Page 43 of The Witch's Spell
“Thank you,” I say, turning and reaching for it.
But he’s wearing a playful smirk, and he lifts it just out of my reach.
“Thorne,” I warn, arms crossing as a smile tugs on my mouth. “Give it to me.”
“So hasty,” he says while setting his cane aside and leaning back against one of the heavy wooden shelves, draping himself along it with inhuman grace. “I’m just curious, is all.”
His lithe fingers begin to flip through the pages. The parchment ruffles in the quiet library, sending up the peaceful scent of ink and paper. His eyes track the pages smoothly, and then he stops, finger tracing the text.
“Oh,” he says, brows rising. “So, this is the type of story you like to read.”
I reach for the book again, but he lifts it easily away, evading me like I’m a wobbly kitten.
“Under the flickering torchlight in the castle’s courtyard,” he says, starting to read, “the sounds of the rambunctious feast inside fade into the stillness of the night. He stands before her, his hand trembling as it brushes against the curve of her cheek, as though the touch might shatter the fragile beauty of their secret.”
Beneath my breast, my heart beats just a tad faster. Thorne doesn’t look away from the page, continuing to read. Hisvoice is soft, lilting, almost like he’s singing rather than speaking.
“Their eyes lock, and with heart racing, he leans toward her. Tenderly, with a gentleness like a spring rain falling over the land, he kisses her—slowly, sweetly, as though the world outside their secret moment ceases to exist.”
When his eyes leave the page and find mine instead, heat creeps into my cheeks. His stare is so focused and unyielding that it sends a tingle through me, one that starts at the top of my head and ends at the base of my spine.
I’m the one to break our stare, but only to look at his mouth, which forms such beautiful sounds when he speaks. My gaze drifts lower. The vest he wears dips slightly in the center, revealing a small swath of his pale, almost silvery skin. I’m drawn to that glimpse of skin, pulled toward him by something beyond my own perception.
Thorne remains silent as I close the distance between us. But when I lift my hand and allow my fingers to graze the depression at the base of his throat, he draws a breath. My eyes meet his.
“Can I see it again?” I whisper, feeling that I’m about to ask something forbidden. “Your true face.”
I want to see him for who and what he really is, not this humanized version he wears to move through our world. I want to see the dazzling creature hiding just beneath this pretty illusion.
He doesn’t move, doesn’t so much as blink as the glamour falls away. It feels like a trick of the light as his ears lengthen into points and his facial structure becomes sharper, more defined. That subtle shimmer returns to his skin, like he’s arainbow or a mirage in the distance, a specter I may chase but never catch. And yet he’s still here, still firm beneath my fingers where they remain pressed to his skin.
And when I rise onto my toes and dare bring my lips to his, they’re warm and soft and real, not a figment of my imagination. But they’re also still. He’s not kissing me back.
After a brief moment, I pull away, looking into his crystalline eyes for some sign that he feels this too, that he wants to taste me as badly as I want to taste him. His gaze is focused and glittering. But he doesn’t kiss me again.
Perhaps I’ve made a mistake. I don’t know fairy customs, don’t know what social etiquette they deem appropriate for courting. Maybe I’ve made a fool of myself or have greatly offended him.
I start to pull away, embarrassment burning in my cheeks.
The book falls from Thorne’s hands, landing with a soft thump upon the floor beside our feet. Then his palms come around to cradle either side of my face, and his long form hunches over me so that his mouth can find mine once more as he tugs me close.
The kiss starts slowly. It feels like the first step onto an untrod path, the dawning of a journey with a destination still unknown. His mouth is delicate, his fingers gentle, like I’m a woman made of priceless stained glass.
He tastes of cold air and the sweetness of starlight, with a touch of mint from our tea still lingering on his lips. As his hands release my face and tangle in my hair, I step closer to him, letting my fingers drift up his vest. When I take hold of the first button, he pauses, pale eyes finding mine. I free the button from its loop. Beneath my hands, his chest rises andfalls rapidly. He doesn’t pull away, doesn’t tell me to stop. So I free the second button.
Then his mouth is on mine again.
His kiss is still delicate, but there’s more desire behind it now. He presses his lips to mine, then to either side of my mouth. As I breathe hard, the sound loud in the quiet library, he places a line of kisses across my jaw and toward my ear.
“I don’t understand,” he says, voice breathy. His fingers are still in my hair. He uses them to push the strands from my eyes, cradling my head tenderly.
“Understand what?”
“The others... Are you not involved with them?”
Oh.
Oh.
