Chapter 27
Cairn
LYRA SITS IN THE MIDDLE of my bed, draped in another one of my sweaters.
She looks slightly comedic, like she’s no more than a head poking out of what appears to be a big puddle of knit fabric.
Her crimson gaze follows me as I go to my closet and pull out a small brown box with a red ribbon wrapped around it and knotted into a bow.
With the box in my hands, I suddenly feel a twinge of nervousness, perhaps even embarrassment.
Is this ridiculous? I’m not so sure she even likes gardening.
I’m doubting myself now, worrying that she’ll open the little box and the excitement will vanish from her eyes, replaced with disappointment or even pity.
Well, she does still have another semester and a half worth of community service, I think, comforting myself with the logical approach to my gift. So, they’ll be helpful either way.
“Cairn?” she says from behind me.
I glance over my shoulder. She’s still sitting in the middle of my bed, legs crossed, damp hair woven into a chunky braid that hangs down her back.
Too late now.
I already told her I had a surprise for her, and her crimson gaze flicks to the package held in my hands, so there’ll be no going back.
I turn away from the closet and cross the bedroom, then take a seat on the edge of the bed. The mattress dips beneath my weight. “It’s not much,” I say, still holding the little box. “When I saw them, I thought of you.”
With some reluctance, I hold the box out to her.
She takes it with a level of carefulness that reminds me of when she was transplanting the sniffleblooms. I can see in her the ability to be calm, balanced, in control. She might not yet see it in herself, but I know it’s there.
Lyra cradles the box in her lap. For a moment, she just stares down at it, and as my nervousness mounts, I wonder what she’s thinking. I hope she’s not expecting much . . . If she is, the gift will most certainly be a disappointment.
I twiddle my thumbs in my lap and hope she can’t hear the rapid galloping of my heart.
Her fingers find the red ribbon, and they brush it softly. She pulls it loose in slow motion, letting the silky material fall into a spiral around the box. Then she lifts the lid and peers inside.
Oh, she’s going to hate them. Such a bad choice. I should’ve just gotten her chocolate instead.
She blinks. She tips her head. She reaches into the box and withdraws the gloves, holding them up in the dim golden candlelight illuminating the bedroom.
“Gardening gloves?” she asks with a curious lilt to her voice.
Nodding, I clear my throat. “They’re charmed with magic to be fireproof. So . . . no more catching the greenhouse on fire.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I regret them. I intended for them to come out like a joke, but I’m not sure I nailed the delivery.
But Lyra’s eyes glitter, and she looks back down at the gloves with a new sort of appreciation.
“They’re fireproof?” she whispers.
I nod again.
She clasps them to her chest, and this time when her eyes meet mine, they’re twinkling with moisture. “They’re perfect, Cairn.”
I blink in surprise. “Really? You . . . like them?”
After untangling herself from my bulky sweater, she crawls across the bed and wraps her arms around my neck. Her breath is featherlight against the shell of my ear as she whispers, “I love them. Thank you.” Then she presses a kiss to my cheek.
My heart swells to the point I think it might squeeze out of my rib cage and drift into the autumn night.
Keeping one arm around my neck, she reaches out and snags up the red ribbon from where she dropped it onto the bed. “Can I keep this too?”
A laugh rumbles out of me. “I suppose.”
Her lips pull into a smile, making her freckles crinkle.
After wiggling into my lap, she turns so her back is facing me, then holds up the ribbon.
“Will you tie it into my hair? Make a bow like you did around the box.” She dangles the ribbon in the air, letting it hang from her fingers until I take it from her.
“I’m not very good,” I mumble, already wondering how I’m going to get this thin ribbon around her braid with my big fingers.
“As long as you do it,” she says lightly, “it’ll be perfect.”
Yup, there my heart goes again, feeling like it wants to explode.
As I start to wrap the red ribbon around the end of her braid, I wonder how I got here.
How’d I go from being annoyed at the prospect of having to babysit a troublesome fire witch to having her in my lap, to knowing what her lips feel like against mine, to wanting to feel her pussy stretch around my cock?
I banish that last thought quickly; she must be sore from earlier this evening, and I already covered her in my cum, to the point where we both had to bathe. She needs to rest.
Narrowing my eyes in focus, I somehow am able to get my clumsy fingers to wrap the ribbon into a quaint bow at the end of her pretty red braid. I sit back to check my work, then mumble, “It’s done.”
Lyra pulls her braid around to check my work. Her fingers brush along the ribbon, and she turns her eyes up to meet mine. “Can I stay with you tonight?” she whispers.
The rain has slowed, but it still patters softly outside and against the thatched roof. The bedroom window is open just a crack, keeping us cool and carrying in the delicious scent of fall and woodsmoke from the Samhain bonfire.
I hadn’t considered for even a moment sending her out into the rain, making her walk back to the castle in my oversize sweater. I’d have to be the biggest ass in Wysteria.
Lifting a hand, I trace my thumb along the ridge of her cheekbone, mapping out her freckles in my mind. “Of course,” I whisper.
Her eyes glisten. And then she kisses me.
LYRA IS BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE sleeps. Her mouth is open slightly, and she breathes deep and even. The furrow that often mars her brow is gone, leaving her forehead perfectly smooth.
She lies next to me, one hand draped across my bare chest, the other curled up under her chin. She looks so delicate in sleep, so soft. So gentle.
Yet I know she can be anything but.
We’ve been working together for half a semester, and already I’ve seen subtle changes in her—focus and concentration, the effort she puts forth to control her fire, the determination I so often see etched across her face.
Yet right now, all I see is peace.
Slowly, I use one finger to brush a soft, bouncy curl from her cheek. She shifts a bit in sleep, breathing changing, and for a moment, I fear I’ve woken her. But then she settles right back in, one hand still lying on my chest, right where my heart beats.
I know this is dangerous, that we—I—shouldn’t be doing this.
Lyra is already skating on thin ice with Headmistress Moonhart, and if anyone so much as suspects something untoward is going on between us, it could result in her losing her place here.
As for me, I could easily lose my job, my home, all the quiet peace I’ve built here on the outskirts of the academy.
But . . . would that be so bad? a small voice asks me.
My gaze lifts from Lyra and lands on the doorway leading into the sitting room, where the letter Milo sent me is held inside the drawer in a side table.
After bumping into him in Wysteria the other day, I put quill to parchment and filled out the application he’d sent over.
And though I still don’t have high hopes of hearing back from the Columbine Conservatory, the thought that I might be able to do something more, learn something more, has my chest squeezing in nervous anticipation.
If I were to get the job, it would mean leaving here. Leaving her.
My eyes flick down to her, curled beside me, breathing softly, skin like cream in the silver moonlight cutting through a gap in my curtains.
If I left here, what would that mean for us?
Oh, there’s an us now?
The thought startles me. Up until tonight, I’d still been resisting, telling myself I couldn’t let this spark between us burn out of my control.
But now it has. And in my heart, I want to kindle it, to throw logs onto the fire, to pray before it and dance around it and watch as the flames lick the sky.
In my head . . . I know this is dangerous. For both of us.
But I don’t know what to do, don’t know how to pull away now, how to stop this thing that’s already taking on a life of its own.
Lyra shifts again, and this time, her crimson eyes blink open slowly. She looks up at me, sleepy and bleary, and yawns.
“Cairn?” she whispers.
“Hmm?” I brush my fingers across her cheek, then down the column of her throat.
“Is everything okay?” She blinks again. “Can’t sleep?”
“Everything’s fine,” I whisper. “Go back to sleep.”
“And you’ll be here when I wake up?”
My heart twists into shapes it hasn’t for many, many years. “Of course I will.”
Lyra gives me a sleepy smile, then scoots closer, curling her small body around mine.
And though I close my eyes and try to find sleep, it evades me for a long while. Mostly, what I find is worry.