Page 32 of Tempt

Wonder hunts the vicinity, rifling through the wardrobe and bookcase. The cabinets and drawers yield nothing of consequence, just extra leaflets and castoff books. Because he doesn’t scribe notations, there’s nothing to memorize, no hint of his private intentions.

There isn’t a sign of the blooms, so she kneels before the saddlebag and pries it open.

And then she remembers the envelopes.

Wonder halts, her digits freezing. There they are, pressed together and yellowed with age, the parchment looking soft…and legible.

Here in the Peaks, she’ll be able to read the contents. And it’s wrong, so very wrong to intrude. But mustn’t she? They share a tumultuous past, and that past had consisted of letters just like these.

Just one peek. Her fingers shake as she lifts one of the envelopes and tugs on the flap. She swallows, withdraws the paper from inside, and unfolds it.

Immediately, Wonder wishes that she hadn’t.

At last, there’s no denying, no rebuttal, no chance. Her heart seizes as a flurry of words materialize…careless and stupid words. It’s penned in his handwriting, recognizable from the moments in which he’d vandalized her own notes just to spite her.

Yes, it’s his handwriting. But it’s not his prose.

It’s hers.

These are her words, from another century, from another place. These are the words she’d once written to that mortal boy…words she had written to Malice.

Because he’s that boy. That’s no longer a surprise.

The surprise is this: He remembers her.

In some way, he remembers her.

This explains why these missives resemble the ones from their history. He must have conjured them to look this way, fashioning them into replicas and then transcribing the contents by channeling his nightmares. It’s the only feasibility, seeing as the originals no longer exist, for Wonder knows what befell them.

The note in her hand is a clone of her dozenth letter. What about the first one she’d written? Might she find a facsimile in this pile?

Is this why he’s here? To unearth answers about his past life, however much of it he recalls?

Wonder resists the temptation to dig in and learn more. She tucks the paper into her bodice, then fumbles to place the empty envelope back in its slot. The saddlebag is split wide open, with her guilty palm suspended over his collection.

Unfortunately, a shadow materializes. It looms over Wonder, swallowing her whole.

“Hmm,” a voice creeps from behind. “Big mistake, Wildflower.”

8

Daytime starlight slashes through the window. Blue streaks give the room a compass effect, the beams of light and dark pointing like hands. She can’t tell whether her throat bobs from remorse, mortification, or a fragile emotion linked to the words in that letter.

If she turns, will she see him differently? Will she seehim? That dearest boy?

His silhouette puddles across the floor while foliage outside the window shivers, the fringed leaves chanting,Shhh. A youthful dragonfly has flitted into the dorms, landing on the desk and then zipping away.

Wonder twists, pretending to follow its trajectory. The insect zooms past Malice’s hip, and she focuses on the notch of his waist while bracing herself. Delaying any further will make her look weak and scarcely innocent.

Her eyes drag up his body, framed in the doorway. Malice idles on the threshold, his arms raised above his head, his fingers gripping the molding. This pushes him forward, angling him into a deep incline, a precarious and slippery slope.

This also places his attributes on display. The ridges of his biceps and the expanse of his torso, adding length and ripples to his form beneath the jeans and Henley. Destiny has converted him from a blushing mortal to a volatile troll outfitted in black, a dark specimen capped with the wrong color hair, those waves imbued as if he’s an angel.

When she meets his eyes, both incarnations stare back, so that her heart cracks.

It’s you. It’s really you.

But what’s happened to you? Why are you like this?

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