Page 77 of Soulgazer

My hands are outstretched the moment the grasses close around me, tall enough to brush my shoulders with delicate white petals that smell as sweet as morning dew. I follow the sound of his boots, the dip and sway of his dark head, until after only a handful of seconds, we emerge at the mouth of a cave.

The colors are something out of a story. Amber, ruby, topaz, peridot—a thousand tiny gems painting a singular scene. Odhrán, patron god of this isle, rests at the center. Stags leap from each of his wide hands, as below, lovers tangle among wildflowers in a dozen different couplings.

“Guardian of passion, sensuality, fertility, and lovers.” He winks. “Especially those star-crossed.”

I touch my throat, where Odhrán’s antler used to hang. “How do you know of this place?”

Faolan’s smile is wry. “People tell me things. Even when they wish they hadn’t.” He reaches for his hem and then grunts as his injured arm protests. “Shite, I keep forgetting.”

I don’t believe him for a second. But I can’t stop myself from drawing closer either. “Let me help.”

Faolan searches my eyes as something sparks in his own. “Can you handle it? Lass, you blush if I so much as remove my boots in our cabin most days—”

He stops talking when I tug his shirt from the trousers, the damp fabric clinging to both our skins. I stretch onto my tiptoes and peel it free of his head.

Faolan is beautiful, his body made of rolling hills and sharp valleys, broad at the shoulders only to narrow the farther down it goes. I’ve rarely allowed myself to look beyond my lashes, even averting my gaze when I bathed him after the Teeth. I stare openly now. At the pale scars and thick muscles roped beneath his arms. The smattering of light hair across his chest, trailing down his stomach to disappear between the arrow of his hips.

Flames erupt beneath my skin, but Faolan’s not laughing now. His eyes are focused. Intoxicating.

“Go on, then. If you want.”

I hesitate, my bare fingers only an inch from his body. The magic could break open at our touch. It has before.

Faolan’s lips drop to my temple, hands open at his sides. “It’s your choice.”

I flatten my palm against his stomach.

Both of us breathe in, tremulous and halting, as my fingertips slip along the top of his trousers. It’s only to hold them steady—to tug the laces free.

A lie.

Not even a good one, as the material falls apart, and Faolan steps out as bare as the day he was born. I don’t know where to rest my gaze—skin burning every time his hips brush the backs of my fingers or his hand trails down my arm. I’m shaking. He frowns.

“Saoirse—”

“I want to touch you.” The words come from a place I’m not sure I even recognize—molten with longing, laced in fear. The drawings mock me from the cave walls. “I want to understand, Faolan. But I don’t know how.”

He is quiet for a long moment. I don’t dare look at his face, heat scorching my own.

“Well, then.”

Faolan turns his hand over, and I slip mine inside.

Together, we wade into the water’s edge. It’s warm—warmer than the open sea, and far more buoyant than I expected. Fabric swirls around my legs and clings to my hips in turn, chased by Faolan’s fingers as he follows the line to my waist. Stops again when I lay a hand at his chest, shaking my head. His brows snap into a single arch.

“Tell me what you want and I’ll do it, love. Trust me.”

I do. That’s the problem.

You should never put your trust in fairy tales.

“Show me how to touch you,” I say instead, stepping forward as pebbles and seashells slide under my feet. Only a whisper of space remains between us. “Let me…let me thank you. Like you thanked me.”

Something tugs at his expression—understanding? Regret?

But then he slides an arm around my waist, and I gasp as our bodies press flush in the water. My skirt tangles between us, a barrier as meaningless as an extra layer of skin. He takes a step, thenanother, until my back meets the cave wall and his eyes are all I can see in the flickering light.

“Kiss me first.”