Page 65 of Stealing Embers
And suddenly, I’m kissing him back.
Chapter Nineteen
I’m easily lost in a barrage of sensations. My lips brush against his to the beat of my frantic heartbeat.
Steel makes a noise deep in his chest. Twining his other arm around my waist, he pulls me more fully to him. In that moment I lose my grip on any sort of reality that doesn’t include him and the way he’s holding me, the way he tastes on my tongue, the way I melt under his touch.
The part of myself that laid claim to his defenseless form rushes to the surface and rejoices.
“Mine.”
The word whispers from my lips on an airy breath, but it’s enough to break whatever spell he’s under. Steel’s body tenses beneath my hands. His grip on my waist dissolves and his hand slides off my face.
My eyes blink open slowly—resentful of whatever caused the disruption—and catch the panicked expression on Steel’s face. His eyes are stretched so wide I see the white around his irises. His brow and nose scrunch as if he smells something off-putting.
Ripping himself away from me, he stumbles back several steps—his usual gracefulness nowhere to be found.
His head swivels to take in our surroundings. It’s almost as if he’s just now realizing where he is.
“Wh-what were we doing?”
A rush of heat darkens my cheeks. Isn’t it obvious what we were doing? No way I’m going to walk him through it.
Steel shoves a hand in his hair, agitation rolling off him in waves.
“What happened?”
He can’t be serious. A sickly knot of unease churns in my gut, like a snake coiling in on itself.
“The . . . Forsaken?” I offer as a question rather than an explanation.
Scrubbing a hand down his face, he turns his confused eyes on me.
“Wasn’t a dream,” he mutters. The agony on his face is punctuated by the hand he fists in his hair. “I thought . . .”
What does he think?
My brain is still muddled from that mega kiss and the craziness of the Forsaken attack.
One of those events is definitively more important than the other, yet my mind keeps snagging on the former when it tries to focus on the latter.
Steel and I stand on opposite sides of the alley, staring at each other.
I watch as he lifts a hand and wipes his mouth—and with that simple action, my heart cracks.
I didn’t think Steel had the power to hurt me, but I was wrong.
Tucking the broken pieces of myself away, I square my shoulders, intent on getting back to the real world.
“I don’t need this. Especially not from you.”
Head held high in mock indifference, I march away from him. At least that was the plan, but I only make it half a step before my body pitches backward.
I twist and catch myself against the wall. Craning my neck to the left, I finally take note of the foreign weight anchored to each side of my spine. A flash of gold catches my eye.
“What the—?”
Blinking, I take in the full expanse of the gleaming wings attached to my back. Made up of rows of shiny gold feathers, they drape behind me like a cape, the tips brushing the ground. The span of the wings must be at least six feet in each direction.