Page 29 of Grim and Oro (Lightlark)

BLISS

She’s angry at me for saving her.

Of course she is.

“Why did you do that?” she demands, her eyes shooting daggers from across her bedroom.

“You think I would watch you die, for the sword? Did you think I would make any choice that wasn’t you?” I did. I almost did .

“Yes,” she says. “You said so.”

She’s right. I meant it, up until I saw a world flash before my eyes, one that didn’t include her. I thought reason could outweigh feeling, and perhaps that was the most foolish thing of all.

“Things changed,” I explain.

Changed is a mild way to put it.

She shattered my life like a meteor, burning everything in her path.

“But your realm,” she says. “You said you need it. For you, it’s the most important thing in the world.”

“My realm does need it,” I admit. My hand is trembling as my fingers slide delicately, reverently, down her temple. “But it is not the most important thing in the world.”

She is.

She is my world.

She looks at me, as if she could possibly understand. As if she could even know a fraction of the feelings I have for her.

If only she knew that I once thought myself incapable of feeling anything anymore.

My eyes slip down her body, first to see if she’s injured. To assure myself that she is here, she is safe. Then, I look for other reasons.

“I touched it,” she says. “For a moment, I touched it. Maybe I’ll be able to find it again, now that it knows me.”

I sigh. She doesn’t understand. Of course, she doesn’t. I’ve lied to her about this plan from the very beginning.

“Isla,” I say gently, finally feeling regret. Regret that I ever had a plan that came at her expense. “I don’t want to use the sword anymore.”

Shock. Her brows come together. “What? Why?”

“Its cost is too high,” I say, meaning it.

“How are you going to save your realm now? How are you going to stop the dreks?”

Is it terrible of me not to be considering them at all? I truly am a monster.

I lift a shoulder. “I’m going to use my power, the same as always. Use myself as a shield.” I grin, if only to make her feel better. Anything, to make her feel better. “I make a decently good one, wouldn’t you agree?”

It won’t work, not as any real, long-term solution.

Rib-sinking worry is all I feel from her. How to tell her I’m not worried? That for the first time, I feel completely at peace?

“Will you keep your promise?” she says. “To help me at the Centennial?”

It’s in just over half a year. I wonder if my realm and I will even survive that long.

If we do ... I’ll help her. I’ll be her shield. Her power. Anything she needs from me.

“Of course, Hearteater,” I say. “It’s going to be fun pretending not to know you. To introduce myself to you.”

In truth, I can’t imagine acting as if I haven’t felt her every shade of emotion on my tongue. As if I haven’t noticed endless details about her through hour upon hour of watching, waiting, and paying attention.

“To pretend I don’t know that you love chocolate, and touching your hair, and that you blush when I look at you for more than a few seconds.

Or that you hate the cold and love to dance, and you frown when you lie.

” I tuck her hair behind her ear. “You really do, by the way. You should work on that before the Centennial.”

She blushes, and I want to memorize that color, the color of her shock, the color of her pleasure, the color of her happiness.

I want to paint my castle with it, if only for a chance that she would live there with me.

Feelings radiate from her like an avalanche, snowflakes catching in my hair and melting against my skin.

“And it will be fun pretending like I don’t know the shadows at your feet puddle when you’re happy. Or that, for some reason, you’ve had healers remove every one of your scars, except for the one I gave you. Or that you have a magnificent tub in your bathroom, and an even more magnificent ego.”

I tense, realizing she’s discovered things I haven’t even noticed, or admitted, about myself. She’s been paying attention too.

I feel everyone else’s emotions, yet have spent my entire life feeling misunderstood.

I feel seen for the first time.

Known , for the first time.

My own eyes are burning.

She bites her lip. “And that, even though, I hated you, really , really hated you ... whenever I’m not with you, whenever I’m with anyone else, I feel hopelessly alone.”

Alone . That was how I felt before I met her.

I don’t feel that way anymore.

She has filled an aching part of me I didn’t even realize was empty. I can’t imagine not seeing her every day for the rest of my life. Every day before her seems dull, wasted. Colorless. Empty.

My life used to be shadows and death, but she has filled it with life and color.

She is my star, guiding me through the night.

I take her hand, and she says, “At the Centennial ... we’re going to be strangers.”

“No,” I say, frowning at the word. “We could never be just strangers.”

“So what are we then?” she asks, sounding desperate to know, desperate to understand. Her own longing fills the space between us. “If not strangers? If not ... enemies?”

I know what I want, and it isn’t what she deserves.

She deserves more than me, but I don’t care. I’m not sure how much time I have left before the dreks end me and my realm, but this, I know for certain:

I’ll follow her for the rest of her life, if she lets me. Even if she doesn’t, really.

“I don’t know,” I say, not knowing what kind of relationship people like us can even have.

“But I want to be the only person you glare at, Hearteater. I want to be the only person you insult. I want to be the only name you speak in your sleep. I want to be the only person who knows how to make you writhe against a wall. You know what? I want everything. I want to be greedy and selfish with you. I want all your laughs. All your smiles too. I would rather die than watch you smile at anyone that isn’t me. ”

I mean it. I mean it so much, it scares me.

I regret the plans I had for her. I regret her death ever even being an option. Suddenly, I want to tell her. I want to let everything out in the open, so that there aren’t any secrets between us. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

She seems to have the same idea.

“No. There’s something I need to tell you.” I know what it is before she says it. “I—I’m—”

I feel her discomfort, and I want to turn it to ash. I take her hand in mine before she can start playing with her hair.

“Hearteater,” I say, trying to find it within myself to be gentle. “I know.”

Shock. Uncertainty.

I need to make myself very clear. “I know that the curses don’t apply to you,” I say. “I know that you have never wielded power.”

She steps back, toward the painted-over glass wall of her room.

For the first time since I’ve met her, she’s truly afraid. Afraid of me .

Does she think not having abilities makes her vulnerable?

Does she think I would ever tell anyone?

“I’ve known for a while,” I say, trying to make her feel more comfortable. I explain how I know, how I’ve known for months, and watch tears fall.

I want to make them go away. I don’t ever want her to cry because of me.

I’m not deserving of her tears. Or of any of her feelings at all.

“Grim ... what—what is wrong with me?”

No . I will stand no insults against her, even from herself. She is perfect .

I take her face in both of my hands and say, very clearly, “Nothing, absolutely nothing, is wrong with you, heart.”

Her eyes widen. Then, before I can say anything else, she surprises me again.

She lifts to her toes and kisses me.

It’s soft, and she stumbles away a moment later, doubting herself. I feel a wave of self-consciousness for some reason, as if she thinks there might be such thing as a time and place for kissing me. As if she got something wrong.

If she doubted my feelings for her for a moment, I will make them very clear.

I capture her lips with mine and taste her, my tongue tracing her lips, her teeth, the roof of her mouth. She tenses for a moment, before melting into me, her feelings like flames around us, sizzling against my cold skin.

“I want you,” she says, breaking our kiss. Her chest is heaving. “I want everything.”

I haven’t told her everything. Not yet. Now isn’t the time. Not when I’ve just revealed something else.

Her feelings say she wants me. The way she’s looking at me says she wants me.

“Are you sure?” I say, not daring to hope.

“Yes.”

She doesn’t know what she’s asking for. We’ve had several different encounters, but have never done everything , the way she wants to.

I feel the need to tell her what to expect, to warn her, to see if this is truly what she wants.

“I’m not gentle,” I say, thinking it might make her change her mind.

But if anything, her desire flames brighter.

“Could—could you be?” she asks.

I hesitate, not wanting to promise anything I can’t deliver. I’ve never—I’ve never been gentle or caring with anyone.

But for her, I’ll be anything. I nod.

Then, I take her into my arms and carry her to her bed.

This can’t be happening , I think. I’m not worthy of it. I’m not the type of person good things happen to. I don’t deserve them.

I don’t deserve her.

But if she wants me, I’ll have her anyway.

I carefully— gently— place her on her soft sheets. I feel a flash of worry, and tense, straighten. But her eyes are looking at the door.

She’s worried her guardians will walk in on us.

“We’re hidden,” I say, and I’ve never been more grateful for my shadows.

Slowly, I position myself over her. I bend down to kiss her again, to take this slow, to make sure, again, that this is what she wants ... when she reaches for my shirt, trying to yank it off. It doesn’t move.

I reach behind me and tear it over my head, feeling the heat of her desire burn even brighter. She’s staring at me—at my chest, my shoulders. No one has ever dared admire me. I wasn’t sure I was anything worthy of her admiration.