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“It’s better this way, sister. There’s more to life than staying safe. …”
Knowing Tella, she’d already fallen in love with some new form of trouble.
My little liar, Julian mouthed, his lips parted slightly as he slowly leaned in closer.
“Listen, Crimson.” Julian stopped unbuttoning his shirt. “I told you I won’t touch you, and I promise to keep my word. But I am not sleeping on the floor or on that tiny lounge just because you’re a girl. This bed is big enough for the both of us.”
Scarlett would have loved to continue eavesdropping in the hopes of learning something, as the lines between the game and reality were starting to blur a little too much for her, but a young man near the corner caught her eye. Dark, chaotic hair. Strong shoulders. Confident. Julian.
He’d never stared at her like this before. Sometimes he gazed at her as if he wanted to be her undoing, but just then it was as if he wanted her to undo him.
Aiko strolled down the cobbled street as if the world could crumble around her and she’d just keep going.
Not quite sure how far she’d already fallen, she imagined loving him would feel like falling in love with darkness, frightening and consuming yet utterly beautiful when the stars came out.
“I knew what would happen when I brought you and your sister here. I didn’t know Legend would kidnap Tella, but I knew that he would take one of you.”
Shame. Shame on you.
“you lie to yourself. You pull me to you whenever it seems you’re afraid of losing me, but whenever I get too close, you push me away.”
The boy who’d saved her from drowning in more ways than one.
But Scarlett knew that when this instant ended the next would not feel fresh, or thick with promise for the future. It would be incomplete, lacking, void, because Julian would not be in it.
“I’m so sorry my father did that to you.” “I knew the risks I was taking,” answered Julian. “Don’t be sorry, not unless it’s the reason you’re trying so hard to walk away from me.”
She knew she could walk away, but she’d spent enough of her life fearing the risks that accompanied the things she wanted most.
Scarlett could spend her afternoons daydreaming about traveling shows like Caraval, but Tella liked to have real adventures.
Tella had a theory: neat rooms were easy to rifle through and search undetected because it was simple to put carefully placed things exactly where they’d been. But messes, on the other hand, were difficult to recreate. With one sweeping gaze, Tella could see no one had been brave enough to lay a finger on her personal disaster.
But being told no – even from herself – only made Tella want to do the opposite.
the Prince of Hearts was not capable of love because his heart had stopped beating long ago. Only one person could make it beat again: his one true love. They said his kiss had been fatal to all but her – his only weakness – and as he’d sought her, he’d left a trail of corpses.
‘You could be an angel of death with those things.’ Dante tossed a look over his shoulder. Damp hair the color of black fox fur clung to his forehead. ‘I’ve been called many things, but I don’t know if anyone has ever said I’m an angel.’ ‘Does that mean you’ve been called death?’
‘I was bored,’ Tella mumbled. ‘It seemed like an interesting way to pass the time.’ ‘If that’s true you should have just come to me.’ Dante was definitely laughing now.
Tella wasn’t usually anxious. She liked the thrill that came with taking risks. She loved the feeling of doing something bold enough to make her future hold its breath while she closed her eyes and reveled in the sensation that she’d made a choice with the power to alter the course of her life. It was the closest she ever came to holding real power.
He looked like a freshly woken storm, or a beautiful nightmare come to life so he could personally haunt her.
‘I thought you didn’t like wearing the same girl to a party twice.’
Tella often imagined she knew what people thought when they saw her. One look at her honey-blond curls, her girlish smile, and her pretty dresses, coupled with the fact that she liked to enjoy herself, and people dismissed her as a silly girl. Tella might have been many things, but she was far from silly or worthless or whatever labels people liked to affix because a person was young and female.
Scarlett was Tella’s person – the one someone in the world whom Tella could always count on. Tella might not have believed in falling in love, but she had literally bet her life that Scarlett loved her. Tella would destroy the world before she allowed anything to happen to her sister.
Gold shimmered no matter what, but few people could make darkness glitter the way he did.
Tella was the sister who would destroy the world if anything happened to Scarlett, but Scarlett’s world would be destroyed if anything happened to Tella.
He cradled her sopping head to his chest. ‘Can you open your eyes for me?’ ‘Maybe I want to sleep here,’ Tella mumbled. ‘I’d wager it’s safer than in your arms.’ ‘What’s so dangerous about my arms?’ he murmured. ‘For me, everything.’ Tella slowly lifted one lid open.
‘I’ve never wanted to be someone else until that moment I saw him kiss you on the dance floor.’ ‘You should have asked me to dance first.’ ‘I will, next time.’
‘Don’t give up on me, Donatella. If you stay with me long enough to get you somewhere safe and warm, then I promise I won’t let go of you like I did that night. Together we’ll fix all of this.’
Dante leaned against one of the pillars flanking the temple’s massive door, all bronzed flesh and brilliant tattoos – And, oh glory, he was shirtless. So very shirtless.
She wanted to say something witty or scathing, but to her horror all that came out was: ‘You should never wear a shirt.’ His grin was devastating.
He smelled of ink and other dark, seductive things.
‘You honestly think I’d leave you on these steps like this after working so hard to gain your trust?’ ‘I thought you were working for Legend.’ He eased closer. ‘Think whatever you want, but if you honestly believe that’s the only reason I’m here right now with my hands all over you, you’re not nearly as clever as I thought.’
He gazed at her as if he wanted her to lose herself somewhere in his eyes, so that he could be the one to find her.
‘I definitely wouldn’t be here with you if you were good.’ Tella pictured the word good withering next to Dante. Good was the word people used to describe how they slept at night and bread fresh out of the fire. But Dante was more like the fire. No one called a fire good. Fires were hot, burning things children were warned not play with.
‘If you’re the hero, what does that make me?’ His finger dipped to her collarbone. Heat spread across her chest. This would have been the moment to pull away; instead, she let a hint of challenge slip into her voice. ‘I’m still trying to figure that out.’ ‘Would you like my help?’ Dante dropped his hand to her hips. Tella’s breathing hitched. ‘No. I don’t want your help … I want you.’ Dante’s gaze caught on fire and he took her mouth with his.
‘I think I’d like you even if you were the villain.’ She smiled against his lips. ‘Maybe I’d like you even if you were a hero.’ ‘But I’m not the hero,’ he reminded her. ‘Then perhaps I’m here to save you.’
Light fell over Dante illuminating the blood dripping out of the corner of his mouth. Slow and red and cursed.
For fuck sake can we catch a break?!
‘I swear to you, this – us – we were never a part of Legend’s plan. The first time I kissed you I did it because I’d just died and come back to life, but I wasn’t feeling alive. I needed something real. But tonight I kissed you because I wanted you. I haven’t stopped wanting you since the night of the Fated Ball when you were willing to risk your life because you wanted to make me angry. After that, I couldn’t stay away.’
‘I kept coming back to you, not because of Legend, or the game. But because you’re so real and alive and fearless and daring and beautiful and if what’s between us isn’t real, then I don’t know what is.’
‘Not everyone gets a true ending. There are two types of endings because most people give up at the part of the story where things are the worst, where the situation feels hopeless. But that’s when hope is needed most. Only those who persevere can find their true ending.’
‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ she said. ‘I want to talk to Legend.’ ‘Then open your eyes and speak to me.’
Fuuuccckkk
‘I thought you weren’t human.’ ‘I’m not. But there was a time when I was. Thankfully it didn’t last too long,’
‘Her Majesty passed away,’ the servant confirmed. ‘They’re saying the new heir – her missing child – is now making his first appearance from the golden tower.
I have such a bad feeling
Her adventures were only beginning. They would be bigger than promises, and brighter than constellations. By the end of them, Tella would be the legendary one.
Every story has four parts: the beginning, the middle, the almost-ending and the true ending. Unfortunately, not everyone gets a true ending. Most people give up at the part of the story where things are the worst, when the situation feels hopeless, but that is where hope is needed most. Only those who persevere can find their true ending.
Occasionally, there are minutes that get extra seconds. Moments so precious the universe stretches to make additional room for them,
So she would have said yes … if she hadn’t sensed how very much Legend wanted that answer.
Tella in a nutshell
Sometimes Legend felt like her enemy, sometimes he felt like her friend, sometimes he felt like someone she used to love, and every once in a while, he felt like someone she still loved.
