Page 85 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
I wrinkled my brow, gesturing around us.
“No, not the keeper’s cottage. The actual lighthouse.”
He jerked his head upward, toward the darkened tower that loomed over the cottage. An invitation, I realized. To get away to somewhere quieter. If I accepted it, though, I’d be putting myself in a room alone with Steeler for the first time since we’d reenacted the scene with the sundew, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold myself back from the desires that had been swishing low in my belly ever since.
“Okay,” I heard myself say anyway.
I could feel everyone’s smirks follow us as we made our way out the door, closing it behind us and starting toward the other set of crumbling steps that led to the tower.
Inside, it was nothing but cold, wet stone—lichen drooping from the cracks—and a metal staircase that wound up and up and up, so tightly we’d have to go one at a time. When Steeler gestured for me to go first, I could practically feel the burn of his attention on my ass as I began the climb. That burn seemed to settle right between my thighs, until I couldn’t resist swingingmy hips a little more than necessary, relishing the sound of him sucking in a breath from behind me.
When we finally neared the top, I stepped up into a pentagonal room bordered by nothing but fogged glass, handrails bordering each of the five sides, and an enormous dead brazier squatting in the middle of it all.
I drifted to one of the handrails, resting my fingertips on it and squinting through the fog to find the horizon of the ocean in the distance. I definitely felt like I could see further than I ever had before up here.
“It’s a nice view.”
“Yes,” Steeler said without taking his eyes off me, “it is.”
“Who do you think built it?”
“My guess is the first humans who came to the island after Dyonisia conquered it…but not to find ships in a benevolent way. I think it was probably more of a warning to stay away.”
I turned back toward him. When he took a step toward me, everything around us—the brazier, the glass walls, even the ocean beyond—seemed to dissolve like melted snow.
“I know you’ve warned me to stay away, little hurricane. But I’m not warningyouto stay away. My own memories are very much intact, and now that you’re a Mind Manipulator…”
The blood in my veins froze with rigid intensity as I stared at Steeler, my eyes rooted to the curve of his jaw and the way it was so close to giving that familiar smug smile with a hint of a challenge.
Now that I was a Mind Manipulator, I didn’t evenneedto find my own memories of our moments together. I could access Steeler’s. Could judge our past relationship for myself from the formation ofhismist.
“Of course, you’d have to get past my gate.” Steeler gave a skeptical wrinkle of his nose. “Which I doubt you could do, but…”
“You’re on.”
The words were out before I could rein them in. That glittering amusement in Steeler’s eyes—I wanted to rise up to the challenge. I would get past his damned gate and watch all the mist I wanted even if it was the last Mind Manipulating thing I did.
“Just tell me how to… how to dive,” I said, tasting that phrase in my mouth for the first time and intuitively knowing it was the right one.
“You’re sure? You truly want to see what lies within me—for better or for worse?”
I found my gaze tracing the dark brown locks of his hair, the shape of his nose, the point of his ears and fangs. Finding new parts about him that I hadn’t let myself notice before. How one eyebrow tilted up ever so slightly at the end while the other tilted down. How a splash of smile lines creased the side of his mouth that smirked the most. How a single freckle dotted his right cheekbone.
He might be the most perfect-looking male specimen from a distance, but up close, Coen Steeler had all these crooked little flaws that made me yearn to dive beneath his skin and discover more.
I made sure my voice rang loud and clear.
“I want to see everything.”
CHAPTER
28
“The first thing you need to do is lower your blockade,” Steeler said.
The two of us were standing so close, our chests were grazing. As if I were shedding a layer, I let my blockade wither away around me.
“Now, I want you to try to grab onto my outermost thought. Use your mental hand—the one that pushes your blockade out.”
