Page 63 of The Deathless One
Her eyes fluttered, then blinked. She looked up at him, rolling onto her back. “What are you doing in my dream?”
A dream. She was asleep. Apparently, his gravesinger could enter the realm between life and death while she was sleeping—but of course she could. She was tied to him like no other witch, and this was his realm, after all.
Breathing out a sigh of relief, he cupped his hand behind her neck andlifted her just enough so that she wasn’t in the cold water and he could hope that some of his own heat bled into her. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“You’re in my dream, aren’t you?” A small crease appeared between her eyes as she realized perhaps that wasn’t correct. “I can feel you more than I thought I would.”
“That’s because this isn’t a dream.”
Surely she realized no one would dream about this cold, desolate place. But then the ink moved away from her. A pulse of magic pulled out of his chest, surging from him to her, and a miraculous thing happened.
A wet plop of ink dripped out of her hair and hit the ground. But it didn’t stay dark. It spread in an oily sheen, with colors dancing around the shimmer until then… Oh, then it burst into life.
A rainbow of color and texture spread out from her body like she’d pooled paint and let it drip from her fingers. It continued to move like lava, infusing his realm with color and light and… sound?
From her body, a meadow sprouted. Green grass dotted with tiny yellow dandelions. He could hear birds floating overhead on the wind that suddenly brushed his cheeks. A warm wind. A late spring day that smelled like life and green things growing. Her dark hair slid through his fingers, a stark shadow of ebony against the sudden illumination of color.
Her hand reached up and gripped his wrist. “This is a dream, Elric. See? I can control it.”
He was speechless again. She had a habit of doing that, his witch. He was a creature made of ink and blackness, of madness and nightmares, and his realm was one of darkness and shadow. And yet all it took to change that was a single gravesinger who wished it to change.
“You fascinate me,” he said, lifting her even more off the ground. Still kneeling, he settled her against his thigh, running his fingers through the inky locks of her hair.
“Why?”
“I do not know how you do half the things you do.”
Heat pulsed through his body. He couldn’t stop himself from running his thumb along her jaw, down her full bottom lip, and watching asshe allowed him to part her lips. Again, that heat pulsed between the two of them. Elric couldn’t rip his gaze away from the sight of that mouth and the way she so prettily allowed his thumb to rest against it.
A black charcoal smudge remained everywhere he touched. He wasn’t certain if that was her doing or his. He certainly knew he liked it. Elric enjoyed seeing a mark everywhere he had touched her. A map of all the places he wished to linger.
Her breath caught, and he could see her eyes on his lips. Elric found himself suddenly tangled in the same moment they had been at that statue. The moment that had never really released either of them.
He didn’t know if she leaned up or if he leaned down. All he knew was the sudden pressure of her hand on his neck as she lifted herself closer.
“You choose to give your kingdom hope that you are alive, even knowing it will bring suspicion upon us,” he murmured, his lips so close to hers. “It’s such a foolish decision.”
“Of course I do. I always will.”
“Why?”
“Because I am theirs as much as they are mine. This is my kingdom, and its people are suffering. That means I am suffering. So why would I not help them?” She licked her lips, and his eyes followed the movement.
“You are a witch. You should have been an outcast your entire life, and still somehow you find love for them.”
Jessamine smiled, and the expression nearly blinded him with its brilliance. “I’m not a witch, Elric.”
“Oh, but you are.” He felt the words breathe over her lips. “Because you have certainly bewitched me.”
Then he kissed her.
He kissed her like he’d been wanting to kiss her for ages. It felt like he’d been waiting centuries for this moment, for this woman to be here in his arms.
The moment her lips touched his, he fractured into a thousand pieces. A mirror dropped onto the floor, the shards of every bit of him suddenly reflecting… her.
She smelled like a death lily and she tasted like life itself. Chai tea, a heaping dose of honey that coated his suddenly raw throat, and the aftermath of heat that blanketed every inch of him. She seared through him, scorching his tongue with hers as he nipped at her lips.
He’d thought she would be timid, unpracticed. A princess who had been taught how to kiss like a lady, because surely she was just as repressed as all those other stuffy nobles.
