Falling

by Christina Lauren

Maybe she did know him. In a past life, or in dreams, or in something else that seemed impossible but true at the same time. Cat had always been fascinated by the paranormal. She was never afraid of the dark, never worried about monsters under her bed.

“Are you seducing me, little lamb?”

She wanted him, and he wanted her to want him, and it didn’t matter where her desire ended and his invisible persuasion began. Wanting him didn’t scare her, didn’t feel impulsive or shameful or dangerous. It simply felt inevitable.

He no longer held much hope that there was an end in sight for him, a return to the ability to love and breathe and sleep and exist inside this shell of a body that hadn’t felt like his in so long.

In shadows draped with feathers night, A fallen soul awaits the light. Eternal dusk, your heart’s refrain, Break this spell, remove your pain. Immortal chains, your tethered plea, Only when found, will you be free.

Thunderstruck, mute, he stared down at her and simply nodded, for all around him the world began to melt into color and vibration and sound; her face, which had been beautiful to him from the moment he saw her, was now something else altogether, still beautiful but now irresistible; dear to him in a way that held her tenderly at the very center of each cell in his body. His life, his love, his soul stood before him.