Exodus (The Ravenhood #2)(53)

Eyes locked, he bends, his lips so close, gaze imploring. And I can’t deny him, or myself because he’s speaking the truth. Since the day we met, we’ve been drawn to the other. Though we were born of anger, resentment, and betrayal, it’s been there. And through the fog of all of it, we were familiar.

“I know you, Cecelia, because you know me, and it’s here, in this place that we recognized we’ve known each other all along.”

He presses a feather-light kiss to my lips, sliding his hands back to cup my head before opening me with decadent pressure. Savoring the wine off his tongue, I whimper into his mouth as he takes his time, exploring, licking, relishing. Effortlessly, he lifts me to wrap around him, his mouth drawing on mine, robbing, consuming, the gravity holding us firmly in place as I kiss him back without reservation. When he pulls away, I can see nothing but satisfaction in his eyes. He might have recognized it first, but the reflection I see is undeniable.

I see you, Cecelia, you keep trying to give yourself, your heart, your allegiance away to anyone who will have it for reasons you can’t understand, but it’s so painfully clear.

Clear to him, because he’s been living in the same sort of self-imposed exile, but instead of offering his heart up, he’s locked it safely away. Breaths mingling, chests heaving, we face off as understanding passes between us.

“What is it that you want, Tobias?”

He pins me beneath him, pressing my wrists to the grass, his hair tickling my chin as he gazes down at me. “A selfish moment,” he whispers softly before he captures my mouth, drawing me into the most damning and selfish of kisses.





I wake long before the sun, fully clothed and wrapped in an inferno. Tobias sleeps silently next to me, his arms wrapped around me protectively, his chin burrowed into my neck. I slept through the night, buzzed on wine, in the safety of his arms once we’d wordlessly returned to the house. He didn’t undress me. Instead, he turned off the light and pulled me into him.

And it’s in the same position that I manage to untangle us without waking him before I take a long shower, putting on my favorite stark white sundress that looks more like something from the Edwardian era. Layers of silky white material tickle my calves while the bodice hugs my curves, the inch-thick straps lay loosely off my shoulders. I grab my favorite hardback and head toward the garden, nabbing a thin blanket to ward off the morning chill. Nestled in the queen lounger beneath a trellis covered in wisteria, I watch the show, the sun rising on a different world I’m now a citizen of, my thoughts drifting to the man who lays comatose in my bed.

Under the haze of a new day’s sun, I lose myself and spend hours reading while soaking in the world around me.

Fresh blooms warm a few feet away, scenting the air as I flip the pages of The Thorn Birds. It’s my favorite book, or at least it was when I was younger. It was the first hit to my addict’s heart, and therefore the strongest. I stole it from the library the last summer I spent with my father and never returned it. It’s the story of Ralph, a priest, and his Meggie, a little girl who was groomed by and grew up to fall in love with him. But their love was impossible. When she was young, he told her of a bird who leaves the nest searching for the sharpest thorn to impale itself on so it could sing the sweetest song as it dies, living solely for the purpose of finding that thorn so it could sing, just once, in its lifetime.

But his story to her at such a young age was a preemptive strike if not predictive, and her heart didn’t listen. Meggie describes her love, her devotion to Ralph was like crying for the moon. Because it’s impossible to capture, impossible to keep.

Meggie could never have Ralph in the way she wanted, and he could never give up his life’s purpose for her. Therefore, Ralph was also Meggie’s thorn, and she spent her life searching for the time to impale herself upon him just for the chance to sing. And then it happens, they have that sinful and secular moment where the world stops, times ceases, and love wins.

I always stop reading when they’re together, because I know the ending, and I’m happiest in the midst of their song. I savor it.

Partly through the novel, I stand and walk on the soft green carpet beneath my feet, admiring nature’s handiwork. Endless rows of rose bushes line the center of the garden, and I stop every few steps to run my fingers along the delicate petals and breathe them in. It’s like a dream, the breeze, the smells, the pink haze of early morning, and I’m fully intoxicated. For a moment, I pity Roman. I’m positive he’s never spent a minute out here simply enjoying his life. He could, at any time, make a decision to enjoy the fruits of his labor, to appreciate the palace he haunts, but lives his life too engrossed in harsh reality. Numbers and power rule him. And I’m convinced his is a miserable existence.

I don’t want that for myself. Not ever.

And one day, I’ll need to forgive him. I’ll have to forgive him, for myself. But this morning, the pain is starting to gnaw at me, and I can still feel the humiliation, the arrow precision sting of his rejection—the unexpected balm to my pierced heart sleeping in the bedroom above me.

The last twenty-four hours with Tobias have been surreal, and I’m way too terrified to trust a single memory. I run a finger over my lips thinking of the way he kissed me, held me, like I was precious, like my every thought mattered. Palming my face, I try to push those thoughts away, and I can’t help but recall our conversation.