Spindle Fire (Spindle Fire #1)(57)
She hadn’t really noticed the painting before . . . but then again, she hadn’t been looking for signs of a thwarted romance until now. Her mind swirls with questions; something about the lush painting has captivated her attention.
“Charles Blackthorn.” She’s startled from her thoughts by Heath’s voice, warm and close to her neck. “People say he went mad over a woman.”
“Charles?”
Heath nods. “I didn’t want to tell you, but that’s why the tower room was empty before you came. People avoid it—they think it’s haunted. They say his ghost comes back, looking for his one true love.”
His one true love. And then she remembers: she saw the letters CB carved with a childlike scrawl among the other initials on the walls of the cottage in the Borderlands.
Could this be the love story she’s seeking, the reason for Belcoeur’s madness? Could Charles be the visitor Belcoeur believes she is waiting for? If so, and if he really did die many years ago, then the queen will be waiting forever . . . which means there’s a chance they really won’t ever escape Sommeil.
Though “escape” is no longer the word she would use—that would imply a desire to leave all of it behind.
“Luckily, I don’t believe in ghosts,” Heath goes on. “Or true love, for that matter.”
Aurora balks. “You don’t believe in true love? That’s ridiculous!”
“Is it? What proof do you have that it exists?” he asks. He seems to be leaning in closer to her.
“I—it isn’t something to be proven.” She’s breathing slowly. His closeness is making her unsteady. “It’s just something you feel,” she says, thinking of the many epic tales of love she has read. “And when you feel it, you know.”
He tilts his head, smirking just a little. “Sounds like the stuff of stories.”
“Well, what evidence do you have that it doesn’t exist?” she challenges. This heady mix of frustration and determination is beginning to feel familiar, and not in a bad way. She finds she likes that he contradicts her, that he’s willing to debate, that he expects her to argue her side. And that, with her newfound voice, she can.
Now his face is so near she can feel his breath. “Just that I’ve never felt it before. That kind of love involves choice—or it should. And that’s something I’ve never had. You can’t have choice if you don’t have freedom.”
“Then I hope that changes,” Aurora whispers. “Everyone deserves true love.”
“I’m not so sure I agree. I’ve heard of people doing terrible things in the name of true love. Wouldn’t want to end up like old Blackthorn, mad and alone.”
“But if you don’t believe in love, then you will end up alone.” She blinks as her words settle into the narrow gap between their bodies. His lips seem to loom before hers, heart shaped and soft looking, even as they quiver into a smile.
“Maybe so,” he whispers back, lifting his hand to touch her face. He brushes a strand of wet hair off her cheek. As his fingers make contact with her skin, she shivers.
He leans back slightly, and she remembers she’s still drenched. Thunder crashes beyond the walls and rain pounds the roof, heavy and whooshing, as though an entire ocean has opened up in the sky.
“Let me build a fire,” Heath suggests. “You must be cold.”
But he doesn’t move to the hearth. He stands there, staring at her, his lips slightly parted. Plenty of men have gazed at Aurora with something akin to hunger, but none of them knew her; none of them could.
“You . . .” He shakes his head, his long hair swinging in front of his eyes. “You make me want things.” He licks his lower lip nervously. She stares at his mouth, horrified at the fire that instantly rages through her.
“You make me want to believe in other worlds,” he goes on. “In other possibilities. And I should hate you for that,” he says, though there’s a smile still trying to cut across the stricken look on his face.
She swallows. “I’m sorry.” Like everything about Sommeil, his words leave her tingly with dissatisfaction, with the fear that she will never be satisfied, never get what she wants, even if she doesn’t know what that is. Or perhaps because she doesn’t know.
“Don’t be.”
His voice is so quiet she almost doesn’t hear him, but something begins to rise within her, tightening around her lungs like vines. She always thought love would come to her just as it did in the romances she read: full-blown and overpowering. Absolute and unquestioning.
What’s happening to her now is nothing like that. It’s tremulous, curious, speckled with dangers and uncertainties.
“I . . . I . . .” But he can’t seem to finish what he was going to say.
She puts her hand on his shoulder, a small gesture but infinitely bold—bigger, even, than when she touched the spinning wheel and its sting changed her forever.
He seems to know this. He takes her hand and lifts it to his lips. He kisses her knuckles softly, hesitantly. His lips linger on her skin, sending currents of warmth through her arm and down her entire body. She feels light-headed as he tugs her closer to him, until his lips graze her ear, his breath tickling her neck. “Aurora.”
An aching desire leaps up in her like flames in a breeze. Her lips catch the stubble on his chin, the high ridge of his cheekbone—still wet from the rain—then find their way to his mouth. She feels his surprised inhale, the way something clicks into place as his body goes firm and urgent against hers and he begins to kiss her back.