CHAPTER 28
Ifelt several pairs of eyes burning the back of my neck as I tentatively held Kessian’s waist. He hung his cane on my elbow and, mischief sparkling in his eyes, stood on top of my shoes.
“It’s a good thing you’re smaller than me,” I said.
Laughing, he said, “Tal, this is ridiculous.”
“It is a bit, but you seem to be enjoying yourself.”
The hand on my shoulder made its way to the back of my neck. “Seems to happen a lot when I’m with you.”
I pushed thoughts of last night’s conversation aside. If I only got one dance, that would have to be enough. I was used to everything only lasting short term, so it shouldn’t hurt when the song ended.
I began to shuffle us in slow circles around the dance floor. The movement forced him to hold on more tightly, but with his feet on mine, he didn’t have to put much strain on his hips or wrist.
It also brought us close together. I could smell the spicy fragrance he wore on his neck. This was the closest we’d been physically since we’d been trapped in the shed with the wraith—and though that wasn’t too long ago, so much had happened in the intervening time, it felt like an age.
“You know, I used to really hate the athletes in high school, ’cause they were more often than not the ones who’d bully me. Turned me off the big, strong jock types.”
“I’m not a jock.”
“You clearly work out, or are you just so genetically gifted that picking me up and running for both our lives was only a warmup for you?”
“My arms are still sore. There’s just not a lot to do when you live alone. Lunaris made me a home gym. I became a little obsessed with seeing how many push-ups I could do.”
I shivered as Kessian ran a hand down my arm, squeezing my bicep. “Well, I have a new appreciation for big, sturdy blokes now that one of them saved my life.”
“How’s your hip?” I asked, brushing my thumb where the wraith had raked its claws.
“It was busted before the wraith got to it, so no worse for wear.” He swallowed. “Thank you. For not leaving me behind.”
“I’d never do that.”
Very quietly, he said, “I think I know that now.”
My chest ached, something larger than his words wrapped up in them, heavy with meaning and making my heart leaden with it.
He stared at a spot just over my shoulder, so I could look at him without reservation.
The soft fall of his hair in his face, the glint of his freckles, the way his eyes caught the light like sun catchers, the pink mark left by my lips on his neck just visible above his shirt collar.
So gorgeous that the ache in my chest worsened for looking at him too long.
While I floundered, Kessian said something so low and under his breath that I couldn’t hear over the music. I had to ask him to repeat it.
“I said, if you keep looking at me like that, it’s going to go straight to my head.”
“Sorry.” I looked over his shoulder instead.
A finger touched my jaw and directed me to turn back to him. “I didn’t ask you to stop.”
“You sort of did. Last night.”
“Right.”
“The song’s stopped.”
Kessian looked around to confirm it. A note of tremulous fear edged his voice. “I need to say something. I need to get this out.”
I handed him his cane then led him off the dance floor, away from the people watching.
He still didn’t have his shoes on as he walked us through the grass, his cane leaving deep imprints in the soft soil as we left the light of the tent behind. He positioned us behind an oak tree, out of sight of the wedding guests.
He turned to face me, feverish and nervous. Were his insides crackling and snapping like microwaved popcorn the way mine were?
“Last night … Last night I told you I needed a sure thing, right?”
“Right …” I said.
“And that I couldn’t ask you to promise me anything, because even with visions from a magic spring, we have no way of knowing the future.
There’s no guarantee this works out or breaks my heart and leaves me terrified that, while I’m desperate for a place and a person to call home, I’m never going to be good enough for anyone to find their home in me. ”
“Kessian, you’re—”
“Let me finish, let me finish. Before I forget. The thing is, I’m never going to find happily ever after if I’m not willing to take a chance on happy for now. And you make me happy right now.”
I suppressed my hope, but it burned up my throat. “I do?”
His eyes crinkled with a mix of joy and terror. “Yeah. You do. So … fuck the future. You’re a story I’d want to see through to the end, even if I knew the ending was tragic.”
“O-oh …” My hands shook as I reached up to brush a thumb across the stars on his cheeks. “Are you done talking? Wait, that came out wrong. Can I kiss you now?”
He nodded and tipped forward. Our noses bumped, and his lashes fell over his eyes as, my heart like a hummingbird’s, I pressed my lips softly to his.
It was a gentle, feathery thing at first. Then his hand, which had been on my chest keeping me at arm’s length, fisted in my shirt to pull me close instead.
He whimpered and molded himself against me—lips, chest, hips—opening his mouth for more.
I tilted my head so we’d fit together better, and he wasn’t the only one whimpering anymore.
I spoke, which broke the kiss, and he made a heartbreaking noise like he was afraid I’d stopped altogether.
“What made you change your mind?” I said.
“You. Saving my life and running off to get tithes when paracetamol didn’t cut it.” He kissed me harder. “Being so damn reliable and level-headed while I’m acting madder than a shotgun stag do.”
He raked his fingers through my hair, nails sending tingles down my spine and straight to my dick.
This was getting away from me very quickly.
He was all around me. An arm around my shoulders, a tongue licking into my mouth, his hand grabbing a jealous fistful of my arse as his cane thudded to the grass.
I crowded him against the tree and pressed close, wondering if it was possible to climb into his clothes and under his skin the way he’d gotten under mine.
“I want to fuck you again so damn bad,” I said into his neck before pulling the collar down to renew the mark I’d left behind.
“Tal! First at a funeral, now a wedding? What will people say?”
“They won’t miss us if we’re only gone for half an hour.”
“You think you can finish me off that quick?”
“I haven’t given you head yet.”
“Holy—” His nails dug into the nape of my neck as he said, teeth scraping against my cheek, “I love how you’re not a big talker until you’re horny, then you say things like that.”
“Lunaris isn’t far away.”
Breathing hard, Kessian said, “Okay. Okay, I’m going to excuse myself from the party for a second. Stay and mingle for ten minutes so as not to advertise we’re off for a quickie. Then come meet me.”
I couldn’t wait that long. “Five minutes.”
He looked incandescent with glee. I knew I was giving him ample fodder with which to take the piss out of me later, and I didn’t care.
“At least seven,” he said.
I groaned. “Fine.” I set him down, picked up his cane, and put it in his hand. He reached up to arrange my hair back into place, then pressed a lingering kiss to my lips before ambling back toward the party.
I stayed there, hidden behind the tree for a moment.
I slumped with my back to the bark, the roughness of it grounding me.
Though not quite, as I thought about how Kessian might have felt sandwiched between me and the tree trunk.
I could still feel the impression of his ribs against mine, like I was soft clay and he’d left his fingerprints in me.
I checked the time on my phone. Two minutes had passed. It felt like an age. I looked toward the tent, but Kessian was nowhere to be seen there. He’d headed straight for Lunaris. I should go mingle and pretend all was the usual. Fetch Kessian’s shoes before our rendezvous.
Fae grabbed me first. They’d had a few glasses to drink and the chatter flowed freely. “Thank you sooooo much for staying.”
“Of course.”
“It’s so nice to have my brother back. You know, I wouldn’t have to be the only queer one in the family if you stayed forever.”
I tried to suppress a grin. “I don’t think you need to worry about me staying.”
“You will!?”
“Once I’ve sorted all this stuff with the wraith—”
They threw their arms around me. I nearly choked on the bony point of their shoulder.
“That makes me so happy!”
“Me too.”
“You look it.” They smiled and leaned in for a conspiratorial whisper. “I won’t be offended if a certain boy played a part in that. I saw you and Kessian dancing earlier. Are you both going to make a bid to catch my bouquet? Then I can plan your wedding.”
“Slow down.”
“You do like him, though, don’t you?”
“Yeah … Quite a bit, really.”
“Well, normally I’d warn you off a boy like that, but he seems to be fonder of you than his past dalliances, so I guess he has permission to date you.”
“He needs your permission?”
“Of course. Where is he? I’ll tell him. Kessian!” they began to shout.
“I’ll go find him,” I said, patting their shoulder. “Be back in a bit.”
Camilla was already pulling them into another dance. I broke away from the crowd. It had been a little longer than ten minutes. I didn’t want to leave Kessian hanging, so I broke into a bit of a jog.
Lunaris’s door was open. I thought it was in anticipation of my arrival, but as I skipped up the stairs, it was to find the living room empty.
Lunaris flashed her lights red in alarm, and as I took in the shadow-stained steps and scratches on the door, her radio tuned in to three different stations, song lyrics putting together a message.
A retro pop song cried, “Help!”
A rolling bass melody sang, “Run, boy, run.”
And finally an acoustic folk tune sung by a woman in a deep contralto, “Your lover likes a little danger, but not this kind.”
I tarried only to retrieve my tithe belt, then turned and tripped my way outside.
I sprinted up the grassy knoll, heading for the shed, but I knew what I’d find before I got there, confirmed it when I saw the door creaking open in the wind with no light shining through the gap, and when I threw it open, it was to find the edge of the sigil smeared through.
Warwick hadn’t known this was here. Only my family had, but who among them would dare let it out when my family were the ones it targeted?
A strange, familiar melody came over me. A song I’d only heard once before. It had been hard to hear over the music at the wedding, so loud it carried here, but it echoed in my blood more than in my ears.
A gnarled cord of magic like barbed wire wended around my throat, nestled into the crevices of my spine.
It tried to force me to stand ramrod straight and walk, but it couldn’t quite worm its way into my brain.
Whether because I’d survived its thrall once before or because some other force protected me, I didn’t know, but I did know one thing.
The wraith had taken Kessian.