Page 99 of Omen of ice
“Anyway, now that we’ve tried it, I can’t say that I’m interested in doing it again.” My fingers itch to twine into the long strands of her hair, but I pull away.
Her lips twist. “Have to agree with you there. So, if we’re finished, shall we head back to camp and never, ever speak of it again?”
“I’d agree, except…” My heart pounds. “There’s something going on here.”
She moves her head, but it isn’t immediately clear whether she’s agreeing or shaking it in denial. “There really isn’t.”
I tap my chest, directly over my heart. “I hate admitting it as much as you do, but I want to kiss you again—just like you want to kiss me.” The way she stormed out at the inn replays inside my mind. The emotion I felt still roils in my gut. “You weren’t just angry with me in the piskie village. You were hurt. Tell me why.”
She hesitates.
“I’d just like to know. Was it something I did?”
“You…” She watches me for a moment and, with a shudder, says, “Being linked to you is killing me.”
“Ouch.”
She shakes her head and blinks several times. A wave of regret rolls through the link. “I just mean, you know, the way you act sometimes. The things you say…” Her voice is soft, and the sudden spark of vulnerability in her eyes makes her seem so much younger than eighteen. “When you said you’d never…”
Kissed a human before. That’s what I said. Basing her assumption on what she’s seen of my life before we left the estate, of course she’d think my interest was experimental.
“I didn’t mean it like you think,” I say.
She moves a little closer, the spark of innocence dissolving, replaced by the semi-hardened shell I’ve grown so fond of. “And aside from that, I find you vile.”
“I believe you’ve mentioned that once or twice.”
“But this damn link—”
“Exactly. It’s the link. I don’t think we’ve got any choice. Ignoring it doesn’t seem possible.”
She drapes her arms around my neck again. “I still find you repulsive.”
“Right back at you, Fungus,” I say, leaning in to plant several kisses at the base of her neck.
She leans into my touch and sighs. “But you’re warm. So damn warm, and I need that right now. I need—”
I kiss her. Hands, body, mouth. Anger, frustration—every emotion we’ve both been feeling bleeds into the kiss. It’s passion, and it’s pain, and I—
“Where did you two run off to?” Benj shouts.
We break apart like guilty children, eyes locked and breathing heavy.
That’s when I notice her bare wrist. “Where’s your braid? The one you got in Vey Brill?”
“I lost it.” Without another word, Tania gathers her pile of wood and starts back toward camp. I wait until she’s gone, then run my finger over my lips. I know she’ll feel it.
That was so much more than a kiss. And even though it’s technically impossible for something more than a physical attraction to bloom between us, it’s there. Something real and tangible and utterly foreign.
Unfortunately, neither of us will ever admit it to the other.
33
Keltania
I told Valen the truth…
Being linked to you is killing me.
