Page 110 of Hopelessly Teavoted
“Yeah. In truth, I already burn for you.”
“Fuck. That makes it really fucking hard to remember the spell work.”
“I bet,” she said, smirking. “Tell me how hard it is.”
He swore softly, digging his hands into the table to stop himself from tossing caution to the wind and touching her.
“You know how hard, Vickie,” he growled, and he trailed his eyes along her neck, snapping so the magic traced the threads of his vision.
“Do the spell. Please.”
Clearing his throat and swallowing, he reminded himself to focus.
“First, fire burned between us, with the warmth of desire.”
A few finger snaps and a trace of his essence whirled, gold and green, and shimmered in the flame of the candle closest to his goblet. He did the same for Vickie; hers was pinkish and shot through with a similar gold hue. The scent of strawberries and longing, ever-present.
“Victoria,” he breathed, and she didn’t admonish him for using her full name. Maybe she heard it for the prayer that it was, the brush of devotion against his unworthy lips.
“Azrael,” she replied. “Tell me what to do next.”
“Hold out your hand,” he instructed. “Next, glass—sand forged in the fire.”
Rolling his shoulders, he breathed deeply and summoned it from the sea, a handful for each of them. The reach of magic was a strain, but it feltgood, like running a fast mile or lifting enough at the gym to be pleasantly sore the next day. Magic was as much a part of him as Vickie was.
It was time to let both in.
Snapping his fingers, he moved the sand from each palm to above the flames, and coaxed them to flicker higher and hotter, glistening and forging with enough searing, contained pressure to make glittering glass torches where fresh New Englandsand had hung suspended before. He lowered them to the table with care, and wrapped them in a heavy cloth napkin.
“Finally, we shatter the glass, to bind us together for as long as it would take to build it again, higher.”
“For an eternity,” she whispered, and the weight of her words was a pleasure. He needed to run his hand along her face and feel her.
Close. So close.
Vickie was breathing faster now, and he pointed to a dragon-shaped paperweight on a bookshelf behind her. Tried not to watch those dimples above her low-waisted jeans as she stretched up on tiptoes to reach it, smiling back at him in a way that lit fires beyond just the candle and the hearth.
“Smash it.”
The weight of the carved brass dragon rocked through the table, shaking them the way he wanted to, and she handed it to him to do the same.
Shards and dust inside the napkin now, fire in the candle, and goblets cool enough to drink, he nodded at her.
“Now repeat after me.
“I set you in my soul, Victoria Elaine Starnberger.”
“Exactly after you?”
His mouth twitched, and she blew him a kiss. Always stubborn. Always going her own way. And he always loved her.
“I set you in my soul, Azrael Ashmedai Hart.”
“As a seal upon my heart.”
“As a seal upon my heart.”
He picked up his goblet, and she hers. Tipping it carefully not to spill, he toasted her, the vibration of the goblets reverberating as the table had, deep in his core.
