Page 67 of The Song of the Void

Unworthy.

The word echoed in my mind, rebounding with images of a spoiled teenage Reiven, carrying the body of a young boy to an extravagant manor not unlike the one where we had first met. The stunned look on his face as his father shouted and cursed at him, and his mother sobbed into her hands. After hours of screaming and crying and trying to shake life back into the dead child, an unsettling woman called by his father arrived, chanting words in another language at a dazed Reiven.

Unworthy…Unworthy of what? The love of his family, their riches? A normal life? Freedom from constant pain?

“Reiven,” I whispered. I had to fight for the words I wanted to say. “How do we dispel it?”

The orange blaze in the sky had given way to a shadow of almost-night, and that shadow hung in his eyes too. Something was odd about the smile he gave me. “I was given impossible conditions to break it, and I’m almost out of time. So, forget about it, sweetheart.”

I threw my arms around him to crush him against me without a word, and he held me back just as tightly. As the silver light of the moon ascended over us, we didn’t speak, and we didn’t let each other go. Not even when his shoulders shook, and he sank to his knees in the moss, unable to contain the anguish he had held inside him for so long.

Reiven tossed his gloves into the bonfire as soon as we returned, and it seemed like it freed him. He loosened his shoulders and cracked a grin, joking that Ash must be blind if he couldn’t see the smoke from our fire.

After a night of restless sleep, we made it our mission to keep the fire burning strong and high the whole day, and that meant countless journeys into the jungle to retrieve dry sticks and grasses. We even added some fresh green palm fronds that caused the smoke to thicken.

Around nightfall, Ashkade reached out to Reiven to let him know they had spotted the smoke through a spyglass, and that the captain estimated they would arrive in a matter of hours.

We sat side by side in the grass, eating pineapple chunks and watching the furious orange flames flicker into a slow death of darkness. As the glow of the fire faded, the moon rose in the canvas of night to cast sterling light over the island. I leaned my head against his shoulder and shut my eyes to absorb the cool evening air, the birdsong in the treetops, and the wind, intertwined with the scent of salt, earth, and fruit.

Reiven ruined my peace by poking a stick into the embers and charred logs, throwing up a shower of sparks and a fresh cloud of smoke that made me cough and swipe at the air before me to clear it away. “Sorry,” he said, leaning back to recline on his elbows. “Man, I’d do unholy things for some rum right now.”

“I gave you permission to relax tonight, not to party.”

He finished off his last bite of pineapple with a grin. “Not really a party if it’s just one person drinking, is it?”

The reddish glow of the embers permeated his eyes, leaving flecks like rubies scattered about a dark cave. They sparkled when he laughed. I absentmindedly touched the outside corner of his eye as I admired it, then clambered to my feet before he asked what I was doing. “If you want to do something fun, you could come for a night swim with me.”

He stood too, but whined, “I don’t want to get my clothes wet, Blue, please.”

“Just take them off then.” I said it without thinking, but the rakish grin he gave me had me reconsidering the ease with which I could just blurt stuff out with him. Determined to maintain control, I gripped the bottom of the shirt he had insisted I keep wearing. “Just take them off,” I repeated, moving to lift it over my head, but he grabbed my hands to stop me.

What, are you shy now?

Reiven met my gaze and slid his hands beneath the shirt for a moment, his scorching touch grazing my stomach. A breath puffed out of my lips as he tugged the shirt up, and I lifted my arms so he could remove it. His eyes darkened and drew down my body, pausing briefly when they reached the scarring word etched into my stomach. He skimmed over the marks gently with his thumb, but said nothing as he gripped my hips and turned me to face away from him, until I stared at the ocean. His fingers brushed my skin as he unhooked my bra painstakingly slowly, like each hook was more difficult to undo than the last. Teasing me, no doubt. My breaths quickened in time with my heartbeat.

Rei pressed his lips against the curve between my shoulder and neck, traveling up until he reached my ear. “You’re breathtaking,” he whispered, dropping my bra in the grass.

A wave of shivers assaulted me, body and soul. Flattering words shouldn’t affect me at all, but when they came from him, I melted like sugar.

Reiven pulled me back against him, the hard planes of his body meeting my soft ones. He caressed my shoulders and down my arms, a hum low in his throat.

Without even thinking, I covered his hands with mine and guided them back up my stomach until they enveloped my breasts completely with warmth. I dropped my head back to rest on his shoulder with a grateful sigh.

His voice lowered to a sultry timbre. “You like being touched like this?”

“Only if…if it’s you, yes.”

He rewarded me with a gentle squeeze. “Being honest tonight, are we?”

“I’m…always honest,” I lied weakly.

“I’m not. I haven't told you a lot of things…But I think maybe I should.”

I held my breath.

“Things like…I wanted to kiss you ever since you told me you liked when I called you ‘Blue.’ I remember that moment so vividly, everything from the moonbeams in your hair to the warmth of your body right beside me.”

All I could think about was the memory of his fingers brushing against the back of my hand that night. The odd rippling in my chest, a rippling that echoed inside my heart now. Reiven nipped at my ear and trailed his mouth down my neck, leaving a distantly cool line of moisture on my skin.