Rowan stares at me like I’m a poem, a wonder, a story. He puts a tentative hand on my waist. I shift toward him. Then his gaze lowers to my thighs, still marked by when he clawed me. “Leta,” he says, stricken. “Leta, I’m sorry.”
I take his hands, push back his sleeves, and kiss every mended cut on his arms. I unlace his shirt and gather the fabric into my fists, pulling until it untucks. He sits very still, letting me lift his shirt slowly over his head. His skin is warm, patterned with scars. It’s so strange and precious to see him like this, bared and flushed and mine.
I slide my hands over his chest. His breath catches. He knots his fingers through my curls and pulls me gently toward him. Our faces are so close that when I speak, my words cast across his mouth. “Rowan, I love you.” He makes a wretched, helpless noise and shoves me back against the tangled quilts. All breath is gone from my lungs in a single, sudden gasp. He pulls sharply on my hair and crushes his mouth against mine
His kiss is like fire. It burns through me until I am razed clear. There’s none of the hesitation of when I kissed him that first time. This is rough, a mess of feverish heat. Magic sparks from my fingers. Desire spirals through me, coiling tight at my center where it becomes a persistent ache. I gasp and he kisses away the sound. He tastes of blood and silt and shadows.
His hands are all over me, tight against my waist, tangled in my hair. His teeth are at my throat. He bites down—softly, then less so. I dig my fingers into his shoulder, drag him closer. I want the space between us to become invisible. I kiss him, tracing a path down the line of his jaw to the side of his throat. I kiss his bruises and his scars. His heartbeat is a captured moth. His skin is honey and poison.
When I touch him, I feel the shift and shiver of darkness beneath his skin. Threads of black vein his neck, his chest, his arms. I don’t know if I’m kissing the boy or the monster or both, and I don’t much care.
He catches hold of my hips and lifts me against him. I put my hands over his and our fingers, together, press into my skin. He smothers my breathless moan with another endless kiss. Then he bends to the scars on my knees, kissing them tenderly as he strokes the fresh cuts on my thighs. He pauses and looks at me, a question in the heat of his gaze. A heartbeat passes before he asks quietly, “Can I touch you?”
A fervent shiver runs through me, right down to my toes. I bite my lip and breathe out, “Yes.”
He slides his hands higher and higher still. Heat burns across my skin, lingering long after his touch passes. He’s above me; I kiss the shadowed curve of his neck. He traces the edge of my undergarments, following the pattern of the lace. Then his fingertips graze over me.
“Oh—” It’s a shock, at once bright hot and feather gentle. It feels like I’ve shared a secret. I’ve let him into these hidden corners of myself, where so far only my hands have been. Magic dances through my veins, and light glints across my palms. All my words are gone. I press my thighs together around his hand, dissolving into a warmth that spreads through my entire body. At my wrist, the sigil aches with power, and the tether strung between us begins to glow, turning to a bright golden thread.
I reach for him and hook my fingers into the waistband of his trousers. Then I stop and hold back, waiting. He looks at me, then to my hands. His eyes sink closed. He nods, once. There are so many buttons, and it takes me a long time to unfasten them. He rocks against me, impatient, and groans, “Leta.”
I laugh at him teasingly. I slide my hand lower and lower. His breath hitches as I finally touch him.
We lie facing each other, our legs tangled. At first we’re both clumsy and unsure, all caught breath and tentative, searching touches. But it’s still so right, so perfect. We soften into a steady rhythm. His hands on me, mine on him, the heavy cadence of our shared breath. Being close to each other like this is such a fragile, tender magic; its own kind of alchemy.
All that’s ahead is a blank unknown. On the full moon, I’ll go to the lake with the terrible, wonderful power granted to me. But for now, in this stolen moment, I try to forget. Forget the ruined ground and the ink-dark lake. The poison that waits to claim us all.
Now I am only little gasps, liquid fire. Melted candles. Sap dripped from a pale-trunked tree. I’m thorn and lichen, lace over stone. I’m an orphan with scars on her knees. A faerie creature in a gossamer dress. I am light and heat and power and magic.
Rowan circles his hand around my wrist. His thumb finds the raised edges of the sigil. He presses down against it. The world turns golden bright.