Page 56 of Tempt

He pushes her away. The force of it sends her careening, stumbling until a bookshelf across the aisle catches her, breaking her fall.

“What did you say?” he asks through bared teeth.

Wonder straightens. She clamps a hand over her mouth, wanting to take it back, but she cannot. The sight of his wounded expression causes her palm to leave her lips. “I…I…didn’t…”

But she did. She’d recited from the letter she’d taken from him, the letter she’d written to him, back when he was somebody else.

Dearest Wayward Star

That’s what she had called him.

Is that whom she’d been kissing? Malice, or his ghost?

Raking his hands through his sodden hair, Malice glowers at her like she’s a stranger, or like he’s been waiting for this. He stalks up to Wonder, and he plants his hands on either side of her, bracketing her in. “Who are you?”

Wonder blinks. “What do you mean?”

“Who. Are. You?” he fumes. “From the moment I met you, you’ve looked at me like I haunt you, you’ve checked on me during my nightmares. In the library vault, you glanced at every object like you recognized it. The rocking chair, the telescope, the crate of envelopes. And here, you stole the letter from my saddlebag—”

“You knew?”

“Do I look like a moron? I let you get away with it because from the beginning, something was off. You’re too invested, too concerned, and way too shitty at faking it. You came into my room the other night to fight another nightmare that isn’t even yours, and it’s not because it was ruining your goddamn sleep.

“Why do you care? Why do you look at me like you care? Why do I pass out every night only to end up suffocated by flashes of countryside, of old letters, of a dilapidated library in some backwater town that I’ve never seen before? Why am I dreaming about envelopes crowding my saddlebag, and my arms bound in straps, and a cell with bars? Why, why, why?”

The straps. He’d looked so traumatized in the Chamber, when she’d pointed out the ancient journals. The texts had been wound in thongs. The sight must have triggered a recollection, a mortal memory of being incapacitated.

He’d had a nightmare on that same evening.

“Why are the visions always the same?” he snarls. “Why do they feel like more than just a vision? You want to know why the fuck I’m here? That’s why I’m here. Because from the moment I was born, half of me has felt immortal, the other half not. I’ve had these nightmares since I was a little shit trying to nock a wooden bow. Why did I choose hickory wood? What dumb-shit deity chooses wood? Why do I remember smells and sounds and tastes that I’ve never known? Why doesn’t my past feel like my actual past?”

He glares at her. “And why do I get the feeling you know something about it? Why else have you acted in a million bizarre ways since you first saw me? That’s why I brought you here with me. So I’m going to ask you again, and again, and again: What do you know? Who are you?”

Wonder fumbles for a response. Malice bashes his palms against the books shelved on either side of her head, demanding that she answer him. With a gruff sound of surrender, his face sinks against hers, his eyelids clenching shut.

“For Christ’s sake,” he pleads. “Don’t make me beg.”

A guilty cry escapes her. The rims of her eyes glisten from that lovely kiss and the desolation in his tone.

What can she say? What must she conceal?

What does he deserve? What does she owe him?

Nothing. Everything.

“All right,” she says.

His body relaxes, and he nods. But when he pulls back, his glower is a fixed point before he stalks to the quiver, the span of his buttocks on full display, along with the wisps of hair down his calves. Fishing out his pants, he wrests the material up his limbs, not bothering to fasten them. They slump low on his waist, leaving his torso bare as he retraces his steps.

At least she doesn’t have to do this while he’s completely stripped. But where he’s discarded his boots is anyone’s guess.

Malice slides to the ground, reclining against the opposite bookcase. Steepling his legs, with his toes peeking from the pant hems, he pats the ground.

She’s not fooled by the invitation. It’s hardly a friendly gesture. From her end of the aisle, she matches his pose, lowering herself to the carpet, her soles scratching the fibers as they face one another across the lane. Her snafu has leached whatever affection he’d begun to feel, the passion of their kiss forgotten.

He waits, and he waits, and he waits. “Tell me,” he says.

Wonder inhales. And then she tells him.

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