Page 54 of Touch

Love’s mouth falls open. That invasive feeling—that something provocative and all-consuming—couldn’t have been love. No deity feels that.

“I used to sneak away to be near him,” Wonder reminisces. “He had no idea I existed, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to be assigned somewhere far from the human, so I searched The Archives for a way to change that. I was so desperate that I hastened to The Hollow Chamber and found that scroll about undoing immortality. I thought, although he can’t see me, he can still read messages from me. For months, I wrote letters and stashed them in his home.” Bemusement etches through Wonder’s countenance. “I remember pomegranate trees in the front garden.”

Thunderstruck, Love gapes. “You attempted to change destiny.”

“In The Dark Fates, I used to listen to you speculate about human affection,” Wonder confesses. “I wanted to ask you more, but I didn’t dare. I thought perhaps what I was feeling could be close to love. The letters were my attempt to find out, to court this human and bring us together.

“Yet all it did was scare and torment him. He believed he was losing his mind, and in my shame, I feared for his wellbeing. I tried to run away from The Dark Fates, to hide somewhere and watch over him, to make certain he recovered, but he was committed to an asylum. That’s when The Court found me. I managed to keep my Archive reconnaissance to myself, but I’d done plenty already to deserve my punishment.”

Wonder doesn’t lose her grin, but her eyes water. “When my hands were cut open, I pictured that man confined because of me. I failed to protect him, and I didn’t have the chance to free him or myself like you do.”

Well played. So the solution to Love’s predicament is also a remedy to soothe Wonder’s own regrets.

“I’m sorry,” Love whispers. “I’m sorry for what happened to you both. But what you’re saying isn’t going to work on me. This isn’t merely about what I asked Anger to do. I want to know if all our actions are just. Please.”

“I wish I knew,” Wonder replies, rubbing her arms, shielding herself. “People rely on destiny as a comfort—a means to keep their hopes alive. It’s ironic, is it not? I make people wide-eyed and starry-eyed, but by forcing them to admire things in a way they hadn’t cared about before.”

“Stealing people’s free will,” Love quotes Andrew.

She’s never had a problem with this, never thought about emotions being fabricated or about stealing mortals’ choices from them, never considered it to be wrong, because her powers are a Stars-granted right. According to one human, Love knows very little and shall never know enough.

Humans may court sloppily, but they do it profoundly. It leaves their souls bruised, yet they’re willing to experience it again and again, in new ways—searching, suffering, savoring. There must be something to that gritty, unruly pursuit that makes it worth it. Perhaps it has to do with all that profound touching.

Love readjusts her quiver. When she’s done, Wonder is gone.

If I don’t accomplish what I’m supposed to, Andrew will die.

Because he’s killing us. I’ll be dead first. I’m dying right now. I keep forgetting. Silly me, I keep forgetting.

Sneaking to the back of the house, she finds the deck entrance locked. However, the kitchen window is unbolted, likely an oversight. She hoists up the sash and hunkers inside. Upstairs, Ulrik sleeps fitfully, muttering a woman’s name from within the cave of his room, the heels of his bare feet punishing the sheets. Love tastes his grief and rushes out the door.

She skulks into Andrew’s suite. It’s mystical at night, as blue and silver as winter, with ceiling beams cutting shadows across the rug. As cedarwood and eucalyptus waft from the sheets, Love drinks in the heady scent.

His bed. And him.

Like the mortal, Psyche, he’s sprawled across the mattress, with his chest bare, a slab of muscles rising and falling. Beautiful and desirable to all, he’s a human who sees past the veil and perceives Eros for whom the deity truly is. Perhaps in some ways, mortals can predict the future. For while this tale was never the reality, now it feels as if those stories are slowly becoming the new truth.

While watching Andrew’s torso contract, a multitude of sensations wash through Love. Ardor, longing, remorse. And when he rolls to the side, her throat tightens, and her handextends to caress him, passing through his body like water. Tilting her head, Love gently skims one finger down the ledge of his profile, slides along his cheekbone, and ventures toward his mouth.

If things were different, and if Love could truly make contact, she would become attuned to Andrew’s body. Putting her mind to it, she’d familiarize herself with every smooth ridge.

Indeed, Andrew would match her fervor. He would touch her the same way he’d fuck her, and he would fuck her the same way he’d love her, without reservations or limitations. He would make her come deeply, thoroughly. This human would penetrate Love in every way, in every place, in every tempo. And she would savor it all. Ultimately, she would know him from top to bottom, from beginning to end.

Touching this man would be the death—and life—of her.

This isn’t why she came here. Yet Eros hadn’t planned to fall under Psyche’s spell either, when he snuck into her room after dark.

Psyche. Meaning “Soul” in Greek.

A soulmate.

When Andrew exhales, the masculine sound low and gritty, Love halts. Her digit pauses at the margin of his lips. Swallowing, she abandons his mouth and hovers her fingers above his heart. It would be easy to sweep her hand through, to see if it changed the beat of his pulse.

Instead, Love balls her digits into a fist, allowing herself no more than this greedy, scandalous intrusion. Anything else requires waking him up.

To console herself, Love watches him for hours. She wants to be the sheets that cover his body. She wants to be the ceiling separating him from the sky—hovering above him, the first thing he sees before and after dreams. She wants to be the open window letting in the light and dark for him.

Finally, she remembers her original reason for trespassing. From her coat pocket, Love retrieves his note.

---