Feature Friday: Black Heart

Feature Friday is a new weakly meme hosted here, at xo'reads, where I will feature a great book & post two of my favorite (and spoiler free) pages/excerpts, to inspire you to pick it up & discover why I have deemed it feature worthy (& amazing)!

This Weeks Book: Black Heart by Holly Black

Chapter **

"You got my letter," she says, walking closer. Her voice is soft. "Or maybe--"

I touch the pocket of my jacket self-consciously and give her a lopsided grin. "Took me a while to translate."

She pushes the hair out of her face. "You shouldn't have come. I put everything, so that we wouldn't have to--" she stops speaking, as if the rest of the sentence has deserted her. Despite the words, she doesn't sound angry. She takes another half step towards me. We're close enough that if she whispered I'd hear it.

I look at her, and I think of how It felt when I saw her in my bedroom in the old house, before I knew that she'd been cursed, when everything still seemed possible. I see the soft line of her mouth, and the clear brightness of her eyes, and I remember dreaming about those features when it still seemed like she could be mine.

She was the epic crush of my childhood. She was the tragedy that made me look inside myself and see my corrupt heart. She was my sin and salvation, come back from the grave to change me forever. Again. Back then, when she sat on my bed and told me she loved me, I wanted her as much as I have ever wanted anything.

But that was before we'd scammed out way into a high-rise and laughed ourselves sick and talked in the funeral parlor the way I've never talked to anyone and might never talk to anyone again. That was before she stopped being a memory and started being the only person who made me feel like myself. That was before she hated me.

I wanted her then. Now I barely want anything else.

I sway towards Lila, waiting for her to pull back, but she doesn't. My hands come up, gloved fingers closer around her upper arms, crushing her to me as my mouth catches hers. I'm braced for her to stop me, but her body folds against mine instead. Her lips are warm and soft, parting in a single sigh.

That's all it takes. 

***

Chapter **

For a long moment we are both quiet. Then she jerks the wheel to the left, tires screeching as she veers off the road, making a turn that takes us back into the city.

"okay, I'm done," I say. "I'll shut up now."

She slams her hand down on the radio, turning it on and up so that it drowns the car in sound. Her head is turned away from me, but her eyes are shining, as if wet.

We careen around another block, and she pulls up to the curb abruptly. We're in front of the bus station.

"Lila--," I say,

"Get out," she tells me. Her head is turned away from me and her voice shakes.

I can still tell that she's crying.

"Please Lil," I say, using a name I haven't called her since we were kids. "I wont say anything for the whole way back. I swear. And I'm sorry."

"God, I hate you," She says. "So much. Why do boys think that it will be better to lie and tell a girl how much they loved her and how they only dumped her for her own good? That they only tried to rearrange her brain for her own good? does it make you feel better, Cassel? Does it? Because from my perspective, it really sucks,"

***

Want to read more? Check out the Curse Workers Trilogy: White Cat, Red Glove & Black Heart!