Princess of Thorns

“What?” Impatience colors my tone. “Why do you look so miserable? Please tell me, because I don’t understand it, especially when I’m breaking my back to be charming.”

She frowns. “I didn’t realize it was so torturous for you to be charming.”

“Only with you, Princess.”

Anger flickers in her eyes, but that’s just fine. I’ll take anger. Any emotion is preferable to her pity.

“Why? Because I’m like a sister to you?” she asks, dropping my hand.

“No!” I throw up my arms in frustration. “I’ve been trying to—”

“Trying to forget how nauseating it is to put your hands on me?” Her eyes glitter as she reaches out, slowly fisting her hand in my shirt. “Is that it?”

“I didn’t say that.” I glance down, eyeing her clenched fist. My head tells me to prepare to be taken to the ground, but my gut tells me something else. It tells me Aurora wants me as much as I want her, and the only reason we fight is because the energy simmering between us needs a place to go. It tells me to take a risk, to quit being a coward and show her how wrong she is.

“You didn’t say it,” she says. “But I’m not a—”

Her words end in a sharp intake of breath as I wrap my arm around her waist. A moment later, my fingers are in her hair, sending pins flying as I fist my hand, making sure she can’t pull away and flip me onto my back.

“Stop telling me what I’m feeling,” I say, leaning in to whisper the words into the hollow beneath her ear.

This close, she smells like lilac soap and the flowers in her hair, with an undercurrent of something sweeter, like melted sugar, and she feels … She feels like a piece of the Land Beyond, like she was made to fit against me, to fill every empty place, to match my strength with her own, tempered by a softness that makes my head spin. I flex the arm around her waist until every inch of her is pressed tight to every inch of me, until I can feel her stomach trembling against mine and her breath in my lungs and there can be no doubt that I’m far from repulsed by her.

She shivers and her arms wrap around my neck.“Niklaas,” she whispers. “I …”

“Don’t talk.” I press a kiss to her throat, feeling her pulse racing beneath my lips, its rhythm confirming that her blood is rushing as fast as mine.

“Niklaas wait, I—”

I slip my hand from her hair, trapping her jaw between my fingers as I fit my mouth to hers, cutting her off with a kiss. She moans, a panicked sound that surprises me as it vibrates across my skin, but when I part my mouth, she parts hers, too, her lips gliding over mine with a ragged sigh. She doesn’t pull away, and after a moment I regain the courage to angle my head, brushing soft against softer, breath held, then rushing out, warming the whisper of space between her mouth and mine.

A whisper is too much.

I never imagined it would be like this, never thought a kiss could make my body feel as electric as the air before a thunderstorm, make my chest ache and my heart pound and my soul feel too giddy for my body to contain it.

“Are you okay?” she asks, her lips teasing against mine.

“I’m better than okay,” I whisper, sliding my hands down to grip her hips. “I’m perfect. You’re perfect.”

And then I kiss her again, soft becoming hard, breath coming faster, until all our hesitation vanishes. She buries her fingers in my hair and I lift her into the air, drawing her up my body until her feet dangle and our lips are even with each other and the kiss grows deeper, until her breath is my breath and her taste fills my mouth and there is nothing but her, nothing but how much I want her.

How much I want to please her, to do … whatever … it takes …

Whatever … anything …

Anything at all …

My head spins sickly. I pull in a breath between kisses, but it doesn’t help. The ground is tilting beneath my feet, the wind whipping in from all sides, battering my body until I can’t tell which way is up. My heart lurches and my arms tremble, sending Aurora sliding to the ground as I grow too weak to hold her.

“Niklaas?” she asks, panic in her voice. “Niklaas? What’s wrong?”

I try to tell her that I’m okay, but my lips won’t move, and when I reach for her I stumble and fall. I land in the grass, sticks jabbing into my knees, but I barely feel them. I am outside my body and inside it at the same time, torn apart like a fruit from its peel, my mind and heart and soul screaming though my mouth refuses to utter a word.

I am terrified and ripped and bleeding and broken and then suddenly the suffering parts of myself are gone, tossed away into the far beyond and I am as peaceful as a shell filled with the echo of the sea. I am a vessel, calm and empty, waiting to be filled.

I think that I should be afraid, but I’m not and so the thought vanishes, swept away with the rest of my u

I … Who am I? I wonder, the notion of self confounding in a way it has never been before. I’ve always been so sure of who I am, but now … I am here with her. She is here with me. That’s all that matters. That’s all that will ever matter. The thought soothes me, banishing some of the dizziness, making it easier to breathe.

“I’m sorry.” Aurora falls to the ground and wraps her arms around me, hugging me tight. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

“Of course,” I say, voice still weak, though the world has stopped spi

“Yes, there is,” she says, her eyes filling with tears. “I’ve done a terrible thing.”

“No, you haven’t.” I take her hand in mine, wanting nothing more than to comfort her, to make her happy. It’s all that seems important, the only thing worth living for.

“Yes, I have,” she says, then adds in a choked voice, “Don’t argue with me.”

“All right,” I agree, tucking a lock of hair back into the arrangement on her head.

“And don’t touch me.”

I drop my hands to my lap with a smile. It feels good to do as she asks, so good I can scarcely remember why I ever wanted to quarrel with her.

She shakes her head, her throat working as she fights to swallow. “It’s true, then. I was hoping, but I … I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, love.”

My grin is so wide it feels like it will break my jaw. “I love you, too, Aurora.”

“I know,” she says, sadness in her voice that I can’t understand. I can’t understand it, but it makes me sad, too, and when she begins to cry it feels as if the world has been plunged into darkness. I want nothing more than to comfort her, but she told me not to touch her and so I sit and watch, tears rolling silently from my eyes until she finally stops crying and swipes the damp from her face.

“Come now, don’t you cry.” She brushes the tears from my face with a trembling finger before standing and reaching a hand down to me. “We’ll ask the village priest to marry us as soon as the lamps are lit. At least something good will come of this.”

I hesitate until she sighs and shakes her head. “You can touch me. I’m sorry, I’d … forgotten.”

“It’s all right.” My sadness vanishes as she leads me across the field. I follow her through the tall grass, utterly at peace. No misery can touch me so long as my love’s hand is in mine and she is happy with me and I am doing as she wishes.

We hurry past the dancers to where Gettel and Kat are playing juggle sticks with some of the village children. Aurora squeezes my hand as we approach the healer, sending a wave of contentment surging through my body, rushing through the empty space left behind after the other parts of me were cut away, filling me with joy.

I smile as Aurora explains that we want to be married and asks the healer to bear witness to our joining, but Gettel isn’t looking at Aurora. She’s looking at me, staring with a horrified expression that would trouble me if I cared what anyone but Aurora thought of me. But I don’t, and so I smile. I smile until she sends the children away and begins to shout at Aurora, demanding to know what’s she’s done, demanding she release me from whatever enchantment she’s worked upon me.