Page 90 of Grim and Oro
Not only do I not tell her ... I allow us both tocontinuewith the plan. When Isla tells me she doesn’t have training today, that her guardians are visiting a nearby village, and she suggests we find what I need for my part of our plantogether... I agree.
That’s how we end up in the middle of a Starling market, looking for sparks to distract the dragon.
Isla pulls me forward by the hand as she expertly weaves through the stalls. Some sell swords. Others burnt sugar. A few sell tiny orbs of energy, barely more than party tricks. No, we’ll need something much stronger.
“You’ve been here before,” I say, and Isla turns around. Something curious flashes through her emotions—guilt?—but it’s gone in a moment. She nods. “It’s one of my favorite places.”
I can’t imagine why, but I try. The silver gleam I remember from the Starlings on Lightlark is muted here. Diluted. Wasted away.
I’m struck by howyoungeveryone is. Their curse was the cruelest of all. Every single one of them, under a quarter century old.
For a moment, I feel a shred of guilt. Perhaps we should have helped, over the centuries ... I look around, frowning at the state of their newland. Broken buildings. Faded fabrics. The result of a world without experience.
I expect everyone to be afraid. Every single person here is just a few years away from their certain death ...
But all I feel is lightness. Happiness. As if the surety of their fate has made them all determined to enjoy the few days they have.
It reminds me of Isla.
She lives every single day to its brim. She feels fully. She fights fiercely. Her soul is a shining, unrelenting summer.
I have been stuck in darkness for so much of my life. I have spent centuries trapped in winter. She is a hand, pulling me out of it, into a new season. Into an infinite summer.
Just as she is pulling me now, through the market.
And I—I can’t help it.
I slow down. She turns, frowning in confusion, opens her mouth—
And gasps into mine as I press her into a wall. I’ve portaled us to an abandoned part of the shops, far away from wandering eyes.
The moment my lips crash against hers, she groans, and our feelings are like paint, melting together. Making a new color.
“I thought—I thought we needed the sparks, for the dragon, for the distraction,” she says, pulling back. She’s breathing so quickly, chest meeting mine.
“The sparks can wait,” I say, and then I kiss her again.
The world can wait.
The world can stop turning if it wants to, it can fucking end, and nothing would rip me from her arms as her hands lock behind my head and she pulls me down harder against her lips.
My tongue strokes hers, flicking, and her hands fist in my hair, pulling, sending sparks raking down my spine. My own hands slowly trace down her sides, until they settle on her waist. She doesn’t like that. Her hands are on mine, pulling them down to grip her ass, and I laugh darkly against her mouth.
Then, I curl my hands beneath her, haul her up the wall, to my height, and kiss her properly.
I kiss her like I’m starving, like I’m ravenous, like I’m dying, and she’s the only cure. Because that’s how it feels. She tastesso good. I can’t get enough. I kiss her until her lips are swollen and red, and only then do I shift my focus down her jaw.
She laughs as I reach her neck. Her voice is breathy. “For someone who doesn’t like to kiss, you do it a lot.”
“I like to kissyou,” I say against her pulse. I scrape my teeth against her throat and feel her shiver beneath me. Feel her heart race.
You.
Only you.
My hands pull her hips against mine, and I feel the flash of pleasure. Feel her arms wrap around my neck as she moves herself against me, as she gasps into my ear.
“Grim,” she says, and it’s almost my undoing. The word is pleading. She wants me here, in this alley. She wants me here, against this wall.
