Page 82 of Tempt

He stops, the plates of his shoulders fixing in place as if her words have nailed him that way. He’s partially clothed, his feet unshod, his chest uncovered, and his jeans slumping across his waist.

Like her, Malice carries his weapons, the hickory bow and quiver knocking against his spine. Had he collected the archery from his room for the same purpose? To target or hinder her? To catch her attention, as if he’s never done so before?

All she knows is that it works on both accounts. Because at the same instant he whips around, his arrow nocked and fixed on her, she’s got him in her line of sight, the quartz arrowhead aimed at his heart.

They stare at one another, her grip shaking as visibly as his.

According to the legend, if he remembers, that means he’s restored his heart. Doesn’t it?

So why does it feel like everything and nothing has changed?

They lower their weapons. When Wonder opens her mouth, Malice’s wiry lips compress. Harnessing his archery, he turns and continues striding away, retreating under the starlit lanterns.

“Malice, no,” Wonder says, her voice cracking as she pitches aside her bow. “No, wait, please. Please, don’t go!”

He stills, his muscles strained. She sweeps up to him, startled to find his eyes clenched shut. Surging to her toes, she flings her arms around him, because if she cannot reply to his inquiry, she can at least show him that the answer matters just as much to her.

Malice flinches when her mouth crushes against his—and then he grabs her, his palms seizing the back of her skull as their lips fuse. On a hoarse groan, his tongue strokes against hers, and Wonder keens into his mouth. She pulls on the gilded waves as he kisses madly into her, and she into him.

But before she can fully ride the kiss, basking in the tart curl of his tongue, Malice veers back. He swallows, hissing against her mouth, “Now stand aside, Wildflower. Before I say something I’ll regret.”

“Why not say my name instead?” she asks. “Have you ever done so?”

Once, he had. Once, in the midst of ecstasy, right in this spot.

Not before, nor since. Yet he isn’t the only one who’d like to be known for who he is.

Malice’s ashen irises slice through her with grief. His talons graze her cheeks, then he lets her go, his touch falling away.

Wonder is about to protest when she notes the direction of his gaze over her shoulder. She spins, her head cocking sideways. She hasn’t revisited this particular aisle since they first surrendered to their mutual craving, not since the first time they made love.

Books had fallen from the shelves during their union. True to his word, Malice had tidied the area afterward, piling the evidence back into the cases. However, he must have restocked them out of order, because one book is glowing—not that texts ever do that to indicate disarray or disorganization.

Their impulsive night together had dislodged something. Evidently, they’d overlooked this during the aftermath.

Wonder and Malice swap a look, then step closer to the volume, its spine flickering like a rosemary-hued constellation. She presses her fingers to the book, which causes another title to flare green.

Frowning, Malice repeats the action with the next book, invoking yet another volume to blaze from across the aisle. Wonder’s pulse escalates as she recollects previous incidents when she’d experienced such spectacles, in which winks of light had animated a path of books.

Twice, in human libraries. Never here.

She had deemed those events optical illusions. And maybe they had been.

But not this one.

“It’s a trail,” she says.

They rush from text to text. Throughout the restricted section, each spine ignites a partner the moment either Malice or Wonder makes contact. Although these random titles fail to make sense as a unity, the result is a route leading to…where?

At a shelf carved into the wall, they reach the final tome. Wonder grasps it, and beside her, Malice stalls.

Footsteps stampede in their direction.

Malice’s gaze traces the sound, then lands on her. “It’s not a trail.”

No, Wonder realizes. No, it’s not a trail.

It’s a trap.

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