I look away. “You might have noticed mine already.”
This is the hard part. It shouldn’t be. He already knows I’m draki, after all, but this takes it to another level. I’m not just a draki. I’m a draki that’s freakish even among my own kind.
Drawing a deep breath, I face him. “I’m a fire-breather.”
He looks confused, and I yearn to smooth the wrinkle from his forehead.
“There’s no such thing. Not anymore,” he says. “There are no reports of any firebreathing—”
“Guess I pulled some lucky recessive genes.”
He doesn’t smile. His hand flutters over my face, hovering. But this time he doesn’t touch me. Gradually, understanding fills his eyes. “In the stairwell…your skin got so hot. Your lips…just now…”
My face burns even as his words make me feel bitter cold inside. I nod. “Yeah, I kinda…heat up when you kiss me.”
“So…what does that mean? When we kiss I might catch on fire or something?” His eyes widen then. “That’s why you’ve avoided me. Why you ran away when we kissed that night.”
I resist pointing out that’s why I ran away every time, not just that night.
His hands touch his lips as if remembering the warmth of my lips moments ago. I laugh.
A miserable sound. Can this be any more mortifying?
“I can only hurt someone if I release fire or steam,” I confess. At least I think that’s true.
As I speak, his fingers trail down my arm. I’m just so relieved he’s willing to touch me after I’ve told him this. He turns my hand over and traces the fine lines on my palm.
“And?” He looks up beneath heavy lids. “What else should I know about you?”
“My skin—” I stop, swallow.
He leans down, presses his lips to my wrist in a feathery kiss. “What about your skin?”
“You know. You’ve seen it,” I rasp. “It changes. The color becomes—”
“Like fire.” His gaze lifts from my wrist and he says that word he said so long ago surrounded in cold mists, tucked on a ledge above a whispering pool of water.
“Beautiful.”
“You said that before. In the mountains.”
“I meant it. Still do.”
I laugh weakly. “I guess this means you’re not mad at me.”
“I would be mad, if I could.” He frowns. “I should be.” He inches closer to me on the couch. We sink deeper into the tired cushions. “This is impossible.”
“This what?” I clutch the collar of his shirt in my fingers. His face is so close I study the varying color of his eyes.
For a long time, he says nothing. Stares at me in that way that makes me want to squirm.
For a moment, it seems that his irises glow and the pupils shrink to slits. Then, he mutters, “A hunter in love with his prey.”
My chest squeezes. I suck in a breath. Pretty wonderful, I think, but am too embarrassed to say it. Even after what he just admitted.
He loves me?
Studying him, I let myself consider this and whether he can possibly mean it. But what else could it be? What else could drive him to this moment with me? To turn his back on his family’s way of life?
As he looks at me in that desperate, devouring way, I’m reminded of those moments in his car when he tended the cut on my palm and ran his hand over my leg. My belly twists.
I glance around, see how seriously, dangerously alone we are. More alone than in the stairwell. Or even the first time together, on that ledge. I lick my lips. Now we’re alone with no school bell ready to rip us apart. Even more alarming, no more secrets stand between us. No barriers. Nothing to stop us at all.
I hold my breath until I feel the first press of his lips, certain I’ve never been this close to another soul, this vulnerable. We kiss until we’re both breathless, warm and flushed, twisting against each other on the couch. His hands brush my bare back beneath my shirt, trace every bump of my spine. My back tingles, wings vibrating just beneath the surface.
I drink the cooler air from his lips, drawing it into my fiery lungs.
I don’t even mind when he stops and watches my skin change colors, or touches my face as it blurs in and out. He kisses my changing face. Cheeks, nose, the corners of my eyes, sighing my name like a benediction between each caress. His lips slide to my neck and I moan, arch, lost to everything but him. In this, with him…I’m as close to the sky as I’ve ever been.
I make grilled cheeses for lunch, one for me, two for Will. We don’t have any chips, but I find a jar of pickles in the pantry.
“This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten.” He pauses for a drink, staring at me over the rim of his glass of juice.
“It’s the provolone,” I say, swallowing my last bite.
“It’s the chef.”
I smile and look away.
We listen to music. Talk. Kiss until my flesh glimmers gold-red. Warms to the touch from the deep scald at my core. He stops to watch. Leans his face close to my neck and smells my skin. Like I’m something he might taste. He sweeps his hands along my arms…making me burn hotter.
“Is this what it’s like for other fire-breathers?” he asks, winks, holding my hand up in his broad palm. “Or is it just me and my magic hands?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. I’m the only one in my pride.”
His gaze snaps to mine, laughter gone. “Seriously?”
I nod. “That’s why we left the pride. Mom says it isn’t safe for me there anymore.”
His hand on my arm tightens. “They would hurt you?”
I shiver, thinking of the wing clipping they planned for me. I close my hand over his, force his fingers to loosen their grip. “No. Not like you think. They just want to plan out my life for me.” I think of Cassian and shiver again. “Own me.”
His brows dip. “What do you mean?”
“Your information wasn’t totally off. Fire-breathers were thought to be extinct, lost. Then I came along. I’m the first fire-breather in my pride in generations.” I shrug, trying to make light of my words. “And they want more. More like me. It’s simple, really.”