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My lips parted on a ragged breath, and his tongue swept into my mouth, tasting me like it was the first time, the very last time. And I liked him like this. I wanted him to feel for me. Yield for me. I wanted to burrow into his body and become the heart he was missing. To beat inside him. To bleed. To own. To know that he could not stay alive without me.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my whole body to his, needing the friction, the relief of his intimacy. My knees weakened and my breasts ached. I felt feverish and drunk. I felt like I was going to start screaming if he didn’t put his hands on me right now.

And just as I was about to beg him for a touch, his hands raced to the slope of my back and settled on the curve of my backside. He squeezed me over the layers of organza and chiffon, nudging my pelvis forward.

I moaned into his mouth and he left a low, satisfied sound in mine. “You like that, darling?”

“I like everything you do,” I sighed, my head dropping back in ecstasy.

He landed his mouth on my exposed throat and kissed and bit and licked on my skin until starlight burned in my veins. “Even the terrible things?”

“Especially the terrible things,” I exhaled.

He traced a path back to my mouth, threaded his tongue between my lips, and kissed me so deeply that, for a moment, I felt possessed by him. I slipped a hand between our bodies, wondering if he felt the same. And, gods, he did. He was so hard that I couldn’t fully grasp him over the taut fabric of his trousers and only managed a few strokes with the pad of my palm.

With a rough growl, he removed my hand from him and pinned it over my head. “Please don’t make me come in my pants like a fourteen-year-old.”

“Let’s go to your room, then,” I said, emboldened by need. “And you can come on me if you’d rather.”

“Nepheli,” he groaned, his voice strained. “Don’t tell me such things.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll kill me.”

“You’re undead.”

He shook his head. “I’m more alive than ever.”

My heart leaped from me, but I was not alarmed by its escape. I knew exactly where it went.

I sneaked my arms around his neck and curled my fingers into his hair to finally experience their softness. He took my jaw in his hand and held my face a mere breath from his, looking both determined and surrendered to me. “My room is in the east wing, but we can cut through the maze.”

My eyes darted to the lightless, intricate path behind him. “What if we get lost?”

“Darling,” he said darkly. “That’s the point.”

29

Nepheli

We didn’t get lost. However, Apollo did a marvelous jobtryingto get us lost, shoving me into dark corners every chance he got, kissing me until I was dizzy, whispering things in my ear that made even the stars above us blush, and touching me until every nerve ending in my body was delirious for some relief.

We tottered out of the maze, breathless and drunk on each other, crossed the short cobbled path that followed afterward, sprinted down glinting hallways and climbed winding staircases, passed through a jungle of damask and gilt, and finally,finallyreached it. His star-dazed bedchamber.

A sprawling space, full of dark furniture, midnight-blue walls, and a black stone hearth crackling in the corner. Above, a sky of constellations: countless silver stars twinkling on a depthless ceiling. The magic of the animation was so vivid that as it expanded towards the floor-to-ceiling window, it seemed to connect the sky of the room with the sky outside. The window overlooked the city, the buildings glimmering like a hive of fireflies in the faraway distance. You could see the Dragonfly from here too, a haunting dark diorama sprawled amid the rolling mountains and speckled with a golden mist. But the window’s purpose wasn’t to enjoy the view, no matter how breathtaking it was. No, this window was forstargazing. A massive golden telescope was positioned on a wooden pedestal before it, pointing at the always-busy night sky.

My exhale sounded harsh in the silence of the room. “This is absolutely incredible.”

Apollo smirked only the way he could do it so recklessly. “I agree,” he said, looking at me very intently.

I licked my lips. They were swollen and a little numb from our kisses, yet all I wanted was for him to kiss me again. “I really like your room.”

He started undoing his cape with his dark eyes pinned on me. The garment dropped to the floor with a soft thud, and he continued loosening the collar of his shirt, just enough to torment me with a sliver of smooth, bronze skin. “I really like you in my room.”

I bit into the inside of my cheek, feeling a little awkward and jittery now that we were all alone here. Everything became very real, very fast, and I was trying my best to register the moment, fragment by fragment, frame by frame. I wanted it etched in my brain forever. How could anything feel more exhilarating and frightening than watching yourself get close to someone like this?

“You know, for someone who is always mocking my books, you’ve got plenty yourself in here,” I hoarsely said, gesturing with a tremulous hand to the leather-bound books piled atop his window-lit desk. It was a quaint little thing, full of ornate stationary, frivolous trinkets, and mysterious artifacts. I imagined him sitting there—billowy shirt, messy hair, brows furled in concentration. Different from the Apollo I’d come to know, but one I yearned to learn just the same.