Page 116 of These Divided Shores
I want.Since that moment on the Schilly-Leto waterfall,when Vex had revealed his fear of heights. Knowing something so vulnerable about him—he could never be a threat. That depressing revelation had freed her to see him in a new, soft light.I want.Every act of bravery to protect her or Teo, even when she knew he was terrified.I want.His arms open to her in the Port Camden prison, his solidity and defiance and loyalty.
Vex was gentle and safe and she hadn’t wanted to be so close to anyone since her body had felt violated and not her own, and she hadn’t been able to endure the thought of someone else touching it when she barely felt like she had any right to it herself.
Again, she saw Teo, bound to a chair, Elazar and Tom standing over him—
Her breath fled. She was far from healed herself. She still wasn’t certain how to go about every day with memories that were always on the edge of undoing her. But something about healingVex, inside, outside, in every way, seemed so much more possible.
“You,” Lu finished. “I want you.”
Vex gaped at her in innocent wonder as she lifted both her hands to his face. His skin was slick from humidity and exertion. Closer, the scent of him intensified, cinnamon soap and bonfire from standing near Gunnar. She slid her thumbs under the straps of his eye patch and pulled it up, off, casting it to the floor next to the vial.
She put her hands on either side of his head and pulledhim down to her, pressing her lips there, and there, covering his mutilated eye with unspoken promises: that even though she was unworthy of him, of the desire that rose through her belly and heated her chest, she wanted him to have it. That even though the war was far from over, they were here.
Vex breathed against her and hooked his fingers around her wrists. She felt one small tremor in his right arm, the beat of his pulse in his fingertips.
Lu paused, lips over his scar. Had she done wrong? Maybe this had been too much—
Vex dragged his head up, up, to brush his lips against hers.
It was hesitant. Lu’s mind fogged and details came to her in waves—the softness of his lips as they parted on hers, the contrasting roughness of his tongue against the inside of her mouth, the gentle twitch of his thumb on her arm.
She returned his kiss with a surge of pressure, and a wall fell. Vex grabbed her waist and released a deep, velvety mewl that opened a space in Lu’s heart, had her reeling.
Rising drumbeats outside overlaid distant singing voices. The firepit in the hut hissed with dying coals, and as the last of the embers faded from orange to black, Lu and Vex fell to the floor, two broken things wordlessly making themselves whole.
26
VEX HAD NOidea what time it was. The sky through the cracked window was a hazy gray, so it must be early? Late? Were the funeral mourners still gathered? Their drumbeats had faded a bit ago.
Honestly, he didn’t care if the sanctuary had up and emptied.
Lu stirred against him. Vex shifted with her, curling his body tighter, closer. She settled, and the even cadence of her breathing kept him calm by extension, her arms slumped over the thick quilt they’d found in the corner. It was scratchy and stiff but better than nothing, and right then, Vex wouldn’t have moved if the blanket had been made of burrs and thorns.
He couldn’t remember Lu ever being this calm. The tension in her shoulders was gone and her brow was smooth. He tightened his arm across her waist, that shift of skinagainst skin spinning him back to the feel of her lips on his face, the smoothness of her bare back, and the way she’d tasted, honeyed and perfect.
Vex didn’t deserve her. He didn’t deserve this stillness, when out beyond these walls, the whole of the island hated them. Teo was god knew where. Kari and the raider Heads would be preparing to confront Elazar. If the confrontation was another battle, would Elazar hold Teo in the middle of it, gun to his head, demanding surrender? If it was an attempt at peace talks, Vex could see his uncle’s cruel smile. Elazar would have no peace, especially if he had Lu’s vial of permanent magic by now. Or, worse—could Teo have magic in him, like Lu had said?
Did Kari think they could defeat Elazar without giving up Lu, or this island, or both? Vex could tell her she was wrong. But who the hell was he to tell a renowned war veteran how a battle would go? And when she asked him the inevitable question—“What should we do?”—he’d just shuffle his feet and slump away.
Lu made a soft hum in her sleep.
What should we do?The question splintered in Vex’s mind.What canIdo?
Vex closed his eye and buried his face in Lu’s hair. It’d fallen out of the knot she kept it in, the black curls spilling across the mat they lay on. Silky strands rubbed his face, the area usually covered by an eye patch.
He kept waiting for that gut-punching urge to put itback on, but every time he thought about it, he felt her lips on the scar.
Face buried in her curls, Vex inhaled.Sunlight. Wood smoke. Salt. The wind that comes from the sea and slams into the air trapped in the jungle trees.
A glint of rising sunlight caught something on the ground next to them. The vial of Drooping Fern Lu had made, the cure for him. The last cure for him, maybe. After it, he would be whole again. But who would be whole? Paxben Gallego or Devereux Bell?
Vex reached for the vial. Lu startled and gave him a bleary, questioning look.
“Sorry—I didn’t mean to wake you.” He grabbed the vial and tucked his hand back under the blanket, around her waist. “Go to sleep.”
Lu closed her hand over his fist and the vial of Drooping Fern. “You haven’t taken it?”
He smiled into her neck. “Haven’t had a whole lot of time since you gave it to me.”
