Page 77 of The Spark that Ignites
An ache spurred in her chest as she murmured, “Promise you won’t leave me.”
Shade leaned toward her, his chest shaking with a heavy breath. “It’s a deal.”
And she closed the distance, brushing her lips over his cheek, feeling only that same cool mist and faded dreams. Her heart throbbed and she pulled away, blinking away the sadness gathering in her soul—that deep, endless, black thing staring back.
Shade’s face twisted with pain. “I must have done something unforgivable in a past life, because—” He groaned, “this is a fresh breed of torture. To be so close to you and so far away. I want you ...sofiercely.”
Her eyes fell shut, fighting the longing in her heart. For something tangible. For wishes and dreams she dared not even think. Because maybe shewasbeing punished too. Punished for all the things she had done and all she hadn’t.
Emmery couldn't speak.
“Do you know what I would give to kiss you? To touch you. To show you how you drive me mad with that fiery glimmer in your eyes.” His throat worked, his voice lowering to a husky desire. “To know how you taste. How you feel. That you’re mine and I’m yours.”
She swallowed hard, and said, voice low, “I’m already yours. In every way I can be.”
And for the briefest of moments, it was as if his eyes flashed—shifted. Like the green exchanged for something else. But itwas too fast, the dash of a hare into the brush, a hummingbird taking flight. She couldn’t catch it.
“I can feel how your heart answers mine. How your body and soul whisper to me. I want you to moan from my touch, my tongue on your skin. How you feel beneath me. You can’t possibly know how badly I crave you. There’s something ... undeniable between us.”
Emmery’s breath caught and her cheeks burned. Struck speechless, she could only stare. She wanted that too.
After all these years that part of her had gone dormant, buried under all her trauma and broken nights, but Shade had awoken it again. Lust, passion, longing—but underneath it all, there was more. As he had put it, the feeling was undeniable.
Her fingers traced the blurred lines of Shade’s face. He didn’t flinch from her like everyone else. But he should. He should be afraid of her and the magic burning within her.
“There’s virtue in patience,” she said, her hopeful heart shattering a little more. “I guess I’ll have to wait for you to get off your lazy behind and come find me.”
Shade released a wholesome, shadow banishing laugh. Their eyes locked and for a moment, she forgot all the things that weighed her down each day. He cupped her face in both hands, his thumb sweeping her birthmark, his green eyes blazing. “I love you. Endlessly. In this life, in all my dreams, and every eternity.”
The words struck her in the chest.
Would he truly feel the same if he knew who she really was? What she had done. All the people she had hurt and killed and left a trail of carnage in her wake. Could anyone ever truly love her for the monster she was?
Never finding Shade was a fate worse than death and her lonely, scabrous soul insatiably longed for him, so maybe it was for the best. She didn’t deserve him. She didn’t deserve hislove. Or anyone else’s for that matter. She could never truly have him.
But instead, Emmery burrowed into that hollow part inside herself, searching for the light Shade gave her, clutching it like a lifeline, when she replied, “I love you too.”
The edges of her dream frayed, fading as they always did when things started to feel too real—stealing her away in the night.
No, no—not now. Not this soon.
I want to dream. Please leave me to dream with him, she pleaded to any higher power who may be listening.
Any merciful gods or gracious fates.
But I don’t want to dream forever.
I don’t wanthimto be a dream forever.
She cast her wish into the universe; certain it was lost somewhere between the stars and the god’s hands.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Despite the cooler temperatures, the sun was blinding on this late autumn day.
Emmery lay on a stone bench in the castle garden, squinting at the map tucked inside her novel. Beside her, Aera dashed through the flowers, covering herself in filth and gods know what else, before she would surely crawl back into Emmery’s bed. Between her fox and the story drawing her in, Emmery’s focus waned, and she found herself lifting the map to read just one more page of Rhessa’s book.
She needed to learn this, but geography was insufferably boring.
