More than if I’d just climbed down myself.
By the time I reach the ground, the flames are consuming every floor of the apartment building. Summer is barely visible through the thick smoke. But he isn’t even trying to follow me, as if he already knows it’s too late for him.
I start to scream his name as he releases the silk rope and smiles down at me one last time.
But that’s when the entire building collapses into a scorching heap of rubble.
With Summer—
My Summer—
Still inside.
I fall back from Aidan in the present, crashing onto the moss in my apartment with a hard thump. I can’t understand what’s happening. I can’t understand where I am. He’s staring at me in confusion, his brow knitted with an expression that’s like incredulity mixed with desire.
He lowers his gaze and looks me up and down.
Even though I’m fully clothed, I feel like he just undressed me from head to toe.
No. I can’t deal with this right now. I always find it hard not to remember Summer during the warmest months of the year, and I just had to watch him die all over again. The pain of his death is still reverberating throughout my entire being. It doesn’t help that some guy is looking at me in exactly the same way he did.
None of this is okay.
“What did you see?” Aidan asks me.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, choking back my tears. “You need to leave. Now.”
I grab his arm and jolt to my feet, hauling him upright with me. He doesn’t even try to resist. Avoiding the books and the wildflowers, I haul Aidan out of my apartment and into the hallway, where mercifully there’s no sign of summer at all. Somehow I manage to drag him all the way down into the Dragon’s Tale before he realizes I’m serious about kicking him out.
He halts in his tracks and says something to me, but I’m not listening. The bookstore is dark and empty, and the moonlight is casting rain-dotted shadows onto the walls. I was expecting it to still be morning, but instead it’s the middle of the night.
How long were we at the abandoned castle?
Aidan spins me around to face him. “Are you listening to me, Paige?”
I stare up at him, my pulse throbbing with an ache that almost makes me cry. All I want is to get anyone who isn’t Summer out of here. But in the shadows of the bookstore, Aidan almost looks like Summer. He’s about the same height, and his eyes...
Oh God.
I can’t remember what color Summer’s eyes were.
Even though I just watched him die for a second time, I’m suddenly finding it hard to remember what Summer looked like at all.
I have to get back to my apartment. I have to remind myself of Summer. It’s only been a few years since the fire, but I’ve spent too much time trying to forget what happened. I never even framed any pictures of him, because it would have hurt too much.
But Aidan is somehow reminding me so much of Summer it hurts more than I could have ever imagined.
The sharp agony echoes inside me, as if a knife is twisting deep in my heart. I find myself stumbling back against a wall. I don’t know if the ivy behind me is artificial or real. I don’t know if I feel lost or found. Did Summer die a few years ago, or did he die a few minutes ago?
I feel drunk and unsteady and wild, as if the world is spinning out of control around me.
“Paige—”
Warm fingers clasp my arms, my hair, my waist, comforting me against a solid chest in the darkness. I don’t know what else to do. All I know is that I’m desperate to feel Summer again, to make the pain stop at any cost, and the cognitive dissonance I’ve been feeling is too much.
I don’t know what time it is.
I don’t know what world it is.
Aidan might as well be Summer.
As if lost in a dream, I find myself doing the only thing that feels right, without thinking about the consequences. I lean up and kiss Aidan, and a wave of something like electricity streaks throughout my blood. It’s urging me to move. Urging me to consume his body with mine until I can’t remember anyone else ever existed.
I’m achingly aware of it.
Aidan stiffens for a second, but then his body molds to mine and he pushes me against the wall. His fingers tilt my head upward as his lips crush mine with intense longing.
He tastes like freshly mown grass.
He tastes like salty air at a beach on a warm summer night.
He tastes like sweet wine spilled underneath a magnolia tree laden with as many blossoms as there are stars.
It’s exactly what kissing Summer was like.
The strangest thing is that Aidan’s musk suddenly reminds me of Summer’s cologne. His presence feels familiar rather than new, as if we’ve done this a thousand times before. Even the way his thumb is circling my nipple over my blouse is something Summer would have done after a few drinks.
His hand reaches down and slides up my bare thigh, underneath the hem of my skirt, and that’s what finally does it.
To me, he is Summer.
I kiss him like he’s Summer and he kisses me back with so much passion I vaguely wonder if this is what he’s been waiting for all along. My fingers unbuckle his jeans as he hoists me against the wall, his finger impatiently hooking my panties aside. Red roses are sprouting in the ivy all around us, but I don’t care about how or why. I’m too busy locking my legs around Aidan’s waist, pulling him into me with a sharp gasp.
It’s not a decision. It just feels like an inevitable fate, as if not even the most powerful magic in the world could keep us apart right now. It feels like a question we both need answered, as if we need to confirm our existences to each other using our very bodies.
When Aidan is fully inside me, I expect him to start moving again, but he doesn’t. Instead he pulls away from our kiss and runs his fingers through my hair, tilting my head back so he can gaze into my eyes.
“Who are you?” His voice is low.
“Who do you want me to be?” I whisper. It’s not an invitation but a real question. The way he’s looking at me is far too familiar. I lost Summer and he must have lost someone else, someone closer to him than I could ever be.
But he lowers his lips to my ear and says one word.
“Paige.”
And then he begins to move against me, our bodies fusing together as his breath quickens to match mine. Neither of us has taken off any clothing, but we’re filled with so much intensity it doesn’t seem to matter. Everything else just falls away.
The bookstore.
My apartment upstairs.
Maybe even the world itself.
Each time he plunges into me, it feels like I’m being etched into the sky like a scattering of stars to form a permanent constellation.
And when we both cry out in ecstasy at the same time, I can feel the force of it like a crash of thunder that shatters the earth itself.
Slowly, I open my eyes to see Aidan’s green eyes glowing in the darkness. His musk like Summer’s cologne has spread all over my skin. Blades of grass are tangled in his golden hair where I’ve been running my fingers through it, as if we’ve been having sex in a meadow outside.
I don’t know what’s happening and it terrifies me.
I don’t know why Aidan reminds me so much of Summer.
“Paige,” he says quietly, setting me down. “Are you okay?”
I smooth my skirt back into place with trembling hands. “I need you to leave.”
His jaw clenches momentarily. “I can’t leave without The Goddess Codex.”
“Well, too bad,” I say, pointing at the front of the store. “The door is right there.”
“I can’t leave,” he says again.
“Why the hell not?”
Aidan gazes at me for a long moment, as if trying to decide whether to trust me. Finally, he says, “The Goddess Codex is the only way to resurrect Gaia.”
The words die in my throat as I stare up at him. Did Aidan seriously
just say he’s trying to resurrect someone? To undo what death took away from him? It’s so far outside the realm of sanity I have no idea what to believe. But if magic is real, then maybe he really can do it. Maybe he can bring someone back from the dead.
So what if he can bring back Summer?
Chapter Six
Aidan
“Prove it.”
I look down at Paige, who’s staring up at me in the bookstore. Red roses have been magically woven through her dark hair like scattered drops of blood. “What?”
“I want you to prove magic is real. I want you to prove The Goddess Codex exists. I want you to prove you can resurrect someone!”
Fuck. I shouldn’t have mentioned resurrection. I’ve been too distracted for my own good. Being inside Paige, surrounded by her warmth, was better than anything I’ve ever felt. And I have been alive for a very, very long time. Her strawberry scent surrounded me as her powerful magic filled my entire being. I could taste her essence in everything around us. Her lips, her gasps, even the air itself. Her body was so small I had to be careful not to crush her against the wall.
Red roses blossomed in her hair as she came.
She’s still thinking about someone else whenever she kisses me, though. This time I could have sworn she said a name that sounded like Summer. Definitely not Aidan. I need to know who she’s thinking about when she kisses my mouth like that. It’s driving me insane.
But I’ll take whatever she gives me. Nothing more, nothing less.
Even just a second with Paige is like an eternity in paradise.
“I already showed you magic in your apartment,” I say. “And I can’t prove the rest of it until I find The Goddess Codex.”
“So show me something else, then,” she says determinedly. There’s a fire in her eyes that won’t be easily extinguished. “I want to know if you’re full of shit or not. You said the seasonal demigods can transform into dragons, right? And you’re one of them? I want to see you do it. I want to see you turn into a dragon.”
Paige doesn’t know what she’s asking me. I haven’t shifted into dragon form in millennia. Not since Gaia died.
“I haven’t been a dragon in a long time,” I say slowly. “Your bookstore will most likely be destroyed if I turn into one. Even just spreading my wings will condemn most of the shelves to rubble. I wouldn’t want that on my tab as well.”
She eyes me suspiciously. “You’re lying.”
“I would never lie to you.”
“You lied about the abandoned castle being a theme park.”
“Well, Jasper would have killed us if I hadn’t.”
“Whatever.” Paige folds her arms across her chest. “I just want to know why you won’t turn into a dragon now.”
“I already said why.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Pity.”
“Did you forget how?”
“No.”
“Is it painful?”
“Not more than I can bear.”
“So what is it, then? Are you nervous? Shy? Scared?”
“I’m fucking terrified!”
My voice comes out as nearly a roar. Paige stares up at me with wide eyes. For the first time, she seems to understand exactly how powerful I am. The air between us is crackling with friction and lightstorm. She thinks that I’m holding out on her. That I can help her but won’t.
What she doesn’t know is I’m doing everything in my power to help her.
My fingers clench into fists as I step back from Paige and sink down into a reading nook. It’s almost criminally comfortable, which is a good thing because I need the reminder of my own humanity right now.
The truth is I’m not going to turn into a dragon on a whim. Not even at her request. Feeling my human skin stretch into reptilian scales isn’t exactly a party, you know? But it’s not the pain I’m trying to avoid. It’s the wild, seductive magic that comes with my dragon form. The raw power I could really wield if I abandoned every ounce of control. When I fly around with all that lightstorm coursing through me, it’s like I don’t have a care in the world.
At some point I just stop giving a fuck about anyone or anything else.
I swore to protect Gaia in her glass casket while she slept for millennia. But the war raged on for longer than anyone expected, and the separation was more difficult than either of us imagined. I found it fucking impossible to watch the goddess sleeping and not even try to open her casket.
Eventually I stopped watching her at all.
Retreating into my dragon form helped me battle the loneliness while Gaia was sleeping, but I never should have done it. I never should have flown so far from the Spring Realm that I didn’t even know when she came under attack. I was permanently drunk off my own lightstorm by then, chasing the sun and exhaling lightning at anything that moved.
I can’t let my own power consume me again.
Which means not turning into a dragon unless I have no other choice.
How do I begin to explain any of that to Paige?
Without her fleeing from me, anyway.
“You’re upset,” Paige says quietly. Her blue and green eyes are watching me. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I say, glancing up at her. “It’s just that the last time I became a dragon, I couldn’t return to human form until it was too late. I knew I had to, but I just... couldn’t. People I cared about got hurt because of it. And the one I cared about the most died.”
Paige is silent for a moment. But then she gives a small nod and I didn’t realize how much I needed her to understand me until now. After a moment, she steps forward and tucks herself into the reading nook next to me, resting the back of her head against the wall.
White-hot lightstorm surges through my blood at her scent.
She doesn’t even notice.
“I know what you mean.” Paige’s eyes are distant, remembering. “There was a fire at my last apartment. I was too scared of heights to climb down on my own. I knew I had to, but I just... couldn’t. And the person I cared about the most died because of it.”
The expression on her face gets me right in the heart. I want to reach out and pull her close, but I won’t no matter how badly I might want to. I can see how she’s holding herself, with her muscles tensed and her palms cupping her elbows like that. She’ll reject any attempt at physical contact.
The night of the fire must have been where she went when I touched her mind with lightstorm earlier. Instead of merely sensing the magic like I expected her to, she drank from it and traveled somewhere I couldn’t follow.
Fire, she whispered.
And I was powerless to do anything about it.
“I’m sorry, Paige,” I say to her. “I wish I could take away your pain. I really do.”
I hate how weak my apology sounds in comparison to what she’s been through. But she immediately pounces on my words like they’re a spell that can undo everything bad that’s ever happened to her. Her eyes are flooding with hope and I know what she’s going to say before she even says it.
Great. This is why I avoid telling humans about magic. They think it can solve all their problems.
But the thing about magic is it really fucking can’t.
“Will you help me resurrect someone?” Paige asks me eagerly. “I mean, if I help you find The Goddess Codex, you’ll owe me one.”
“I can’t do that,” I start to say, but she’s relentless.
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“Does it make a difference?”
“Please, Aidan—”
I wince as if she’s punched me in the gut. I don’t know why, but for a split second the sound of my name in her voice feels deeply and painfully wrong. Almost as if she should be calling me something else.
But then everything snaps back into place and her breathy rendition of Aidan is the best thing I’ve heard all century.
“It’s not because I don’t want to,” I say, meeting her gaze. “Believe me, if I coul
d take away your pain, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But you can’t just resurrect a human, okay? You’d have to use hellfrost magic, which would only create an ice zombie under Jasper’s control—”
“He wasn’t human.” Her face is streaked with the tears she’s been trying to hide ever since we returned to her world. “To me, he was everything. Isn’t that what Gaia was to you?”
“She wasn’t human.”
“She was a goddess.” Her tone is so caustic it burns.
Paige is lashing out at me. If I had to guess, she’s feeling angry because she can’t resurrect her love even though I can resurrect mine. Guilty because she feels attracted to me more than she wants to be. Jealous because no matter how deeply she cares about someone else, we were having sex only a few minutes ago.
For a brief amount of time, I was hers and she was mine.
It’s not something either of us can easily forget.
I lean back and glance sideways at Paige. I’ve unintentionally mirrored her position, which means I’m staring into her eyes from inches away. But the human girl doesn’t blink or even move. Almost as if she doesn’t understand the effect she’s having on me. As if she doesn’t understand it’s taking everything in my power not to touch her again.
But how could she not?
I will myself to keep talking, as if I haven’t noticed how easy it would be to lean forward and cover her mouth with mine. Kissing me has to be the last thing she wants right now.
“Gaia was a powerful deity,” I explain. “No part of her was human. She’s the only one who is and will ever be capable of being resurrected. I’m sorry I got you involved in this, but Jasper has been waging war against the rest of us for millennia. If you don’t help me find The Goddess Codex, he’ll freeze all of us. Including you.”
“I can’t help you,” Paige says. “I already told you that book doesn’t exist.”
I laugh. “You have more magic than any human I’ve ever met. If anyone in the Earth Realm can help me find a nonexistent spellbook, it’s you.”
She starts to say something, but then her gaze flickers to my lips instead. Almost as if she wants me to kiss her anyway.
But it’s gone so fast I’m left wondering if I imagined it.
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