But still, even if it meant those things, she yearned to know what that scarred Vexkari felt like against her own. Her arm was heavy as she raised it boldly. Reeve didn’t protest as she grazed her fingertips across his face.
He released a long breath that, had Maeve been sober, she would have caught.
His skin had truly been kissed by fire. It pulsed through her fingertips, down her arm, eventually spreading to her toes. She smiled. A small sound of shock escaped her lips at the feeling. Her smile faded as she spoke.
“I’m sorry.”
The words came out, barely above a whisper, before she even realized she had said them. She didn’t withdraw her fingers from his face.
Reeve’s head tilted slowly, positioning his lips to her fingers, and pressed them against her soft skin. He watched her closely, ensuring that she remained relaxed despite his movements.
“Why are you sorry, Maeve?”
Honestly and vulnerability came quickly beneath her intoxicated state. “Because. . . everything I touch falls to ruin.”
Another tender, slow kiss across her knuckles. . . his lips barely touching her skin.
His voice was smooth and dark. “I am still standing.” Her fingers shook against his cheek. “I will stand by you until the end.”
Maeve’s arm grew weak and began to fall to her side. Too quick for her eyes to detect, Reeve grabbed her wrist. He held her gently, not with greedy force, and placed one last tender kiss on her fingertips, before lowering her arm smoothly to her side.
A long moment of silence passed.
“I won’t drink anymore,” she said.
“You can drink if you want, Maeve,” said Reeve. “It’s the lowering of your heart rate to a creeping pace I won’t allow. If you want to drink, I need you to be responsible—”
She sighed hotly. “I don’t want to drink. I hate feeling like this.”
“I know you do,” he said softly. Reeve pushed off the wall, pulling away from her.
More honesty poured from her as she kept her gaze averted from his. “How am I going to master Shadow Magic when the only one like me alive wants me dead and is. . . possessing someone I love?”
If the admission wounded him, he did not show it.
“The same way you have overcome each and every obstacle this far.”
She ran her hands across her face, her legs begging her to give them a break.
“Bed or bath?”
His question caught her off guard. Her cheeks flushed, and in her drunken state, she mistook his genuine question for another one of his flirtatious word games.
“I—” she stuttered. “With you?”
Reeve grinned and let out a low laugh.
“My, my. Your mind is in the gutter, it seems. But if you’re offering—”
Maeve frowned as she pushed off the wall and made to shove him, quickly losing her footing as her head spun. A dark chuckle filled the air as she headed straight for the ground. Just before she planted face down, the smooth stone below wheeled out of view. Reeve held the back of her knees with one strong arm and her waist with the other. Warmth filled her bones once more, freely flowing. Pure white Magic rippled into her.
Maeve groaned as everything spiraled like she was trapped in a sphere.
“So which is it?” he asked as he carried her into the palace.
Maeve clamped her eyes shut, feeling a wave a nausea coming.
“Just take me to my chambers,” she said weakly.
