Captured (Highgate Preparatory Academy #1)

by Rosa Lee

Ash begins reciting in his deep, beautiful voice, and it sends shivers up my spine, my breath leaving my lungs in a gasp. “‘If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.’” And as he reads, he reaches across and grabs my hand, bringing it to his lips, placing the barest of kisses upon my knuckles and causing a riot of butterflies to take flight inside me. He looks up at me whilst he does it, a look so intense in his eyes, my heart stops, and I have to clear my throat before I can start my lines. “‘Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this; For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.’” I lick my dry lips as I look back up to see his gaze locked on mine, my hand still in his warm one. He looks down then reads the next part. “‘Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?’” He looks to me again, his eyes unreadable, yet there's a fire there too. I’m just not sure if it's meant to hurt or heal me. My heart is pounding, my breath short as I read my next lines. “‘Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.’” “‘O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.’” A darkness enters his gaze then, and I'm hit again with the hurt that I've caused him. “‘Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake,’” I read, barely...