I opened, greeting his tongue with my own. A moan slipped out. He was pleasure itself, and I sipped at the well, savoring every second. We continued tasting each other, slowly at first, but soon the tempo increased. With it, the pressure inside me intensified, and I strained toward him.
We’d kissed before, but this was different. Something deeper and sweeter. A quiet storm of fire and silk. Intimacy able to steal my breath, with a fierceness that set my skin alight. And yet, beneath the longing, there was something else. A tremor of desperation. A whisper of fear ... Perhaps a bite of recklessness and ruination.
He spun us both around, pinning me against the bar. A single kick of his foot widened my legs, allowing him to push a leg between mine. Thoughts whirled, soon fragmenting, dissolving, and evaporating.Threading his fingers in my hair, he tipped me off balance, forcing me to rely on him.
I pulled at his shirt with grasping hands. Barely pausing the kiss, he ripped the material over his head. His tattooed pectorals drew my palms like magnets. I caressed his ribs. His lower stomach.
He hefted me onto the bar, then stepped between my legs again. Still the kiss continued, deepening. I needed more of him. Wanted everything he had to give. But. A tugging sensation. Slight. Noticeable. It erupted in my deepest depths, and for a moment, I was certain I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That I should be ... with Domino.
Perplexed and appalled, I wrenched from the kiss. I didnotjust think that.
Expression hardening, Cyrus backed up several steps and blustered his next breath. “You feel him.” A hard statement, not a question.
Guilt and shame flared. “I think he needs to tell me something.”
Domino appeared beside Cyrus a heartbeat later, ending the conversation. He glanced between us and pressed his lips into a firm line. “Ask him to show you the tome.”
My brows drew together. “You have a tome here?” I asked Cyrus. What kind? Soal’s books never left the library.
Cyrus’s brows drew together too. “No, I—” He blinked, shook his head. “I do. I remember now.”
He stalked off and returned a few minutes later, wearing a shirt and holding a thick, ancient-looking book. A small, oily shadow slithered around it, and I recoiled, instantly anxious. But calm washed over me, just as it had done earlier, chasing away the anxiety.
“My grandfather has a library similar to Soal’s, and he gave me this,” Cyrus said, leading us into the living room. He settled on the couch, and I claimed the chair across from him, allowing Domino to stand at my side. “I think ... I think this is one of the reasons I lost my memories. I blacked out every time I opened it.”
“That is a history told by a Soalian scribe who lived long ago, but as you can see, Astan attempts to distort the story,” the librarian said.“Read it,” he instructed me, and I vehemently shook my head in denial. Black out? No, thank you. “You are connected to me, the contents unable to ensnare you as they did Cyrus.”
Fine. I reluctantly requested the book, which Cyrus slid across the coffee table between us. The moment I brushed my fingers over the cover, the shadow broke apart, evaporating, as if afraid to face me. Good, that was good. Perhaps I had more power than I’d realized.
The absence of the dark haze revealed striking leather decorated with mesmerizing swirls of gold. I set the heavy tome on my lap, took a calming breath, and cracked the spine.
“You can read it?” Cyrus asked, curious.
“Yes. The title page calls thisThe Rise of Harmonies.”
When I gently flipped the thick, yellowed page, I came to a hand-painted picture of a gorgeous, familiar man with a mop of curls and white wings tipped in gold. He wore jewel-studded armor.
“That is Astan,” Domino said. “Among the ancients, he’s known as Eos. Enemy of Soal.”
I’d heard the term before, though not its meaning. I’d been told Eos was the technical name for the Madness.
I examined every detail. Something was diff— “He’s without horns!”
“Correct. Those grew after his affair with Briar Rose began.”
As he spoke, bowed horns grew over Astan’s image on the page. “Why only then?”
“When a heart is changed, the body follows,” Domino replied.
Beside me, Cyrus made a frustrated noise, and I gave him a reassuring smile. “I’m only seeing illustrations so far.” The next page offered another hand-painted picture. This one of the exquisite woman I’d seen in Ember’s class. Flower petals clung to her curves. From her fingertips grew curling vines blooming with lush, green leaves and ruby-red fruit.
“Briar Rose, now Astan’s wife.” Domino flicked his gaze to Cyrus, who watched me with a hard stare. “She’s a grower, able to produce seeds. Flowers. Trees. Fruit.”
That statement yanked my attention back to the book. “I’m a grower too,” I rasped, dots connecting. I flinched. “She’s chosen me, hasn’t she?”
Domino didn’t respond to my question. “When she aligned with Astan, her seeds became tainted, the same as her heart.”
The next series of pages showcased paintings of Bala, Astan’s pet dragon, who was far more ferocious than expected, with glittering emerald scales and eyes as bright as rubies. Those teeth ... that spiked tail ...
