Torch every trial,
With the flames of love so true.
There is no path too dark and no
Unknown left to fear
Because the certainty of you
Is always here.
We will burn the world
And light the skies we view,
Torch every trial,
With the flames of love so true.
I played the final refrain again without singing any words, suddenly wondering if I’d read her wrong and said too much. But it was what I felt. If it came back to curse me, then… so be it.
I risked looking at her again. A faint sheen glistened over her eyes, as if she might start crying again, but… no sad feelings came through the bond at all. Instead, a new impression washed over me. Something like a warm breeze carrying a hopeful happiness.
“That song,” she asked, “contains your desires?”
I nodded. “I… you… I didn’t know how dark my life was until you lit it up. I would do anything—everything—for you, but… you deserve so much more than me. I… I don’t even love myself. I don’t want to burden you withme and my darkness.”
She raised her brows. “And what about the burden that I am to you?”
I shook my head. “You are no burden.”
Chapter 27:Callista
Iclimbed out of my blanket, slid off the bed, and sat on the edge of the chair by Aedan. He straightened and shifted so we could both fit easily.
I set one of my hands on his while it still held the lute’s body. He thought he was so broken and beastly that he didn’t see all the good things he did. “I have just as many issues as you. We've already discussed how disasters follow me everywhere I go. If you want to risk loving me, then you should let me risk loving you too.”
He dropped the lute and let it balance on his lap while raising a hand to my head. I closed my eyes and leaned my cheek into his palm. He traced my cheekbone with his thumb. “Firehawk. You can’t imagine what those words are doing to my soul.”
“Probably something very similar to what your song did to mine,” I whispered.
His other hand cradled the back of my head while he pressed akiss into my forehead. Heat erupted from the contact with his skin and spread like the sun over my entire face.
His lips grazed my forehead as he asked, “Do you trust me?”
I reached across the lute to hold his neck. “More than anyone I’ve ever known.”
He kissed the corner of my mouth and whispered across my cheek. “I’ve loved you for weeks.”
I turned my head the smallest degree to meet his lips. He kissed with a slow and gentle caution, but the heat from his touch ran from my lips to my heart. I’d loved him for weeks too, but I’d never thought he’d actually return those feelings, not with the way he’d kept such a tight rein on his emotions recently.
As the moments deepened, his caution dissolved and the kiss grew into a thrilling expression of trust and passion. His power erupted around us, dancing across my skin, lighting my magic sensors in a fiery display, and wrapping me in a cocoon of safety that permeated deep in my soul. His love called to me, and my heart embraced it. I never wanted to leave him again.
But eventually, he pulled back, kissed my cheek, and rested his against it. “I love you,” he whispered. “I feel it in my bones and sinews. The very blood in my veins wants you. If you were an elf who lived in my kingdom, I would ask you to marry me, and I would ask your parents to bless our union. As it is, I don’t know what—”
A loud crashing sound from my incinerated room interrupted him, along with a voice yelling. “No! That monster! I thought he’d changed. I’ll kill him, Jolter. So help me, if he can do this…”
Koan trailed off, probably listening to something Jolter said. A few seconds later, a violent banging shook the bedroom door. The bedroom we were in.
