Lakesedge (World at the Lake's Edge #1)(80)

When I touch him, I feel the shift and shiver of darkness beneath his skin. Threads of black vein his neck, his chest, his arms. I don’t know if I’m kissing the boy or the monster or both, and I don’t much care.

He catches hold of my hips and lifts me against him. I put my hands over his and our fingers, together, press into my skin. He smothers my breathless moan with another endless kiss. Then he bends to the scars on my knees, kissing them tenderly as he strokes the fresh cuts on my thighs. He pauses and looks at me, a question in the heat of his gaze. A heartbeat passes before he asks quietly, “Can I touch you?”

A fervent shiver runs through me, right down to my toes. I bite my lip and breathe out, “Yes.”

He slides his hands higher and higher still. Heat burns across my skin, lingering long after his touch passes. He’s above me; I kiss the shadowed curve of his neck. He traces the edge of my undergarments, following the pattern of the lace. Then his fingertips graze over me.

“Oh—” It’s a shock, at once bright hot and feather gentle. It feels like I’ve shared a secret. I’ve let him into these hidden corners of myself, where so far only my hands have been. Magic dances through my veins, and light glints across my palms. All my words are gone. I press my thighs together around his hand, dissolving into a warmth that spreads through my entire body. At my wrist, the sigil aches with power, and the tether strung between us begins to glow, turning to a bright golden thread.

I reach for him and hook my fingers into the waistband of his trousers. Then I stop and hold back, waiting. He looks at me, then to my hands. His eyes sink closed. He nods, once. There are so many buttons, and it takes me a long time to unfasten them. He rocks against me, impatient, and groans, “Leta.”

I laugh at him teasingly. I slide my hand lower and lower. His breath hitches as I finally touch him.

We lie facing each other, our legs tangled. At first we’re both clumsy and unsure, all caught breath and tentative, searching touches. But it’s still so right, so perfect. We soften into a steady rhythm. His hands on me, mine on him, the heavy cadence of our shared breath. Being close to each other like this is such a fragile, tender magic; its own kind of alchemy.

All that’s ahead is a blank unknown. On the full moon, I’ll go to the lake with the terrible, wonderful power granted to me. But for now, in this stolen moment, I try to forget. Forget the ruined ground and the ink-dark lake. The poison that waits to claim us all.

Now I am only little gasps, liquid fire. Melted candles. Sap dripped from a pale-trunked tree. I’m thorn and lichen, lace over stone. I’m an orphan with scars on her knees. A faerie creature in a gossamer dress. I am light and heat and power and magic.

Rowan circles his hand around my wrist. His thumb finds the raised edges of the sigil. He presses down against it. The world turns golden bright.

I let myself shatter. For just this moment, I forget it all.

Afterward, we’re both breathless, perspiration like dew on our heated skin. I sit up and draw the curtains closed. They fall heavily across the window, and we’re muffled in dark, with only an almost burned-down candle to light the room.

We curl up together. Rowan winds my hair into his hands, places a row of kisses against my neck. His breath is warm on my bare skin. “It was brave, what you did. Very, very foolish. But also brave.”

I want to tell him I’m not afraid of the ritual. But I can’t. It isn’t the truth, and I’ve already told too many lies.

For a moment I let myself picture the shape of our lives, in the blurred space of after. We’ll eat dinner together. Tell stories in the firelight. At the lake the water will be clear. The shore will be a harmless stretch of sand. There will be no more blood, no more payments. No more dangerous attempts at the rituals.

And Rowan—and I—

My future with him is such a dangerous hope. I can only allow myself the barest taste. Like picking up a final crumb. I turn over to put my arms around him, resting my head against his shoulder as I fold myself against him. He trails his fingers through my hair. Combs gently at the tangles, picks loose the scraps of leaves and tiny flowers still woven there.

I run my fingers lightly over the inside of his arm. He shivers when I touch the sigil. I feel the spell that’s woven between us. A slender thread, delicate as filigree, but strong as steel.

“I’m so afraid,” I tell him. “But I’m going to do this anyway.”





Chapter Twenty-Four


The moon grows through the week until, on the night of the ritual, it’s round and brilliant, crimson as a pomegranate.

As I walk down to the lake, the wind catches my skirts, and they drift out behind me. I’m all in black, a dress I found folded at the very depths of my trunk. It’s dark and severe, cut low at the neck and high at the waist, unadorned except for a wide ribboned sash, embroidered all over in a pattern of thorn-sharp vines. The sleeves are sheer, folded back to bare my sigil-marked forearms.

Rowan and Florence are ahead on the path. Arien and Clover are by my side. We move in silence through the ruined grounds, past my locked-up garden. We pass beneath the arched gateway that opens to the shore, and pause at the fringes of the pale-trunked trees. The Corruption hasn’t reached here—the grass still grows, and the branches still have leaves.

This is the last untouched place on the estate.

Beyond the blackened shore, the lake is eerily beautiful. There’s a trace of haze in the air, the last heat of the day gathered above the water. A twinned moon is reflected, blurred by faint ripples. When I look out over the Corruption, something inside me gives a soft stir. I put my hand to my chest and swallow down the taste of blood that clings to the back of my throat. Soon all of this will be mended.