Page 126 of Summoned
I hold my breath. “And now? Would you still go after her?”
“Now I’ll use every bit of magic I have to keep us hidden.”
The roughness in his voice sends a shiver down my spine. Yet, the fact that he’s talking about us makes my heart flip. What would it be like to face life’s darkness with a partner. Someone to support you, to hold your hand when everything falls apart? I don’t want to imagine it now, not when our future feels so uncertain…but how could I stop myself when he’s lying right next to me?
Silence stretches between us. I stare at the shadows, trying to see the faces of people I know within them. People I would sacrifice to save Gaetano. Invisible spiders crawl down my spine. “Have you ever thought…about saving them?”
He doesn’t need to ask who I mean. They’re all everywhere,like a mist wrapping us in its grip. “In the beginning, yes. Later, no.”
“Is there a way?”
His fingers brush against mine. “Magic is vast… but I’m not sure. Even if I could bring them back, some of those souls were taken centuries ago. I don’t know what would be left of them.”
“It’s still possible?” I press, hoping for a positive answer.
“Sorry, Nicole. Not likely.”
I wish I could say this shatters my resolve, makes me question my feelings, or awakens my conscience.
I doesn’t. All it brings are memories and images. The girls who pushed me to the ground… Against Gaetano, who helps me back to my feet. My father, who manipulated me into chasing foreign dreams and abandoning my passions… Against Gaetano, who reignites my art. My so-called friends, who cling to me for my social status even though they despise me… Against Gaetano, who burns that status down and offers me something steadier. A society that forces me to wear a mask… Against Gaetano, who takes it off and likes what he sees beneath it.
People have been bullying me all my life. I don’t owe them anything.
“Tonight is the annual Mocha event,” I say. “They hold it every year. There’ll be plenty of nouveau riche idiots there. Maybe I could whisper the tale about the Black Joker—”
“Nicole.” My name escapes his lips like a warning.
I don’t flinch. “I’ve made up my mind. If we don’t do it my way, I’ll fail the last trial… and you’ll be forced to take my soul.”
He shifts, just enough for the mattress to creak under his weight. My pulse hammers against the silence. “Are you blackmailing me?” His voice sends a chill down my spine.The air crackles with tension.
I don’t back down. “Yes.”
In one swift motion, he rolls and braces himself above me, sliding between my thighs with a kind of unspoken urgency. He pins my wrists above my head, and his eyes lock onto mine. In those dark irises, there’s as much threat as there is… reverence. My stomach flutters.
His mouth crashes into mine with hunger. My hands stay trapped while his kisses trail from my neck to my collarbone. Every touch brands me on the outside and burns deeper within.
He strips off my clothes and fills me with raw, aching need. My lips part in a soundless moan as my back arches, everything inside me unraveling.
His voice comes rough against my ear. “This is dangerous, Nicole…”
“I realize that.” My breath hitches.
“People will get hurt.”
“Someone always does.”
He growls something half-formed, then bites gently at the base of my throat. “You’ll be playing with dark magic.”
“Am I not already?”
Gaetano stills inside me for a beat, as though rooted in place by the weight of my words. Then he starts to move, his voice rough. “You’ll be risking your soul. If we fail, we both lose.”
“I know,” I whisper, clutching him closer. “But I don’t want to losethis.”
A ragged breath escapes him, and then kisses me, every doubt evaporating in a heartbeat.
We come together as if it’s the only thing keeping the darkness at bay.
