Page 22

SERAPHINA

I stumble against the wall, dizzy and disoriented. The hallway doubles, the walls triple and I lean back out of fear that I might crash into a guest and make a scene.

It's come back—the insane migraines, and it feels as though my head is being split in two with a sledgehammer. And it started the moment he touched me.

It felt like being struck by lightning in a thunderstorm. A thousand sensations, none of which felt good. And even long after he left with his wife, I could feel the brand of his hands on mine and the heat of his gaze tracking my every movement.

I barely remember handing Landon to Lilia, who had been all too happy to take him, or excusing myself from the gathering or walking this far without falling.

I force my feet in front of me until I reach Soren's private terrace and my knees give out, slamming into the marble. My hands clutch my head, pulling at the curls as I moan in pain. "Gods...make it stop," I cry.

Goosebumps raid my skin as a feverish cold engulfs me in its wicked embrace. Another whimper escapes me as images flash in the back of my mind.

The soft press of lips on my hipbone. Scratchy laughter between my breasts. "Goddess, Fina. You wicked woman." The man in the blurred images tells me when my fingers grip his throat, forcing him to stay in place while I move on him, against him ? —

My mind splinters into several bits and my cry becomes ragged sobs. My fingers clutch at my aching heart, nails digging into the fabric of my dress and tearing into it.

I hiccup—sob harder, even if I can't remember why.

The door to the terrace shuts softly behind me and I don't need to move to know it is Soren. Soft footfalls shuffle before I see his one knee on the floor in front of me.

"I'm fine," I manage to choke out. "I just need a minute."

He reaches for me, pushing back the curtain of my hair, but my blurred gaze remains on the ground because I don't want him seeing me this way. So heartbroken, confused and weary.

But he tilts my chin gently, forcing me to look in his eyes and like a dam inside me is broken, tears burst forth, ugly and uncontrollable.

"Can't...I can't..." A hiccup. "I can't take it. It...it hurts."

His arms pull me off the ground effortlessly and I bury my face against his chest, because it is safe. He is safe. He is whole and solid and strong. Unlike me, unlike the fragments of my soul that seem to be scattered across different parts of my world, forever lost, forever hidden.

Fingers slip up and down the nape of my neck in soothing lines before traveling into my hair and scraping lightly. "I'm sorry," Soren says.

He apologizes a lot. Like what's happened to me is his fault. Like if it were within his reach, he'd ensure I never had to go through any of this. And I don't doubt it.

My tears wet the lapel of his dark gray jacket.

"I..." I pause. It's usually easy to tell Soren the things I dream of.

But recently, I have kept them to myself.

Not because I don't trust him, but it is difficult to explain what my dreams entail.

"I'm not sure I want to remember anymore. All it does is bring me pain."

"You would be okay with not knowing?" Soren's voice is a deep rumble against my ears and I don't step away when his thumb strokes the small of my back.

Would I be okay with never finding out? I think of everything I've acquired in the last few months.

A family. Wealth. A means to a better future.

I pull back only to meet Soren's lazy green eyes that study mine and it's not at all a lie when I say, "The present isn't so terrible that I'd do anything to return to the unknown. "

A corner of his lips rises and I let his thumb wipe the last of my tears from under my eyes. "By the present, you mean?"

He's great at that. Helping me forget. Distracting me.

From gentle soothing, his touch grows curious, insistent, traveling over the silk, feeling the curve of my waist through the material.

I am reminded of my chest pushed flush against his torso and our thighs touching. A roughened thumb draws a curve along my jaw and I struggle to remember the initial question as heat travels up my legs. "Landon," I start. There's a hitch to my breath.

"Just Landon?"

The feelings his adept hands create are so visceral, my heart explodes in my stomach. "A-and Eric. And..." I lose brain cells when his thumb strokes my bottom lip. "...Lilia. I've never had friends before."

"And me?" Another stroke and a heady scent fills the air. "What are we doing, Seraphina? An arrangement? Friendship? Marriage? A distraction?" My eyelids flutter at the last word because his pupils have dilated as he stares intently at my mouth. "Ah. I see. A mere distraction."

I want to tell him that it's not true. But doing that would mean facing the truth of what he actually is to me. And something in me is too frightened for that.

Soren's eyes track mine and he sees it before I can hide it. "What are you afraid of?"

Many things. I've been scared of way too many things since before I can remember.

Since I was little. Betrayal, vulnerability, helplessness, worthlessness, failing the one person who meant the world to me.

But there were the big three that followed me wherever I went, that hung on my shoulders heavily.

The fear of entrapment. Abandonment. And being attracted and attached to the very thing that could break me.

Soren scares me because I have grown attached to him, whether I wanted to or not.

I don't tell him any of that. No. Being a fucking masochist, I seek to break and ruin the moment by speaking of something else. Something less arousing and more disturbing. "I have been having dreams of Landon's father."

I feel the tension in his muscles but he doesn't pull away. Must not be jarring enough. I stare at the skies over his shoulder. They're clear tonight, my eyes tracing each constellation as I blurt bullshit. "In these dreams, he?—"

"Touches you?" He exhales a slow laugh, no more than a puff of breath.

"You wound me deeply if you think that's enough to get me to lay off your back.

" He moves, not entirely a step forward, but we're closer than before and I can feel his strong heartbeat clash against mine.

"If you wish to pretend I never said those things at the hospital, then it is quite alright.

If you cannot care for me, then use me, Seraphina.

If that is the only way I can be useful to you, I'll take it. "

My underbelly clamps tightly. "This isn't right, Soren," I tell him, but I don't push him away. "All I've done is take from you. I'm not completely sure I'll ever not owe you."

His fingers clamp down on the back of my neck. "Not entirely true," he whispers, voice husky. "And even if it were, I'm too far gone to care if you take everything I own."

I start to find another excuse. Do I remind him of the contract? How close I am to actually leaving? But...I don't want to leave anymore. And that is the last thing I want to talk about right now.

Not that I get to make the decision anyway, because Soren's hand slides down my side, lifts my right leg through the slit of my dress and hooks it around his. I gasp when he twists me and plants me on the dangerously high railing. "What if I?—"

The force of his lips crashing into mine nearly knocks me over and into the air. My heart detonates in such wild fear at the thought of falling again, but I am held single-handedly by an anchor. By Soren's fist on my neck.

And it does something to me.

Knowing that he has the power to hurt me but won't do it. Knowing that I am dangling on the edge of a precipice, a second away from death, again, but I have never been safer in my life.

It heals something inside I hadn't known was broken to begin with.

His tongue presses against the seam of my lips and there is an explosion at the base of my spine as I let him in. My nails find purchase on his forearms, sinking past his suit and digging into his skin, and he groans, hand gripping my thigh tight enough to bruise.

There is nothing at all gentle about the way he devours my mouth. It is filthy. Deep. Consuming in the way that Soren always is. His mouth is hot, his tongue is hot and I am in heat, shivering with need.

A line. I should draw a line.

It was difficult to go back over that line that night he watched me touch myself. But this is different. I can tell that this will stay with me for a lifetime.

The air is not chilly enough to catch up to the heat of his skin as his fingers push past the slit, the movement simultaneous to the angled tug of my head that gives him complete control of the kiss, forces me only to take from him, almost as if he is proving a point.

His tongue roams my mouth, slides against mine, velvety smooth. Charring. His hand is under my dress, pushing a dangerous line. I'm still dangling off the edge of a railing within an inch of my life.

And I must have lost it completely because I lean back and buck my hips in pursuit of his fingers. And they brush against my panties, so soaked, the thought of peeling them off seems right enough to make me moan.

"Fuck," Soren cusses and the sound goes all the way to my toes, curling them.

The railing groans under the weight of both of us and I am suddenly hoisted off the iron, my back hitting...the door? I hadn't even felt him moving at all.

He's so tall that even with my legs locked around his torso, he still hulks over me, neck bent as he— oh .

The thin strip of my dress is pushed aside and I suck in air as Soren's mouth finds my collarbone, scattering kisses across my chest in a wild frenzy.

My hands ride up his shirt, flattening against his broad chest and I feel him stiffen, because even if he's touched me every time, I've never initiated any kind of touch.

My palms feel out his chest, his arms, his shoulders. I push back the suit jacket, insides tight and insanely hungry for something I can't name.