But he didn’t fly in the air. He jumped sideways, and there was a second of realization. I lost my hold on the grace. The Sword of Michael collapsed just before we crashed through the water.
We went down together, a tangle of legs and churning bubbles. His gaze met mine through the rushing water as we sank and sank. His lips moved as he spoke, and Jesus, were angels part-fish or something? Were there gills in those feathers?
There was a better question to ask. Was he going to drown me? It was all too easy, with how tight he held me to him. There was no breaking his hold.
Before that question could give way to panic, he pushed off the bottom of the pool. We broke the surface moments later, and he let go. I didn’t sink back, finding myself in a shallower end, where the water reached my waist.
Gasping for air, I backed up as I wiped under my nose. I glanced down, and in the faintest traces of the encroaching dawn, I could see the darker gleam of blood was absent on my fingers.
My heart stuttered again. Had he...had he known or remembered what my blood would do? Was that why he tossed us both in the pool?
I looked up, watching him...watch me. Neither of us spoke as I backed into the wall of the pool. He was close, his features clearer than they should’ve been to me. There was a tautness to the set of his lips, one I had only barely begun to understand but recognized nonetheless. My heart hammered now for a wholly different reason. He came closer, his wings slicing through the water behind him. I stiffened, but I didn’t move.
He stopped in front of me, and I had to tilt my head back to meet his stare. “Why did you kiss me earlier?”
His question caught me off guard, and it took me a moment to answer. “Because I...I wanted to reach you.”
Thick lashes I shouldn’t be able to see lowered, shielding his gaze. “Did you?” he asked, his voice softer. More...more like Zayne than I’d ever heard.
A shivery wave of awareness skated through me. “You’re here,” I said thickly, lifting my hands from the water. I didn’t even know what I was doing until I did it, placing my hands against his chest.
He seemed to suck in a deep breath at the contact, as I flattened my palms against his too-cold skin. I didn’t push him away. I just...just touched him.
“You tell me if I reached you,” I whispered as the edges of the shirt floated out from me, threatening to rise to the surface.
His gaze lifted to mine, and that glow...the radiance in his skin and his eyes burned brighter. He was almost painful to look at, but I didn’t look away.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” he said.
I refused to believe that. “Yes, you do. On some level, you do.”
His features tightened and then blurred as he lowered his head to mine. “Then tell me why.”
11
How could I tell him in a way that he’d listen or understand, when I told him before? That it was because I loved him and he loved me, but words...words seemed to hold no meaning.
And I didn’t know if that was why I did what I did next. If it was to reach him like I had before or if it was propelled by the ache that had settled low in me, or if it was just my reckless impulsivity that operated on the mantra of act first and think later.
The why didn’t matter as I lifted my mouth to his. All that did was that it felt right even though he was either threatening to kill me or to put me in a cage, and I had really wanted to stab him in the heart earlier. For real. In no normal world would any of this be remotely okay. Certainly not what I was about to do. A whole lot of pearls would be clutched, but this...none of this was normal. We weren’t normal, and the norms and rules and expectations were not black and white here. They were gray, and we were drowning in that, but I knew when he kissed me before, that there was still a part of Zayne in there that recognized me—recognized us, and everything we meant to one another. Reaching that part of Zayne was worth it all.
The moment my lips touched his, I shuddered—he shuddered. The kiss...it was nothing like in the park. There was no tentative prodding or hoping for a reaction in him. It was there, and his reaction was immediate.
“I... I need you,” he said, voice thick.
“You always have me, Zayne.”
His mouth pressed to mine, and the kiss tasted of water and wintermint, familiar yet unknown.