Finally he sighed and said, “You’re clever, I’ll give you that.”
“So clever, you’d think I was from a different world,” I noted sarcastically.
“Now, wouldn’t go that far, love.”
No, of course he wouldn’t.
“Whatever,” I muttered to his shoulder.
“I think you missed it, Cora.”
“Missed what, Noctorno?”
I heard him pull a sharp breath in his nose then he stated, “The part where I gave you permission to play me.”
“That’d be hard to do since I’m not a player.”
I watched him tip his head back before he muttered, “Gods.”
“Got that right,” I muttered back.
He tipped his head down and his eyes locked on mine in the moonlight.
“You know, love, I go to bed and lay awake before sleep claims me wondering what it would be like to have the other half of my soul in Rosa.”
Oh my God.
Ouch times, like, a thousand.
“I asked Dash how he felt,” Noctorno continued. “He said the minute he met her, it was indescribable. The instant connection. The pull. Now it’s constant. He can barely stand to be away from her and she feels it too. I know he’s wounded, bleeding deep somewhere no one can see because he told me that being separated from her is like what he would imagine it felt like having a limb removed. You need it there. You can’t live without it. When it’s gone, the phantom of it remains and when you notice you don’t have it close enough to touch, it drives you slightly mad. She can leave him for hours, days, even weeks but any longer, he starts dying inside. Minerva has her, she has her and while she does, my brother is dying inside.”
God, that sounded beautiful. I wished I had that.
It also sounded awful.
Poor Dash. Poor Rosa.
“We should have that,” he informed me.
“We don’t,” I informed him.
“Why?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” And I sure as heck didn’t, except the part that I wasn’t from this freaking world!
“I do,” he replied.
Really? He did?
“You do?”
“Yes, Cora, I do.”
“Then why don’t we have it?”
“Because to have that pull you have to have a heart. You have to be able to fall in love. He fell in love with her the second he saw her and she the same. And, as you know, the minute my eyes hit you, I fell in love with you.”
Whoa! Wait.