Page 83 of Edge of Wonder

He dipped his head, mouth brushing over mine, making my skin tingle. Pressing our foreheads together, he spoke, his voice rough. “I want all your strings, Alice. I’m already all tangled up in them. Have been for a long time. So you’re just going to have to skip the tower and live with me.”

“You’re not leaving?”

“No. It’s pointless. I just keep coming back because I am so completely in love with you. I didn’t know how to say it before. It felt like giving away too much. It still does. You scare the hell out of me, Alice. Because now that I know you, I can’t go back to being without you.”

My eyes closed as I breathed in his words and let them sink in. They were perfect. I didn’t have to pretend anymore. Everything was still within reach. “I can’t go back, either. I love you, Sebastian.”

A breath of relief left him, and he pulled me close, fusing our mouths together. We kissed among the thorns, in this terribly gray place. But he lit me up and banished the shadows.

I thought this kiss would have been different, somehow transformed by his words, but he’d been showing me his heart for so long, I recognized what his love felt like. I’d already had it. And when he deepened the kiss, his mouth rough against mine, sharing shaky breaths, I knew it was mine forever.

His lips seared a path down my neck, and he growled low in his throat. “As much as I want to be with you again; make you mine until all the doubts are out of that gorgeous head of yours. We are kind of in the middle of a deadly challenge. Where’s Tristan? You can’t trust him. He tried to kill me.”

“I know. I thought you were dead.” I tucked my head under his chin and wrapped my arms around him, forcing those nightmare thoughts away. “He lied about being a royal player. He was one of the queen’s mercenaries.”

“Was?”

“We don’t have to worry about him anymore. He got mauled by a Gursuss.”

“What’s a Gursuss?”

“Trust me. You don’t want to know. Here—” I collected a handful of gold berries and held them out to Sebastian. “Eat these. The creature will leave us alone. Ask me how I know.”

“Jeez, Alice. I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I would have been.”

“It’s not your fault. I’m just glad you’re okay. I saw the blood by the portal and it scared me. I didn’t know what Peter would find when he went after you.”

Sebastian grimaced. “He saved my life, and now I have to be nice to him. But he’s not so bad. Plus, he sort of facilitated a reunion with my family.”

“You saw your parents? That’s wonderful.”

“Yeah, it kind of was.” Sebastian tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Next time, you’ll be there.”

I leaned into his hand, enjoying the way his thumb brushed across my cheek. “I’d like that. And don’t worry, you haven’t missed much. All I’ve done is wander around looking for roses, and then I finally find some and they’re not red. They still have thorns, though.” I flashed him my palm with the thorn lodged beneath my skin.

“Let me see.” Sebastian turned my hand up and reached for his dagger. “This will hurt for a second. Hold still.”

I winced as the tip of his dagger pierced my palm. “I don’t get it. I’ve been searching for a day and a half. What am I missing?”

“We’ll keep looking. It has to be here somewhere. They wouldn’t make a challenge you couldn’t solve.”

Sebastian removed the thorn, and a bead of blood welled in my palm. I stared at it. A stain of red against pale skin. My brow knit together as an idea flashed in my mind. What if we were looking at the challenge the wrong way? What if it wasn’t about finding a red rose, but making one? Painting it red?

“Sebastian…I think I figured it out. We could search through this forest forever and never find a red rose. Because there isn’t one.” I held up my palm. “At least, not yet. It’s called the Bloodless Forest for a reason. We need more blood. Give me your dagger.”

“Whoa, hold on.” He held the dagger out of my reach. “Let’s think about this for a second. How much blood are we talking about?”

I flattened my lips. “I don’t know. As much as it takes. Within reason, of course. Let’s just try it.”

Holding his dagger over his head to keep me from snagging it, he approached the rose bushes. “I’ll try it. I have experience in this kind of thing. Remember the bonding spell?”

“That was the first time you’d ever done that, and you only cut your thumb.”

“It still counts,” he grumbled. “Which one should I try?”

I pointed to a rose in the middle of the bush. It was the largest one; petals still dewy from the morning rain. This had to work. We couldn’t keep searching the forest endlessly.

Sebastian positioned his hand over the flower. With a quick slice of the blade, he cut a deep line through his palm. Blood pooled instantly, and he closed his fist, twisting his wrist so the blood dripped onto the rose.

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