Page 15 of Love’s Ace

Chapter 15

Wren

T heo looked… soft when he slept. It was almost strange to think about the difference a few days made.

The first time I’d had him stretched out on a bed, he was tied to the posts and I was wondering if I could kill him without somehow sacrificing myself in the process.

Now, the only thing holding him was me .

As much as I kept telling myself I needed to, as much as I knew I had to, I couldn’t make myself get up. He was wrapped around me like I was his only lifeline, and there was a softness to his face that I’d never seen before.

When Theo slept, I couldn’t see the monster inside him at all. When he slept, he was just soft brown hair and a face that was more angelic than it had any right to be. He was smooth skin and white scars that I hadn’t noticed before—above his brow, at the corner of his lip, one across the top of his cheekbone.

Like he’d been hit.

Like he’d been hurt.

Like I could see all the places the world had tried to break him, all the places that left him vulnerable to the Enmity. All the things that had somehow led him to me.

My eyes trailed down to the thread between us—that haze of pink was gone now, lust replaced with a deep red. We hadn’t even really fucked and the connection was solidified. Whatever hope I was holding onto, whatever silly idea that the Ardor would fade—and the line with it—was gone. It had been over twenty-four hours, and the crimson was so deep it nearly hurt to look at it. The line was so dark it looked like we’d known each other our entire lives.

It wasn’t going to fade.

My fingers twitched, smoothing along Theo’s back in a slow motion that made him turn into me. When he wasn’t awake and trying to tear my throat out, he seemed so hungry for my touch. He nuzzled my throat like my pulse was the only thing giving him the ability to breathe, and I traced the line of his back where dark wings would sprout if the transformation from human to monster completed and he became a full Enmity.

Just touching him there made me shudder—I’d let him touch my wings . He’d held them in his hands so tightly I wouldn’t have been able to get away if he’d tried to rip them free.

And the feel of his fingers in my feathers…

Fuck. I forced myself to take a deep breath. I’d given in to his need last night—it was why I’d let him touch me like that. But I couldn’t keep telling myself that if I got hard just thinking about him stroking my wings with gentle fingers. I couldn’t tell myself it was Theo and his darkness—my desire to keep him from transforming, my self-preservation—that forced me to let it happen… not if I got so riled up thinking about it that I had to admit I could have gotten off on him stroking my wings alone.

I’d never let anyone touch them before.

How could I have known?

I forced the shiver trying to pulse through my body down and rolled onto my back, staring up at the ceiling like it might have answers that I didn’t. There wasn’t an easy way to deal with this.

I was destined to kill Theo. Sephtis said the sigil wouldn’t keep him safe forever. If Aiden found out what I was doing, if anyone found out, my wings would be ripped from my back before I had a chance to explain.

I should have pulled away while he was still sated and called for Sephtis, or Aiden, or anyone who could give me answers.

I should have done anything other than drop my head so my nose was pressed to his soft brown hair.

Rose petals in the rain .

Maybe it wasn’t such a terrible smell after all.

Fuck… I was in trouble.