AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Into the center of the target.
“I did it. I did it!” Why hadn’t I wanted to try in class? I was a natural. I was so excited, I dropped the bow in the grass and jumped around, finally grabbing the wide-eyed bad boy around the neck and kissing him on the lips.
Then I froze. Stepped back and tried to breathe.
Why didn’t he say something? Maybe it would be better if he didn’t. If we both pretended it hadn’t happened. Could I just leave? Run for the suites and hide under the bed forever? I couldn’t even hear the wind in the trees over the pounding of my heart in my ears.
When the silence stretched on long enough, I bent and picked up my bow. He came to stand behind me and helped me again. He did all the same wonderful things, but I never again even came close to the target. He spoke, about archery, and I answered, about archery.
When he decided I’d had enough practice, my arms felt like spaghetti and my brain was going a mile a minute, wondering what he was thinking.
I watched him picking up the equipment and loading it onto a small cart, thinking I should just leave, but finally, I asked, “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
That eyebrow rose again. “About what?”
He was going to make me do it. “The…the kiss.”
“Oh.” His smile brightened his face, pushing the brooding back. “It’s always exciting to hit your first bullseye. You’ll do it again, I promise.
What the unholy…
“Thanks for the encouragement.”
I spun and stalked away, but when I peeked over my shoulder, he was watching me go and not in an archery way. I put a little extra sway in my hips.
Chapter Nineteen
Every day when I passed through the common area, the veil seemed to call to me from behind the buildings. Sometimes rising above the walls, sometimes not, but always present. It pulled and tugged at my attention and my senses. Sometimes, if I arrived at my suite before the others, I would sit at the window and simply stare at it. The billows seemed to fluctuate colors. Some days, it was a beautiful variation of violets and magentas and other days, it was blue with pinches of gold and silver. It fascinated me and, even when I was in class or eating, it was in the back of my mind, hovering there, begging for attention.
Finally, almost driven to madness with it, I decided to approach it. On purpose this time. Give it the attention it demanded. Maybe, if I simply faced it, it would go away or at least stop whining to be the center of my thoughts.
I walked up to it, heart beating faster with every step. I stood before it for a few minutes just lost in the beauty and possessed by what may have been on the other side.
What I didn’t know swirled in my thoughts and beckoned me, tugged at the center of my chest, pushed at my hips, and almost took control of my entire being.
“Endymion, stop!” I heard, but the voice seemed so far away. It was too late. I was crossing over into the veil. and there was nothing anyone could do to stop me.
Except what came next.
Two strong arms wrapped around my torso, one hand landing right over my sternum and the other wrapped around my stomach, and jerked me backward.
I barely held in a scream. Whoever this was ripped me from what I needed most.
Wanted most.
Lusted for.
“What are you doing?” I asked, wriggling from the person’s hold and whirling around to give them the what for.
“You can’t cross over the veil,” Bain said in that stern,I’m better than youvoice that irked me to the core.
“I can. I was so close.” Tears welled in my eyes. Why did he show up every time I got near the veil?
“Please don’t, Endy. Please.” He had stepped in closer and was now whispering in my ear. The feeling of his breath against the rim of my ear had me alighted from head to toe, and all thoughts of the veil and crossing into it faded by the moment.
“Why?”
He pulled back and barely grazed my hand with his fingers. “Because I would miss you.”
