Alyson Noel: Horizon

“Only they’ll never succeed.” I place my hands over hers, and fold them between us. “Because you’re way ahead of them, Santos. Your guard is up, you’re alert to the signs, and if it turns out you’re right, when they come out swinging, you’ll be ready.”

“Will I?” She tilts her head, studying me with eyes gone red and glittery, while her bottom lip displays the tiniest hint of a quiver.

“Of course you will.” I pull her into my arms. Holding her tightly until her body begins to slacken and yield, and my breath rises and falls in tandem with hers.

With her daily runs and punishing workouts, her strict healthy diet that allows no room for even the smallest indulgence—with her incessant focus on learning Paloma’s craft and becoming the very best Seeker she can—I sometimes forget just how vulnerable she really is. But here, in my arms, with her skin so soft, and her heart beating gently next to mine, I’m awash in shame over what a fool I’ve just been.

None of this was ever about me. This entire discussion may have been triggered by the dream, and the certainly hideous memory of my brother forcing a ring onto her finger, but it was never about my hair.

Never about her mistaking me for Cade.

That was all just a smoke screen for what’s really bothering her.

She misses her grandmother.

She’s wracked with a mountain of grief she insists on keeping tightly in check.

And until she’s able to confront it head-on—it’s my job to provide comfort, along with a safe place to land in the middle of chaos.

I pull her closer until the matching gold keys we wear at our necks as a symbol of our love clink lightly together, as I whisper soft words in her ear. Reminding her that she’s not alone—we’re in this together. I will never, ever leave her.

“If Paloma was here she could help me see what I’m missing. She was tuned in to everything, never missed a sign. If my abuela was here, she would . . .” Daire chokes back a sob, shuts her eyes tightly against the deluge of tears she refuses to shed.

I bring my palms to her face and press my lips against hers. Whispering, “Hey there, green eyes, it’s going to be okay. Really, I’m here. I’ll always be here. We’ll get through this together. I promise . . .” Hushing her fears with my kiss, I go about distracting her the best way I can.

DAIRE

This time when I wake it’s in the nest of Dace’s arms cradled snugly around me. His soft, even breath pushing at the side of my cheek.

I turn my head slowly and fill my eyes with the beautiful slumbering sight of him. My gaze trailing over the taught muscles of his chest, the valley of his abdomen, to the soft trail of hair that leads from the edge of his navel to parts now obscured by the sheet.

He’s so loving, so loyal, so decent and good, Ican hardly conceive how I could ever, even in one dream-dazed, delusional moment, mistake him for Cade.

They may be identical on the surface, Dace may have a piece of Cade’s dark soul lodged inside, but that’s where the resemblance ends.

They are nothing alike.

He stirs. Awakened by the weight of my look, he curls his arm tighter and pulls me so close there’s no denying his need is once again matched by my own.

No matter how many times we’re together, no matter how many mornings we wake up like this, it always seems there’s more to discover.

Sometimes I feel like I’ll never uncover the full extent of his mysteries.

The thought makes me smile.

I allow my mind to project into a faraway future. Imagining how we might look with wizened faces and graying hair. Still loving, still laughing, still adoring, still discovering . . .

Though no sooner have the pictures begun to unfold, when I force myself to shake free of the thought.

Dreaming of the future is a frivolous indulgence I cannot afford. Paloma warned me from the start that Seekers are not known for their longevity—and their romantic relationships always end tragically.

The memory of her words causing an involuntary flinch that prompts Dace to say, “What is it?” He lifts his lids slowly, displaying icy-blue eyes glazed with sleep and desire.

I shake my head and press my lips to his, trailing my fingertips along the column of his throat where I pause on his pulse. Shirking all thoughts of the past along with all wishes for the future, I settle into the present—the only moment I can ever truly claim for my own.

Dace meets my kiss with warm urgent lips, as my hands grip his shoulders and pull him so close our bodies become a tangle of tongues and limbs pushed urgently together in a desperate bid to be joined. Until he maneuvers me beneath him in one seamless move and eases himself inside.

We mold and cling, separating for a few excruciatingly delicious moments, only to rejoin so completely there’s no boundary between us. No way to tell where Dace leaves off and I begin.

Our hearts as bound as our flesh, we soar in tandem—pausing for one deliriously heady moment, before falling into a sated, spent heap.

When I open my eyes, Dace is propped on his elbow, his gaze freely roaming my face. “I never get tired of looking at you.”

I bite my lip and grin. Trying not to think about the mascara smudges under my eyes, the sheet creases marking my cheek, my hair lying limp against my forehead. I just smile like I believe it, and return his adoring look with one of my own. “You know, I think I’m actually beginning to like your new look.” I bring my fingers to his brow, brush the tips against his long sweep of bangs. “Who knew Lita had such vision?”

He catches my hand in his and looks at me as though he’s about to reply, but instead clamps his lips shut as though he thought better.

“I know what you’re thinking.” I rise onto my elbow, fluff my pillow a bit, and lean back against it. “It took me a while to come around, but I truly do mean it. This new look really highlights your face. And you know how I feel about your face . . .”

He shakes his head. Shoots me a look that invites further elaboration.

So I drop a few kisses onto his forehead, his chin, his lips to better illustrate. And just like that, I’m lured right back into the magick of him.

But with a full day of training and appointments ahead, I force myself to push away from the bed and follow the haphazard trail of clothes I left on the floor late last night in my rush to be with him.

“That’s it?” Dace inches his way up the headboard to watch me get dressed. “You just love me and leave me? Is that how this is?”

“Yep.” I retrieve my shorts from the crumpled heap on the floor and sneak a leg in, followed by the other. Performing an exaggerated shimmy as I ease them up over my hips in a move that is admittedly performed purely for his own viewing pleasure.

“Tease.” He retrieves my bra from under his pillow and flings it at me, chasing the word with a grin.

“You’re the tease.” I catch the bra in my fist and struggle to get the clasp and straps properly situated.

“How do you figure?” He rubs his chin, shoots me a playful look.

“You’re the one who won’t move in with me.”

“Oh. That.” In one fluid move, he’s off the bed and searching for a clean pair of jeans from the folded-up pile in the plastic laundry basket that stands in for a closet. An attempt to evade a conversation I’m determined to have.

“I really don’t get your resistance,” I say, and not for the first time. “I mean, we’re together pretty much all the time anyway. And if we lived together, I wouldn’t have to leave here every morning, and you wouldn’t have to work so hard to keep this place going. You know, two birds, one stone.”