didn’t deserve her, I didn’t deservethis.
Every perfect moment felt stolen, like I was thieving time away from our future, and sooner or later, fate would come with a reckoning.
But…I dipped my head and buried my lips in her hair. Every time I was with her, I could forget who I was, could forget I was a monster, focusing on that tendril of gold connecting us, delicate and unbreakable at the same time. She was mine and I was hers and my heart had never felt so full as it did right now.
I want to know everything.I tugged her onto me, so her head lay on my heart, her arms wrapped around me, legs tangled with mine. I want to know every second of your life, until the first time I saw you at White Chapel.
And she did. I stroked her body as she told me about growing up with Silas and those uncles of hers, of the so-called training she received, glossing over the cruelty. Her voice shook when she told me about the night Aurora had snuck her and Angel to safety, and then, later, when he’d found them.
Her death was not your fault, Evangeline. I pulled her closer, wishing I could smooth away her pain, take away these terrible memories.
That falls on Silas’s shoulders, along with every other evil act he committed. I should have killed him and your uncles long ago, I brushed my fingers down her delicate spine.I think about that almost every day, that if I’d killed them, they never would have…
“Stop right there,” she said sternly. “Blaming yourself for what’s already happened…no good will come of that, Malachi.”
Perhaps not.I was quiet, and then—tell me the rest. I want to know.
“God, those days were hard, after mom died. We had so little, and we wished for so much,” she said, her voice turning drowsy. “That’s all we did, was wish, because we couldn’t do much else. Angel, predictably, always wanted her own library.”
I nuzzled the side of her face. “What did you wish for?”
“So many things, I’ve forgotten…but mostly, I wanted to live on a lake,” she snuggled closer, her leg thrown familiarly over mine, like we were an old married couple.
“A lake where I could see the sunsets and sunrises reflected in the water. Where I could sit in the early morning, before the world woke up, and just…bask in the quiet. There’s a different kind of peace, by the water, and I always wanted to know what that felt like.”
I could picture her, hair down around her shoulders, eyes dreaming, staring off into the distance, the glow of the sun turning her skin gold.
“Anything else?” I asked, trying to figure out how I could build a lake here, out of sand and shadow.
“Swans. I’d love to see swans. Do you know they mate for life? Like, they get heartbroken if the other one dies.” Her words grew slower, slurred, “Such a sad story, but so beautiful. I think swans and a lake would be perfect.”
She fell asleep in my arms that night, and that was the first time I left her.
Left her there while I went to search for a way to send her back home. But no matter how many times I searched the castle, I couldn’t find a way out.
28
MALACHI
Ipaused in the doorway, trying to catch my breath from my race upstairs, guilt building inside me as I gazed down at Vicious, fast asleep in our bed. I didn’t know how much time had passed since we’d arrived.
Days?
A week?
A month?
It was as if time was a mortal construct, one that lost its meaning here, in this endless place.
Evangeline stirred when I slipped into our chamber, her half-dreaming smile the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life.
I loved seeing her like this, naked, swimming in silken black sheets, like a precious jewel in the darkness, pale and golden and glowing with life. The only thing in this entire realm that was alive and breathing. She was perfect, and she was mine, at least for a little while longer, even if every moment felt stolen.
The entire castle was restored, I’d built each dark stone anew, every time she slept.
