To the contrary, the room’s airflow thickens. For the millionth time, is this what heat feels like? Is this a hint? The dynamics of temperature had been a mystery until Andrew joined their band of rebels. At which point, Wonder had picked the former mortal’s brain about the intensities of heat and cold.
Sometimes, she’s on the brink of understanding. From what she’s been told, heat is the congestion of oxygen, a buildup of one’s blood and pulse—such as that which exists between her legs.
And in between Malice’s legs. She knows this now, too.
In the forest, that brazen airflow had swirled from his center to hers. Damn that incident for depriving her of dreams.
It’s not merely that. Two unnerving thoughts stomp through her mind.
First, it’s one thing to know the boy he used to be, but it’s another to talk with the boy he’s become. Which person does she identify with better? Which one is more real to her?
Which one knows her?
That last puzzle piece isn’t really a question. Not if she cares to admit it.
Second, and most profound, is this: She’d had fun today.
She’d had too much brawling, bantering fun. It’s baffling, but whereas her classmates know the grander parts of her life, she had told Malice about the smaller facets, which are somehow as pivotal. Perhaps more so.
Her favorites. Her bookish escapades. Her resentment and gratitude toward magic and archery. Even some of her childhood had trickled out, along with memories of Harmony, her Guide.
Oddly, Wonder could have kept going. And oddly, he’d absorbed everything with an interest void of artifice or agenda.
Wonder shoots upright. Ugh, her archery!
She’d forgotten the longbow and quiver in the woods. If Malice were a gentleman or considerate god, he’d have brought the weapons to her upon his return indoors. But after pushing him out of their nest a few hours ago…well, she hasn’t seen him since then.
The weapons might still be out there like so much evidence. If another deity breaks worship curfew and decides to take a midnight stroll…
It’s unlikely at this juncture and in the midst of a tempest, but she cannot afford to be lazy.
Wonder flings back the covers. An inconvenient jaunt later, she’s drenched.
Clouds convene over the forest, causing rivulets to cut through and rustle the mesh of leaves. The onslaught reduces her nightgown to film, plastering the material against her as she picks through wildflowers on bare feet.
She casts about for company. Oh, honestly. Does she truly expect someone to venture here during a storm? Who would expose themselves to the elements at this hour? Who would defy curfew or the law of nature on a night like this? Who would be that foolish?
Who would be that insane?
Wonder’s heels skid on the grass. She flounders, her soles slipping across the glade. Her hand shoots out, grasping a willow trunk to balance herself.
Malice stands in the clearing’s epicenter, making himself into a visible target. But that’s not the problem.
The problem is, he’s naked.
All thought, sense, reason, logic, musing, contemplation, worry, caution, questions, and answers drain from Wonder’s mind. Along with the deluge, consciousness washes down her body.
This would be an optimal time to spring into action and dash behind the tree. But stars help her, she cannot move. Where have her reflexes gone?
To any common deity, nudity is hardly scandalous or private. However, it’s impossible to apply this rule right now.
Not to him. Not to this.
Almighty Fates. He has shed his clothing, the black garments a puddle beside him. With his back to her, Wonder gawks at the expanse of creamy skin, the muscle and sinew rippling across a lean but toned figure—a doused figure, beads cascading down the pillar of his neck, the wings of his shoulder blades, and the taper of his waist. They roll over the swells of his backside, rounded and tight and smooth. A pair of indentations sculpt into his rear, hinting how they might contort while thrusting into a waiting body.
Malice’s hands reach behind and carves through his wet curls, darkened by the rain. The movement readjusts the structure of his form, the lines and bones shifting.
Wonder’s lungs cease to work. That same compression of air from the branch, and from her bed, and from countless other moments, incapacitates her. Also, there’s an influx of blood, a suffusion that might be akin to heat, that flows at the nexus of her hips.
He’s bathing. That’s what he’s doing.
Has he been here since she left?
And what’s marking his bicep?
Malice’s upper body twists sideways as he rubs water from his forearm. In her stupor, Wonder gets a view of slender, black threads feathering across his flesh. It’s ink. The image of a fletching appears on one end, which morphs into a quill at the other.
When they’d slept in the same bed, she hadn’t seen this. Perhaps she’d been too preoccupied by his ranting and raving. It’s an intricate design, crafted by an immortal artisan of the Peaks or a fellow outcast in the Celestial City.
It’s a haunting sight. A tattoo hadn’t adorned his mortal self. This novelty is all Malice.
She envisions how that rendering would rise and collapse, contorting while he takes another deity up against the nearest tree, the tattoo spreading its plumage as his body undulates, the quill rhythmically scribbling nonsense while he gyrates.
Wonder pries herself from the fantasy. He shouldn’t be out here, but he’d never listen to such a flimsy lecture.
Her archery slants against another tree, poised right where she’d left it. If she moves to snatch the weapons and withdraw, he will catch her.
She backs away, tiptoeing from the scene until she’s out of his periphery. Malice will finish washing, and when he does, she’ll return for the bow and quiver.
Wonder beats a retreat to the only place that gives her strength. She drips her way through the Archives and into the Hollow Chamber, rushing down the subterranean stairs and across the walkways, wending into the lower-most level, then tucking herself into the restricted section. Disappearing around a bookcase, she slumps against the shelves to catch her breath. Her body dampens the carpet, while other parts of her dampen in a more succinct way.
Her head cranks backward as she gulps, staring at the nebulous prisms of green light floating overhead. “Cursed Fates.”
“You forgot something.”
Wonder whips toward the aisle’s entrance, a squeal lodging in her throat.
Malice stands there, watching her while bracing his palms on opposite bookcases. He isn’t huge, but neither is he small. And his personality alone is massive enough to fill in the gap between the stacks.
A set of hickory weapons rests on the floor, tipped against the shelving. As for her archery? He’s got it harnessed to his back, the buckle tensing across his chest.
His bare chest.
Because he’s still naked.
14
Wonder refuses to glance away, because that’s what he’d want. She keeps her attention level with his, narrowing her eyes while all hell breaks loose inside her. She inhales fresh rain and millennia of pages. The Chamber illuminates the forbidden shape of him—the carnal grid of his torso and the pillars of his limbs.
His wiry mouth morphs into a sneer, but that jeering smile melts once his eyes blaze a trail across Wonder. Her wet attire is plastered to her body, one of the nightgown straps slashes down her shoulder, and her nipples jut through the garment’s satin material. And she doesn’t have to follow his gaze to know that a very discreet patch of hair is visible below.