Page 134 of Claim the Light
My eyes widen at his proposal.
If I give him the ability to use his power, he’s offering to use it forme. I was determined to seek vengeance on my own, but it was going to be an uphill battle. Particularly because I don’t have any means to make it happen. I don’t even have a shred of untorn material to my name.
Now, all the power I could possibly want is within my reach.
I reach up, suddenly needing to make contact with his body. My fingertips hover the barest distance from his jaw before I dare to breach the gap.
His skin is cool to touch. Ethereal. Otherworldly. And not quite here. As if his form is paper thin.
I know what he is. I know about the power in his crown. But I don’t know who he was all those thousands of years ago before he became the keeper of dark magic. I don’t know if his heart was always dark or even what kind of supernatural he was.
But… can I give away my heart in exchange for his power?
“You’re asking for the power in my heart,” I say, my eyes narrowed, since I need the organ beating in my chest to stay alive. “What exactly do you mean?”
“I’m talking about the greatest power of a heart,” he says, as if I should already know. “The power to love.”
Of course.
But the decision is easy. All it takes is for my mother’s long-ago words to echo back to me.
“You were loved.”
Quietly, I say, “What use is my heart if there’s nobody left to love me?”
His lips soften. I feel his focus like a burn as his hand rises to my chest, his palm pressing over the location of my heart, his fingertips brushing against the bare skin that’s reachable through the rips in my dress. A trickle of pleasure travels through my breast and down to my stomach. It’s so unexpected that I fight not to gasp.
“If you want my heart…” I whisper, my voice turning into a snarl as I fight the unusual sensation across my skin, “Take it.”
His other arm scoops around me, pulling me close. I sense the thinness of his form and I marvel at the way his wraith-like body can carry the weight of so much power. “I cannot take most dark magic from the living, but Icantake the power of a heart since it only exists during life.”
I find myself standing eye level with his chin, my gaze lifting to the crown and, up this close, to the shadows behind the metal.
My lips part with surprise when I catch a glimpse of the empty expanse behind his crown, a cavern of pain and despair.
Agony strikes through my chest so suddenly and sharply that I jolt, but his other arm tightens across my back, forcing me to stay where I am. My focus flies down to my chest, where his fingers are clawed and blood is soaking my dress.
A second later, the pain ends as quickly as it began, and his palm flattens against my skin, the final droplets of blood trickling across the back of his hand.
Black blood.The evidence of my heritage.
He lowers his head to mine and whispers against my lips. “I’m sorry if that hurt, but I promise it will be worth it.”
That’s it?
My forehead creases. “It’s done?”
His lips are so close to mine that when I sway forward as I speak, my mouth brushes his. Tingling sensations flow all the way from my lips to my core, making me blink with surprise.
“It’s done,” he says, the movement of his lips against mine sending another stream of pleasant sensations through my body.
He breaks the contact, leaving me perplexed as he steps back and reaches up to his crown, his hands closing around it as if he’s going to take it off.
I lean forward in anticipation, but a second later, he crouches to the floor and his head bows, and I can no longer see his face.
He slips the crown upward. The moment it leaves his head, black hair appears, falling across his face.
Remaining crouched, he rolls his shoulders. His cloak parts at the front, revealing his chest, but clings to the tops of his shoulders as if it’s attached to his body.
