Page 66 of Touch

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The worst part is that Love feels their kiss. She senses the determination as Holly’s lips claim Andrew’s, the effect jabbing daggers into Love’s stomach. The embrace is one-sided at first, Andrew tensing in surprise.

But then…

Then he moves with caution, leaning and kissing her back. Although he remains idle, keeping distance between their bodies, Andrew relaxes his jaw as if permitting Holly to burrow in, his lips yielding to the motions. Indeed, his exhalation sounds resigned, haggard, bereft. At length, Andrew’s mouth opens fully, slanting with her own, the reciprocation visibly melting Holly like butter.

Madness crawls through Love, the calamity reaching her wings, the plumes begging for flight. She sinks her incisors into her trembling lower lip, sealing off the anguish so Andrew won’t hear her cry out. It takes several attempts, her bow lifting and dropping, lifting and dropping, lifting and dropping before she surrenders.

This is the perfect time to match them. But she can’t do it. Not yet.

Let them discover each other for real first.

Fluid stings her eyes, the novelty of tears threatening to scrape a path down her cheeks and make a weak immortal out of her. Summoning the meager willpower she has left, Love thrusts up her chin. She harnesses her archery and twists away, passingthrough mingling bodies, countless emotions swarming her like toxins from different areas of the soiree.

The farther she retreats, the quicker her pace becomes, until she’s running. Ripping open the front door, Love races across the lawn, then halts beside a group. She pretends to join them, chuckling along with whatever they’re saying, her mirth exaggerated because she has no idea what’s so uproarious, for she has arrived too late to hear the joke.

It’s no use. They cannot see her. She doesn’t belong.

Ripping her fingers through her hair, Love skitters backward, yearning to shoot something. Anything. She needs to match another couple, to remind herself why it’s important, to prove she can move on, that she’s capable.

Or if not, inciting a passionate feud between ill-suited lovers will at least amuse her, as such behavior once had.

Yet Love’s fingers fail to reach her arrows.

You’re fierce, clever, resourceful. You can do better than this. Youarebetter than this.

Andrew’s words stay her hand, everything he’s ever said playing in her mind and dredging up something new within her. Something like a conscience.

“Let me know when you’re done theatricizing,” a voice grits out.

Teeth bared, Love finally snatches an arrow, nocks her longbow, and wheels toward Anger. In the half-light, the rage god festers beside Love, with his tattooed arms crossed and the harsh planes of his scowl angled down at her.

“Don’t you have protests to break up and murders to prevent?” she fumes.

“Yes,” he bites out. “If I could disregard your self-destruction, I would. You must think you’ll be praised for delaying the inevitable and looking incompetent at best, traitorous at worst.” Appalled, he gestures toward the revels.“Corrupt as well. Attempting to shoot mortals without tact, purely for your own pent-up release. Clearly, our Guides have misjudged your training.”

“I was not going to shoot anyone,” she says, her voice cracking like dried wood. “I… couldn’t.”

Her anguish must be palpable, because Anger’s severe features twitch reflexively. Yet the moment is fleeting, his expression darkening as he absorbs the hidden implication in her words, a corrosive noise vacating his lungs. “Fate’s almighty, Love. Your irrational attachment to this man is wilting your sense. To say little of your strength.”

“This is almost over. Andrew and his mate are currently entwined. With any luck, they’ll be fucking by midnight.”

“Bravo,” the god mocks. “Except that was not your doing, was it?”

Love glowers down the length of her arrow. “Spying again? How dare you! That kiss should have been private for them!”

“I trust you’re cognizant of your own hypocrisy.”

“They’re my match. I had no choice but to observe. And I left when—”

“Unlike you, I deny nothing,” Anger hisses, his wrath building. “Yet even if I had been absent, I hardly need to sleuth any longer, for your errors in judgment are smeared all over you. At your request, I defied celestial law by taming those other two mortals. Tonight, the lovers were ready, and still your bowstring went slack. There’s a word for this negligence. It’s called ‘deadly’!”

“Anger—”

“Donotfucking say my name! Just curb your insatiable appetite for the human and finish this!”

“Let go of me,” Love seethes.

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