Torment - Lauren Kate [35]
She started to scream, then felt fingers clamp over her mouth.
“Shhh.”
Daniel was tugging her out of line and away from the party. His strong, warm hand sliding down her neck, his lips brushing the side of her cheek. For just a moment, the touch of his skin on hers, coupled with the bright violet glow of his eyes, and her days-old rising need to grab hold of him and never let go—it all made Luce divinely dizzy.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered. She meant to say Thank God you’re here or It’s been so hard to be apart or what she really meant, I love you. But there were also You abandoned me and I thought it wasn’t safe and What’s this about a truce? all knocking around in her brain.
“I had to see you,” he said. As he led her behind a large volcanic rock on the beach, there was a conspiratorial smile on his face. The kind of smile that was contagious, finding its way onto Luce’s lips too. The kind of smile that acknowledged not just that they were breaking Daniel’s rule—but that they were enjoying doing it.
“When I got close enough to see this party, I noticed everyone dancing,” he said. “And I got a little jealous.”
“Jealous?” Luce asked. They were alone now. She threw her arms around his broad shoulders and looked deep into his violet eyes. “Why would you be jealous?”
“Because,” he said, rubbing his hands across her back. “Your dance card is full. For all eternity.”
Daniel held her right hand in his, wrapped her left around his shoulder, and started a slow two-step in the sand. They could still hear the music from the party, but from this side of the rock it felt like a private concert. Luce closed her eyes and melted against his chest, finding the place where her head fit into his shoulder like a puzzle piece.
“No, this isn’t quite right,” Daniel said after a moment. He pointed down at her feet. She noticed he was barefoot. “Take off your shoes,” he said, “and I’ll show you how angels dance.”
Luce slipped off her black flats and tossed them aside on the beach. The sand between her toes was soft and cool. When Daniel pulled her close, her toes overlapped with his and she almost lost her balance, but his arms held her steady. When she looked down, her feet were on top of his. And when she looked up: the sight she yearned for night and day. Daniel unfurling his silver-white wings.
They filled her plane of vision, stretching twenty feet into the sky. Broad and beautiful, glowing in the night, they must have been the most glorious wings in all of Heaven. Underneath her own feet, Luce felt Daniel’s lift just barely off the ground. His wings beat lightly, almost like a heartbeat, holding both of them inches above the beach.
“Ready?” he asked.
Ready for what, she didn’t know. It didn’t matter.
Now they were moving backward in the air, as smoothly as figure skaters moved on ice. Daniel glided out over the water, holding her in his arms. Luce gasped as the first frothy wave skimmed their toes. Daniel laughed and lifted them a little higher in the sky. He dipped her backward. He spun them both around in circles. They were dancing. On the ocean.
The moon was like a spotlight, shining down on only them. Luce was laughing from sheer joy, laughing so much that Daniel started laughing too. She’d never felt lighter.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
His answer was a kiss. He kissed her softly at first. On her forehead, then on her nose, then finally found his way to her lips.
She kissed him back deeply and hungrily and a bit desperately, throwing her whole body into it. This was how she came home to Daniel, how she touched that easy love they’d shared for so long. For a moment, the whole world went quiet; then Luce came up gasping for air. She hadn’t even noticed they were back on the beach.
His hand cupped the back of her head, the ski cap she had tugged down over her ears. The cap concealing her bleached-blond