Page 83 of Unraveled
“Are you going to regret it?” He searches my eyes, and his tell me he knows what I intend to do. His pulse is hard under my fingertips. It helps that his face is hovering a breath away from mine and he smells like home.
“I won’t, but we have to be convincing...” I whisper and focus on the voices outside, muffled by the distance and the room that separates us. Then I press my lips to his, and unlike the first time, he’s expecting me.
My stomach flips as it did before, and I cover his ears with my hands, hiding them from view. If they’re to believe we have been here getting... busy, I need to look properly rumpled.
“Mia...” Ash pulls back, barely an inch, his gold irises dark, his pupils wide. But he’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. Perhaps I have. His hands snake around my waist, and he twirls me around, pressing me against the wall. “Next time you kiss me, I don’t want there to be an excuse. Next time, I want you to mean it.” His arms cage me in right before his lips take mine.
When Ash kisses me, he holds nothing back. Like this will be the last time, and he wants to savor this stolen moment. I cradle his face and let him take all he wants from me, for whatever little time we have until all hell breaks loose.
The air shifts around me, warm against my skin. The grimoires’ whispers grow louder. Leaning down, he lifts my leg and tucks it around his narrow hips. A breath escapes my lungs as he fits himself against me, and even through the fabric of my undergarments, the layers of my skirts, and his trousers, I feel him hard against my quivering center. Desire rushes through me like molten fire, stoked by his silken tongue against mine. He tastes of sweet wine.
My eyes flutter open when he pulls back. He holds my gaze as he traces his hand down my arm, over my ribs, and around my waist.
“Get ready.” The swirls of his gold magic move across the floor and up the walls, then over the windows and through the curtains, blanketing every inch of this room.
The candlelight in the lanterns flickers. It’s the same power that almost took out the veil.
My heart races for another reason entirely, and I remember that night. How afraid I had been of him, but not anymore.
“What about this room?” I hear a distinctly male voice outside the door, and everything goes dark.
Ash buries his face against my neck just as the door swings open, letting in the chill of the winter night. I tilt my head and meet the eyes of a blond man. His eyebrows arch as he takes a step back. “Ah shit, there’s a couple fucking in this one too!”
“What in the hell did Marion put in those drinks tonight?” another says.
“Out,” Ash growls.
My hair rises in response just as the door shuts with a click.
“No one can stay in that room,” a third voice says.
“She was pretty, man. Let him have her before we have to kick them out,” says the first man. “They can’t go anywhere. The windows are warded.”
Ash pulls away so fast, I’m left holding the wall for fear my knees will buckle and I’ll end up on the ground. The room spins, and the amulet drums in my hair.
“It didn’t work. They’re waiting outside,” I whisper.
He grips my hand and guides me toward the windows, his magic coming alive in waves, illuminating our way. “It bought us time, and that’s all I needed.”
He opens the curtains over three large windows, revealing the bright silver globe hanging over the city. I lose my breath asI stare at the reflection in the glass. Not because it’s encased in gold, or that a hairline crack travels from one corner, splitting into ten, then twenty, then a hundred.
I can’t breathe because, lurking behind Ash’s reflection and blending with the shadows, there is a monster. Made of misty threads, long-limbed and with eyes so dark they suck the life from the room. It snarls at me with a black hole for a mouth.
He’s here.
The king is here—I can’t look away—and he brought the curse of mirrors with him.
The grimoires’ voices turn into a screech as they’re pulled from their shelves by threads of Ash’s magic, and every book twirls around us like a cyclone of worn leather. Their screams are so loud my ears feel like they’re bleeding.
The shadow monster leaps toward me, snarling so viciously even the grimoires grow quiet. But Ash doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t hear a sound. He can’t see the curse as it eases out of the reflection. First its wispy clawlike hands. Then the shape of an arm that twists and billows like the shadows.
I pull my amulet from my hair on pure instinct and shield myself with it, commanding it to protect me. The pin allows my power to flow steadily and keep the shadows from expanding beyond its boundaries. The poisoned threads of the curse swell as it continues pushing against my hairpin, and my arm shakes as I struggle to keep it lifted.
“What’s happening?” Ash asks, and his power thickens around us.
I can’t answer him. If I break focus for a second, I might lose the handle I have on the curse. The glass from all three windows shatters and collapses into a million pieces, taking the monster of shadows with it.
Ash leaps over to the window frame, and his voice pounds in my throbbing ears. “Monster.” He reaches a hand to me.
