Between Wrath and Mercy (The Divine Between, #1)

by Jess Wisecup

“Lady Emmeline, stand up. You’ve never once knelt before me—why start now?”

I would not weep for my daughter; I would find her.

When he turned to me, his eyes were twinkling with amusement, a soft smile on his face that broke my heart. A smile so familiar and yet foreign. A stranger in the body of someone I’d once known almost better than myself.

“First of all, I didn’t try to kill you, it was first blood. Gods, you’re dramatic.“

“I bet that poison tastes like honey on your tongue.”

“You and your daughter are under my protection from this point forward. You should have been this whole time.”

There was no point in denying the attraction was still there. But it had always been more than just attraction for me. It was why I knew this was dangerous.

Everything about being around him was dangerous for my heart, but what choice did I have? I had to choose between two types of destruction, and, even then, I might still get both.

“Oh, that’s rich. You’re allowed to look at me all you want, but I’m not allowed to look at you?”

“And I decided long before that night that I didn’t want to do my duty anymore if it didn’t involve you.”

“I’ve spent too much time imagining you like this. I’ll take what you give me, Em.”

The road we were going down was a path to tragedy from every direction.

This was a sure and steady path to madness. A swan dive off a cliff, which only promised a watery death below.

“It has been, is, and will always be you. And fuck, if that hasn’t complicated my life enough already.”

“Kingdoms and years and utter devastation.” “What does that even mean?” I pushed him back to look at his face. “It means I’ll wait.”

“Friendship?” He laughed, dark and bitter. “Your skin tastes like spring, and your sighs are a gods damn song. I’m not your fucking friend.”

“It was to get rid of the taste of you. You’ve crawled into my veins, and nothing I have done has gotten rid of you.”

“There is no moving on from this, Em. No closure, not for me. Believe me, if there was a way, I’d have found it.”

“If you wish to stay angry, please do so nearer to me. And not so quietly.”

“I want you to scream for me. But I’ll take what I can get.” He pulled back, a lazy, satisfied smirk on his face.

“I want you undone.” “I already am, Em. Every day since you came back to me.”

“You taste exquisite. You taste like mine. If I’d gotten a taste of you back then, I would have died without you.”

“I love you, Emmeline. I have loved you from the start, and I will love you until we are both just a whisper on the wind. It’s your eyes I see when I close mine, your heart I want to hold, and I’d set this whole damn world on fire if you wanted to watch it burn.”

I haven’t stopped loving you since you bullied your way into my life when you were fifteen years old. I haven’t stopped wanting you.

“Sometimes, I wonder if maybe my life would’ve been easier if I never met you, Em. But the fact is, I did. I met you, and my heart has beat for only you ever since.

My heart is yours to break, borrow, and bruise. The only way this ends is death.

“Divine hell, Rain.” “If this is hell, dear heart, I must be truly wicked because I’m never leaving.”

He was my history. He was my present and future. He was every moment, every breath.

My home had never been a place. My home had always been Rain.

We were fire and cinder and ash, a flame once lit that could light the world. A glimmer of ember on a breeze, a spark of passion ignited.

“You’re mine, Rain.” I smiled on his mouth as he panted. “I am. Until my last breath, I am yours.” “And even then, we’ll find each other. I’ll always find you.”

Perhaps it was love to know there was a price and to find it worth paying all the same. Perhaps it was love to have an unshakable madness burrow under your skin, asking you to choose that which terrified and exhilarated you, over and over, knowing one day it wouldn’t be a choice. Knowing that one day—when you are truly dependent on it—it will leave. By accident, choice, or time, it will be gone.

Perhaps love was risk. Perhaps love was taking a leap and hoping you could withstand what happened after.

“Every day, you shine, but especially so right now.”

I felt a single tether spread between us, a string of gold neither of us could see, but we could feel, and we could sense. The string that led us to this day together—the string that weaved a story of us.

“In case I was unclear, I will reiterate. I told you if you ever called me a whore again, I would stop your heart. Though, I did say it more with my divinity than with my words.

“If anyone else feels they cannot hold their tongue, I will be happy to do it for them.”

“It’s more than love, my wife. I crave you, I need you, I cannot live without you; I burn for you.”

“Hold on to the railing, dear heart.”