Page 88 of Joy Guardian

“And?“ I asked.

“It’s wet.” He winced. “And a bit acidy.”

“It’s sweet too. Do you not taste the sweet?”

“I do.”

“But you don’t find it enjoyable?”

“No. The taste doesn’t matter. Unless it’s spoiled or rotten.”

“Well, more for me then.” I put another segment in my mouth, enjoying the fragrant juice of the fruit.

Kurai watched me with his usual intensity, as if trying to taste the orange through me. Despite sharing each other’s emotions through his tendrils for weeks, we’d never had a meal during that time. Which meant Kurai had never truly enjoyed any food in his life.

“You never connected your tendrils to me in thesarai,” I remembered.

“No.” He glanced aside, spiking my curiosity.

“There was a reason for that, wasn’t there?” I insisted.

He only attached them to me once the other option became to let me die in the desert.

“I…Well, back then…” He inhaled deeply as if getting ready to jump off a cliff into the ocean or…to make a serious confession. “Back in thesarai, connecting to any human felt like a betrayal, a sin.”

“A sin against what?” I asked, then answered my own question. “Against your Joy back in the temple, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “For a Joy Guardian, the one true Joy is only inthe temple. For us, there can’t be any other. I vowed to worship and protect it. But lately…” He rested his gaze on me, his expression softened, as did his voice. “Lately, I’ve been filled with doubts.”

“Am I the reason for them?”

He smiled gently. “To me, you are the reason for everything, Ciana. Joy and sorrow both live inside you, sometimes at war, other times in harmony. And I wonder if that’s how it was always meant to be, that you arrived in our kingdom for a reason. Maybe your people were meant to shatter our world, the way you have shattered mine. And instead of embracing the humans and learning everything you have to teach us, we either just used you or pushed you away, unable to comprehend you fully and scared of you in our ignorance.”

He watched me put another segment of the orange in my mouth.

“What does sweet taste like to you?” he asked.

“Do you want me to describe it?”

“Please.”

“Oh…I don't know. Let me think… You know that soft pleasure I felt when you washed my hair or scrubbed the sand off my skin in the pool back at the temple?”

His features relaxed at the memory. A soft, dreamy expression settled over his face.

“How could I ever forget?”

“Well, it’s kind of similar. The pleasure is most definitely there in both. It’s not overly intense, but it’s…nice.”

“Is it the same when I kiss you?” he asked.

I halted my breath as he leaned closer, waiting for my answer.

“I…I don’t know.” I licked my lips, dying to taste his kiss again. “I don’t remember.”

“Would a reminder help?” He placed a soft kiss on my mouth, stealing my breath.

The last segment of the orange fell out of my fingers. I cupped the back of his neck, drawing him closer, and heinstantly deepened the kiss. My mind reeled. My body seemed weightless, floating in the world where there was nothing but me with him.

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