Page 1 of Enchanted Kisses
PROLOGUE
Caiden’s Removal
Three months ago
Lily had been acting quite strange all week. Perhaps longer. All month. Staring in ways that excited me, which was why I had to leave. Today.
I should have left months ago, but I had to be sure, and now I was. I could see it in her warm eyes—hazel wreaths of green and brown that reminded me of the forest surrounding the manor in the Realm of Life. The place of my youth, soon to be my home again. Both things she knew nothing about.
She stood by my bedroom window, gazing out to the Turtle River. She believed I moved here during my senior year of high school with my father and that he worked for the military. It was how I explained his constant absence and my accent.
“I’ve lived all over the world,” I told Lily when she asked where I was from.
I couldn’t have told her the truth. My accent came from the god who ruled the realm where I must return.
The home I rented in Brunswick, Georgia, and the lie about my upbringing had all been part of the plan to get close to her, until now.
She glanced over her shoulder at me as I walked around the bed to where she stood. Sunlight caught her hair—copper, chestnut, and gold intertwined in long waves that swelled down her back as unruly as the ocean off the coast.
Before I could stop myself, I touched a ringlet and brought it to my nose. Coconut—a scent I had grown to crave as much as her.
I wanted to tell her my secrets, tell her who I really was, but I couldn’t. Not yet. She wouldn’t understand, and she wouldn’t like my true form. Oddly, she preferred the disguise I conjured a year ago before I first approached, which both confused and pleased me.The illusion of a scrawny high school senior was far less intimidating than my true form and necessary at the time.
I hated that I had to leave, especially now. But I couldn’t let my family discover my new plan, the one I’d altered. If they caught on, I’d have no chance of a future with her. Giving in to the hold my realm had on my soul—bound from the moment of my birth—was my only option.
Do it. Tell her the lie and leave before it’s too late.
I could already feel the force of magic pulling my body to its home. But then she smiled up at me. Her big, warm eyes drew me in, stripping me of my façade, of the cold and death that used to fuel me. The sensations were unnerving.
I dropped her hair and stepped back.
She turned all the way around and faced me directly. Tiny and delicate compared to me—to most—yet she had a presence about her that made me feelsmallandvulnerable—two words foreign to my kind.
She moved closer, her cheeks flushed with what…nervousness?
I needed to send her home before my illusion faltered. I’d worn it for too long, could feel it slipping from my skin.
I didn’t. Couldn’t.
“Caiden?” Her voice was as sweet as the stargazer lily she was named after. “I-I’ve been thinking about us. About our friendship.” Her gaze fell away, and her cheeks darkened to a crimson shade. “This is hard.” She cleared her throat and lifted her eyes to mine again. “Lately, things have been different between us. Better. We’re closer. I like it. I’d like to be more if you… if you felt the same.”
More than anything, I wanted to pull her to me and confess that I did feel the same. That I had for some time now. But I couldn’t leave her with false hope. I’d made too many mistakes already. Leaving now was the right thing to do—the only thing to do. If my father discovered her, she’d be enslaved and hate me—the wordhateholding a meaning I never expected, as with the wordlife.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured and forced myself to step away from her warmth. Instantly, I chilled and moved near her again.Mistake one hundred and ninety-nine.
“You’re sorry about what?” She touched my chest.
I froze. No, I heated. Many times she’d touched me, but never like this. This touch had meaning, motive.
Her hand slid to my neck, and she pushed up on her toes, moving her face closer. Her eyes locked on mine and her lips parted.
Push her away,I thought, feeling my illusion slip. But suddenly, I was helpless to her. She smelled like the beach, the trees, the flowers, the earth. My new favorite scents. She was intoxicating.
Failing to resist my desires, I tilted my head down to her.
Her gaze widened with hopeful surprise and dropped to my lips. She closed her eyes and pushed higher up on her toes, or perhaps, I was leaning closer.
Her lips brushed mine with the lightest contact.
