INDIE-kissing blogfest!

Seems fitting to be participating in a kissing bloghop on Valentines Day. I simply had to join this one hosted by the wonderful group over at The Indelibles.

But then *gasp* I’ve posted so many kissing scenes throughout my bloggy years and have few left … most of which I wouldn’t feel right posting here without a warning, >_> and one that’s in the end chapter. So what was I going to post this time? *panic mode*

Oh yeah … I’m rewriting Golden Dawn. It has a kissing scene … Head meet desk. Desk, head.

This piece comes from my paranormal novel, Golden Dawn. And is the first 1000 words of Chapter Fourteen, just after Herald, my 1100-year-old vampire-like unborn, says those three little words to Acarna …

Acarna took a small step back, her face blank. Not an instant dismissal, more than he expected, but the crushing ache in his chest pierced deeper all the same. Herald fought the constricting swell as it made a bid for his throat. He turned from her before she did or said something to necessitate it.

His sword still lay beside the window where he’d discarded it. He calmly collected the weapon. Deliberate in his movements as he inspected the blade’s length before sheathing it. The door stood open. Jaw set, he marched towards it. He could not bring himself to linger a moment longer. He wanted to stay. So desperately ached to remain with her.

She already gave him more than he deserved by not laughing to his face. No one can love a demon. Was his mother and her rejection of Ștefan, after everything his father had done to keep them together, not proof of that?

“Herald,” she whispered.

By the monster that’d spawned him, the way she spoke. So sweet. It hummed through him, plucking at something deep inside his very being. That one word rooting him where he stood. How could his name, gifted to him by a monster, sound so delectable upon her lips? It wasn’t fair. Nor the way it pulled at him. Unbidden, he faced her. At his back, the door clicked shut. It took all his willpower not to rush back to her side.

Acarna leant against her crystalline cage with such care, as if the fragile walls might shatter under her weight. She peered at him, those glorious eyes swirling from blue to grey and back. Did she think he spoke falsely? He’d bared the sole part of him he had long since thought vanished with his brother’s death. But to stand there, to think of it from her point of view … to have heard such a declaration from one such as him. He could believe that she thought his words a lie.

And yet, no repulsion lurked upon her face. Nothing at all to give away what she truly believed. Perhaps … perhaps she felt some small measure of affection for him. Dare he hope that was so? “Say it again,” she breathed.

“I love you.” The words spilled from his lips. Thick on his tongue and muffled by the tears his pride would not let him shed. No less strong in his belief that he spoke truthfully. He glared at her, waiting for her denial. Ready for the rebuke he deserved.

Those soft pink lips curved into a smile. Her eyes slid close, cheeks reddening as if his voice caressed more than her ears. He hadn’t expected such a reaction. She’d confessed that angels spoke differently; had no need for words. Was she still capable registering such speech from one not of the heavens? Did she sense more of him than he originally believed?

Herald stumbled across the room and pressed his palms against the crystal, mirroring where her hands still lay upon the quartz. A small amount of heat radiated through the stone. He pressed his forehead on the cold surface. She mimicked him, her lips close enough to brush the crystal; where his mouth would have otherwise been waiting. He kissed the surface while her lips still lingered on the other side. If he could but claim this one piece of her and soothe the ache in his heart.

Her gaze – mostly blue with flecks of grey – dropped to his lips, then back up to meet his eyes. She copied him, responding with the same soft understanding of one who now knew what they were missing. The cold of the crystal melted way to her warmth, allowing him to believe that, just for this one moment, he touched flesh.

A single tear slid down his cheek, brushing his lip on the way. It wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t his heart have been captured by an obtainable woman? Or possess the same amount of debauchery in his soul as his brother or father to have no care as to what he laid with. Perhaps then his heart would not be writhing in its self-imposed agony for an angel’s kiss.

His father once believed in love. He’d given up his soul and become strigoi for that very reason, but no one in the valley spoke of it anymore. The unseen minders who’d raised Herald alongside his siblings believed such emotion to be a thing of tales. Lust existed. They were eager to accept that. But love? Why it was no more than an illusion conjured by weak men – men who lacked the strength to take a woman any other way – to woo the ladies of the courts.

Acarna let forth with a yelp, shying from the crystal’s edge as if he’d bitten her, a quivering hand raised to her lips. “I felt … something.” She stared at him, incredulous eyes wide. “I felt.” Bringing her other hand up to where her mouth had been a second ago, she caressed the stone. “I felt you.”

Herald watched her trace the crystal, his breath rasping as her delicate fingertips dipped in and out of the cracks. Me? She’d sensed him? It couldn’t be possible. He licked his lips, tasting only salt. What could she feel on other side? Heat. But he must seem so cold against her warmth.

“I … I’m a fool.” Her arm fell back to her side. She collapsed to sit in what space the crystal now gave her. Such a small area now. Requiring her to scrunch herself against the surface. “A foolish child with stupid little fancies.”

“You’re no more foolish than I.” Herald joined her on the floor, brushing away the dust and shards coating the wooden planks. He was the fool. Pining after a woman he could never touch. How pathetic. How weak he had become to fall so easily. Someone had to be laughing at his life, he was certain of it. His brother no doubt would’ve done so. And his father …. Ștefan was going to be furious.

Sorry about being a bit of a downer, but I’m running out of good, clean kisses … guess that’s a cue for me to write some more stories. ^_^

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