Page 64 of Sugar & Sorcery
Yet my heart raced like never before. It pounded with painful intensity, a new force threatening to sweep everything away.
“Arawn… can you hear me? Arawn… come back to me.”
I leaned in a little closer, just enough to?—
Arawn’s lips crashed against mine.
No hesitation. No restraint. A fierce kiss. Burning. Desperate. A kiss that devoured me whole.
A strangled gasp tore from me, swallowed at once by the brutal hunger of his mouth on mine. Arawn’s hand flew to my neck, gripping with uncontrollable urgency. His fingers tangled in my hair, tugging just enough to send a shiver racing through me. His other arm wrapped around me, crushing me against him in an embrace that left no escape. His tongue found mine, in the darkest of dances.
Every fiber of his body answered. He trembled. Pain seared beneath my ribs, an unbearable fire, as though something inside me was breaking and reshaping beneath his touch. But I didn’t care.
Because he kissed me as if I were the very air he breathed.
As if I were everything he had never dared to want.
As if I belonged to him, and he refused to let me slip away.
With one kiss, he stole everything. My breath. My heart. My future. All I saw was him. And the possibility of us.
Until he pulled me with him.
The lake’s magic had called, dragging him back. Our bodies were wrenched from the ground and hurled into the black depths with a muffled crash. Arawn, still unconscious, had dragged me into his fall, his fingers locked tight on me.
The icy bite of the lake tore the air from my lungs, smothered at once by the surface closing over us. I tried to scream, but the water claimed my voice, just like the lake had claimed Arawn. It demanded his purification.
But while he floated on the surface, I sank.
The instant his grip slipped, my body was dragged deeper into the abyss. Sugar crystals shed from my skin, dissolving into the dark water like dying fireflies.
I thrashed, my gaze catching the tangled branches of a giant submerged tree. Black. Silent. Dead. Its gnarled limbs resembled the carcass of a forgotten giant. Once a magnificent tree, now buried beneath the water.
And perched on one of its branches, the Spirit of the orchard boy watched me. His red eyes gleamed in the dark. I reached out a trembling hand toward him.
He did not move.
My gaze drifted to the trunk of the tree, where letters seemed carved into the bark.
Crèvecoeur.
Sudden pressure closed around my hand. In a last effort, I fought against the veil of darkness threatening to engulf me.
Arawn?
No… The figure before me seemed younger. Childlike. But it was his eyes. That same misty violet.
I turned my head toward the branch where the orchard boy had been.
He was gone.
21
The sucremort was born from an apple rotten to the soul, and from the cruelty of men. But it does not exist without light. For every shadow is born from a spark.
LEMPICKA
Iwas at the heart of an enchanted forest, my fingers intertwined with those of the orchard boy.
