What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(64)

Yet I couldn’t move away, couldn’t stop it from happening; not with that intense, dark stare pinning me to the spot. I wondered just how it would feel to burn so brightly that I was reduced to nothing but ashes on the wind.

“I thought you already had,” I whispered, immediately cursing myself for my stupidity.

Caelum chuckled in response. “No, Estrella. I haven’t even begun to kiss you yet,” he said, tipping his head to the side to get a better angle. His mouth pressed more firmly to mine, molding against the seam of my lips as he guided my head back into the tree trunk. My mouth tingled where he touched it with his, and tiny pinpricks of cold static arced between us.

His lips stayed soft, a gentle exploration as he traced every corner of my mouth with his, and as he caressed me gently and found every weakness. When he parted for me, I followed in a well-practiced, synchronized dance that we had no right to know. We’d never danced together, never kissed beneath a canopy of evergreens with branches hanging low all around us, and yet against reason, he felt familiar. He felt like coming home after years away, and the breath he expelled into my lungs was the first true breath I’d taken; one of pure, frosty air.

The girl who emerged from this tree canopy would never be the same.

I opened for him, letting him tip my head back with the hand on my neck and fingers that felt almost too harsh. His groan poured into my mouth and down my throat, his tongue tangling with mine as he drank from me as greedily as he gave. He kissed me fucking senseless, until my name was a thing of the past and my arms were wrapped around his neck. The moment my hand brushed against his Mark, he gasped into my mouth and pressed his body harder into mine.

The distance between us disappeared as he encased me in the safety of the cocoon he created with the tree and his broad form leaning over me. He pressed his hips against my belly, the length of him seeming to sear my skin through my dress, jolting me back to a bit of reality.

We needed to get back to the mountains before night fell.

“Caelum,” I murmured, tearing my mouth from his. He sighed his frustration, dropping his face into my neck and trailing his lips over the Fae Mark that was so similar to his. It blazed like ice so cold it burned, the white glow of it shimmering off his skin. “I’m sorry,” I added, feeling the need to apologize. I hadn’t asked for him to kiss me, but I damn well hadn’t stopped him, even though I knew better than to allow it.

With just one kiss, he’d proven everything I’d already known. The man would be the end of me.

“I would wait an eternity for you, Little One. You never need to be sorry,” he said, dropping one last gentle kiss to my mouth and backing away. I peeled myself off the tree, turning my attention back to the village as he gave me space.

My lips burned, the flesh bruised from his kiss as the cold air erased the heat of his mouth.

And I still thought it had been worth it.





22





The temple in the village we came across was smaller than the one where I’d spent my days on my knees in Mistfell. The building was still crafted from stone, but there was no tower jutting up toward the sky to reach for the afterlife, only a single story that crouched low to the ground. The windows were plain, not the four-paned windows that had let light filter in through glass, which was far too expensive unless it had been gifted.

We skirted around the edge of the village, hugging the tree line as we kept an eye out for any stragglers who hadn’t yet gone to Temple or who risked the wrath of their High Priest for a few moments’ delay.

The village was silent, the presence of everyone required inside the weekly Temple, making it the perfect time for us to gather supplies without detection. I knew from experience that even the Mist Guard was severely limited in terms of who took shifts that brought them away from the sacred weekly worship.

Caelum peeked toward the Temple and through the window, his gaze snagging on the worshipers kneeling before the Priestess where she walked with her switch at her side, ready to discipline any who didn’t bow to her satisfaction.

“Fucking zealots,” Caelum muttered, turning away from the scene in front of us. We made our way further around the village, getting as far away from the temple as we could manage.

“You seem rather interested in the Old Gods,” I said, squinting up at him as he moved through the shadows at the edge of the woods. He carved his body through them with well-practiced ease, claiming them as his own and molding himself into them so well that I suspected I wouldn’t have been able to see him if I’d been a passing villager. “Some would say that makes you the zealot.”

“At least the Old Gods didn’t advocate a life of boredom. They lived for the sake of pleasure, not some potential doom that came after thirteen life cycles. I will never understand why people would choose to spend their life on their knees when they could do anything and be anything they wanted,” he said, grasping my hand in his and dragging me alongside him to keep up when I wasn’t as talented at keeping to the shadows as he was.

“That’s a pretty notion, but is it ever really a choice when the alternative to obedience is death?” I asked, stepping out into the yard of one of the houses on the outskirts of the village with Caelum. He grabbed a heavy wool cloak off the clothesline, tossing it over the top of his where it rested on my shoulders, to hold as he pulled me toward the door to the house itself.