Page 23 of Fire Kissed
“I know that you’re different,” he says quietly after some time. “I’ve never felt the things you make me feel.”
“So you assume it’s magic?”
His laughter chimes out loud and clear into the night, sending shivers of addiction all through my body.
Maybe what we have is magic...
“Your mother left the gods. She met a hybrid elf.” Aric’s sigh is long and unending, and I hang on his every unspoken word. “She met the wrong elf though.”
“That’s enough,” Torben growls.
“The King?” I ask, slowly piecing it all together little by little.
Aric just nods without a word.
“What happened?” I can’t take my eyes off of him as he dwells on his response, careful not to bring out Torben’s anger in the first hour of his release from his little museum prison.
“The King loved her. Some say she made him love her. Hela says it all the time. Love magic, the most pathetic magic of all as she would spew.”
I shake my head at that, sobering at the idea that the emotions I make people feel is just magic.
“It’s not magic.”
He stops in his tracks, his boots slopping hard in the mud.
“Prove it,” Aric stands before me, waiting to be transformed into some beautiful, lovesick puppy.
“There’s nothing to prove.” I lift my shoulders at him with a half shrug, but at the back of my mind, I can’t help but remember every time I made someone feel better with the magic I didn’t understand inside of me. I remember the kiss the shiest boy in school gave Bea on my last day in the Dark Moon Pack...
I—I don’t want to believe that those feel-good moments aren’t real. I definitely don’t want to believe that what I have with Aric isn’t real...
Torben grunts at the two of us, and Aric slowly lowers his gaze from me and turns to follow after our ruthless guide. I just refuse to let it go though.
I can’t.
My hand catches his, and with all my might, I send out the shivering magic that I’ve given away time and time again. It expels in a lame half power that’s stunted within this realm. But the way my dragon shifter’s big eyes widen tells me he feels that magnetic magic that I never understood.
I don’t believe those who feel it understand it either.
Maybe that’s what my magic and true love have in common: Both are undeniable enigmas.
My hand drops from his, and just as quickly as I sent that rush of power out, I take it away, leaving him with confusion weighing his brow.
It’s then that I kiss him. I push my hands through his hair and pull him against me hard, slamming my lips to his to taste every part of my beautiful, tormented lover. Needy hands grip my hips hard before sliding even lower to press me firmly against him as he deepens the kiss with a swirl of his tongue. It’s a consuming moment. I’m lost in him, and every single terrible part of this realm no longer exists.
It’s just us.
Even as I pull away and look up at those fiery russet eyes. They’re hooded as he stares down on me with a lost look of love.
“That’s the difference,” I explain with my words whispering against his parted mouth. A smile pulls there, and he nods.
“I see,” he says, still leaning into me as if he might dive right back in.
“We’re running out of time, if you two could wrap it up,” Torben barks, and neither one of us looks his way.
My fingers stroke against the hard lines of Aric’s jaw. His lips press over mine once more, and I nearly give in to that building desire he gives me with every teasing feel of his lips.
“Latham’s twelve stories up.”
