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Her tongue was frozen by the adoration slipping out of each of his words. She refused to look over at him as her truth sat in the back of her throat.

Ronin’s presence was warm, like standing beneath the sun after centuries of being drenched in a cold rain.

Naia wished to remain warm.

You are selfish, and in the end, you will only bring him death and your heartbreak.

With resolve, she said, “I will not be your undoing, Ronin.”

His lips skimmed her jawline. “You already are.”

An inferno scorched her body, crackling embers beneath her skin where he touched.

“Naia,” he whispered, his breath stroking the corner of her mouth. “What do you want?”

A shiver ran through her. Hearing her name exit his lips made her lose the will to fight.

I want…

His question was one she’d never considered before.

The answer bubbled up inside of her, shattering her sense of stability. It was in the desire coiling behind her navel and reaching up into her heart, freeing a yearning she’d been squashing away since he clumsily danced with her to jazz.

I want you.

Naia turned her head and, with no attempt at grace, met his lips with her own.

23

THE ONLY GODDESS

It was the span of a breath. The yawning of the dawn over the horizon. As a goddess, Naia had lived hundreds of them, and yet, never did one feel so infinite as when her mouth collided with Ronin’s.

The kiss was tender, lingering; a light brush of lips; curious and slow; easing into one another the way one slips their fingers into a new glove. Then, a drowsy pause.

The uncanny familiarity of their kiss took Naia aback, as if they were two souls reconnecting after a long separation.

She brought her hand up to his jaw, the stubble on his skin rough beneath the pads of her fingertips, and rubbed her thumb over his bottom lip. His breath danced across her tongue as he held her gaze with a ferocity that invigorated her.

But suspicions about his motives continued to linger in her mind.

“Why did you help me that night?” she asked.

He pushed her silver strands behind her shoulders. “Do you trust me?”

She bit back her bottom lip. “More than I should.”

“I’ll show you why, if you’ll let me.”

Naia nodded in understanding—it would be through a spell.

He flipped over her hand. The tip of his finger followed the lines sketched in the shallow trenches of her palm to the bracelet he’d given her. The single crimson jewel in the center of the chain glowed.

“You contradict everything I’ve ever known about the gods. They murdered most of my clan.” His other hand lifted her chin to look at him. “Nothing good ever came from them, my mother used to say.” As he spoke, his lips caressed her own. She shivered. “And then I met you.”

His mouth closed over hers, swallowing her breath as he activated his spell.

Naia’s palms planted on the smooth plane of his chest over his dress shirt, her movements stalling as Ronin continued to kiss her.