RoseBlood(89)

I expected to be struck mute, but not by his beauty.

He takes my hand—that small contact colliding in a union of the senses: I feel, taste, smell, and hear only him.

“Rune.” My name claws free from his damaged vocal cords.

“Etalon,” I answer, mesmerized.

He grins at that, an arresting flash of white teeth.

“Why?” I ask. “Why the mask?”

He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “It is only behind the mask where I feel I belong.”

“No.” I squeeze his hand. “You belong up here, out in the open, with me.”

His mouth twitches. “Prove it.”

“How?”

“There are no more walls between us, neither man-made, nor cosmic.”

My heart pounds. “I know.”

“So . . . touch me.”

A wave of shyness heats my cheeks, but he’s done waiting. He cups my hands around his jaw on either side, holding them in place. Electric pleasure crackles between us like lightning.

He lets go as I take over, tracing the graceful curves of sinew and bone along his face then down his neck to his collarbone. Trails of light follow my fingertips, as if carving a path through his emotions. Arms at his sides, he closes his eyes in rapturous beauty, long lashes fanned across sculpted cheekbones.

I stop at the V of his neckline. We both catch a breath as the fine line of hair tickles my palm. I rest my hand just above his racing heartbeat, coaxing out a pulse of bright green in his chest. My heart answers with the same shimmering color.

His eyes snap open, coppery and glimmering: the eyes from my dreams.

As if he’s held back long enough, he sweeps away the tangles from my temple and caresses the shell of my ear. His other hand skims down, his thumb exploring the shape of my lips. Every touch feels new and remarkable, yet at the same time, familiar—an all-consuming sense of recognition.

When I look at him like this, unmasked and bared, I can see inside him—inside myself—even more clearly than the day in the chapel and all the nights we’ve danced together since.

“I know you,” I say, dreamily. “I was never able to see your face in the memories or visions. But somehow, I know you. You feel like home to me.”

Growing somber, he turns me loose and stands. His clothes tighten around his flexing form as he stretches to tug the tin can off the statue. The other can drags along the roof with a metallic scrape as he pulls the ribbon free from both.

He kneels in front of me. “You know my soul. Just as I knew yours before seeing you.” He curls the fingers of my left hand into a loose fist around one end of the ribbon, and brushes my knuckles along his smooth cheek, spurring jolts of sensation that wind through my arms and burrow deep into my chest. “We’re twin flames. Incarnations of the same soul, parted while reentering the world . . . predestined to find each other again. Everything we’ve ever experienced in our separate lives has been working to reunite the mirror pieces of ourselves we left within the other. Twin souls always come full circle, as natural and ineludible as the migration of birds or the alignment of planets. All of this has been set into motion in the past by our spirit, for our bodies to discover in the present. Now, at last, we’re here.”

I rake a fallen lock of hair from his otherworldly eyes and repeat his words: “We’re here.” The explanation should strike me as unbelievable, but instead, the rightness of it is undeniable.

All those nights we climbed the stars and rearranged the planets with our songs, we were complete and invincible when we stood together.

Only in the context of predestination could those dream-visions make sense.

He lifts my fisted hand, pushes my sweater’s sleeve to my elbow, and trails warm, soft lips along my inner wrist. Then he twines the length of the ribbon around the lingering imprint of his kisses, winding his own bared wrist into the loops, until we’re fused as one, my now-opened palm facing his, our fingers entwined.

“We’re destined to be lovers, Rune. Connected by the thread of our shared soul through space and time. Now that we’re united, no matter the where or the when, or whatever circumstances come between us—that cord will stretch to accommodate it all, pliant and giving. It may tangle, but it will never snap. We will always be tethered. Always find each other again . . . because it’s fated to be.”

My blood burns hot, the veins bright and luminous under my skin. Etalon’s veins flare in response. As if ignited by our combined surge, the ribbon catches fire on our arms. I don’t even blink because the flames don’t hurt, although they blaze through a rainbow of auras. Only when they fade to the purest white do they snuff away on smoky tendrils.

The ribbon’s crimson stamp remains—a visible coiling tattoo on my left wrist and forearm, mirroring the image on his right—while leaving us free. As we pull our arms apart, I still feel the tug between us . . . an internalized bond that can’t be broken.

I gasp and smile, looking up into his face. Returning my smile, he catches my hips and draws me to him, long legs cradling either side of my body. I move my hands along his shirt, learning the hard planes of his chest and stomach over the soft fabric. He groans and his fingers slip to my nape and clench my hair, forehead pressed to mine. His breath is scented with an elixir of emotions—smoke and honey and rose petals. I shut my eyes, drifting to the stars as I breathe him in.