He spins around to leave, but shoots me a look before crossing the glass. His white mask shimmers in a myriad of colors under the fluorescent lights, as though thousands and thousands of tiny jewels are embedded in the quartz.
“Be warned. If you betray me, I’ll set fire to that house of yours, and search the ashes myself.”
Chapter 18
Twins
E
The mist drains from the bridal shop in slow ribbons, thinning until the rows of gowns come back into view. Max stands at the center of the room, her chest rising hard, her red curls spilling in chaotic spirals over her shoulders. Frozen beads of mist melt from her body, sliding down her arms. They leave faint trails along her pale skin, the lace of her bra, and the frilly fabric hugging her hips.
The shop’s white lights shine in Max’s green eyes. She looks shaken and furious and impossibly relieved, like a sacrificial lamb who somehow survived the altar and crawled her way out of her destiny.
She drags her fingertips along the curved wall of the bubble around her, gliding over the surface as though she’s petting a living creature. The orb shimmers in response. Then, with a soft thrum, it snaps out of existence.
I pull in a sharp breath, and my voice scrapes free at last. “Fuck. Max, are you okay?”
“Thanks to you,” she says, her voice cracking.
“I couldn’t move… I couldn’t speak.”
My body throbs from the strain of what I became around her. Upholding the shield drained every bit of me, and dark spots dance at the edge of my vision. Flamings hells, I don’t want to fadenow.
“I didn’t know if it would work. I couldn’t do anything else. I just…held on,” I explain.
“You saved me.”
The words are bright and unbearably tender.
Max crosses the space between us and grips my shoulders, and for an instant, I think I’m going to fall straight through the floor. Her nails sink into my skin, grounding me to existence.
Then her mouth crashes into mine.
Her kiss is desperate and bruising—a pull so fierce I suspect she’s trying to anchor me to her plane by sheer will. She holds me down, drags me in, gripping so tight her knuckles turn white, as if she’s terrified I’ll slip into nothingness again. Her nails rake along the back of my neck, dig into my shoulder blades, and scrape against the ghost-marrow of me.
When she reaches for me, I become real.
A raw, animal moan breaks out of her, and hot tears streak down her cheeks. She clutches me harder, her whole body trembling like letting go might tear her apart.
Her lips taste of fire and blood and desperation.
Bliss floods me because she wants this. After running from our first kiss, from the truth, from herself…she wants me. She kisses me as though I’m her last tether in a world gone cold, as though she wants to swallow me drop by drop.
I kiss her back.
My hands buried in her hair.
Her fingers curled around the collar of my shirt.
Her mouth breaking open.
She pulls me closer still, until there’s no space, no air, no boundary—just her beautiful fire and my irrational need, tangled in a kiss that telegraphs resurrection and ruin.
And for the first time since I died, I don’t fear the darkness.
I won’t vanish now, because she won’t let me.
The shop clerks and customers start to groan and grumble, groggily awakening from their magic-induced slumber.
