Chapter 23 #3
“Please don’t.” Despite my efforts to hold it back, my voice still came out as a growl.
But who could blame me? Miles having sex was not something I wanted to think about. There was such a thing as oversharing. Was this what the others meant by saying it was normal for me to yell at Tu?
Because I could see why.
“Wow.” Miles leaned back, moving away from my hand. “It really is like old times.”
“What is?” I sighed even though I already suspected the answer.
“I only bring it up because it’s relevant,” he said, the humor fading from his expression. “There’s something you need to know, especially if you keep hanging around the school for some reason.”
Why did that sound like an accusation? I had things to do at the school!
“I have a reason…” I narrowed my eyes on him. He’d made me sound like a total loser. Even so, how was his past sex life relevant? “What is it?”
“So… There’s this witch on campus, and she and I used to…” He glanced away. “Well, we had sex a few times, fine? Stuff happened, and now I have a restraining order against her.”
My thoughts went numb, and I raised my brow. “A… restraining order?”
He nodded. “Yeah,” he said, unmoved, as if this was normal.
“I really shouldn’t have slept with her—we try not to mix that sort of relationship with those that fall under our archetype—but we were in some clubs together and got to know each other.
I’m not one to sleep with a new woman every week.
That’s more Damen’s thing. I need to know a person before I can go that far. ”
My eyebrow twitched, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“But sometimes I wonder if Damen was right. Or Julian. Whenever he’d get angry, which was always, he’d go to his specialty clubs and pick up strangers,” Miles continued pensively, placing a finger on his cheek.
My displeasure deepened. What clubs? And if he was always angry… Did that mean he was more promiscuous than Damen?
“The others tried to warn me it was a bad idea to get involved, but I didn’t listen,” Miles said. “Eventually, Heather started thinking that we were a thing—”
“Heather?” I cut in. We had a name! Now we were getting somewhere.
“She still stalks me sometimes,” he continued, his shoulders tensing. His humor had fled, and he looked at me like a rabbit about to flee.
“Are you afraid of her?” I asked.
“No!” His voice squeaked, and he eyed me warily. “I’m just a nice person. I mean, I did sleep with her. I might have led her on a bit.”
He was totally afraid of her.
“How often does she bother you?” I asked. “Doesn’t she respect the restraining order?”
“Not always…” His voice trailed off. “Now listen, you can’t murder her. That’s not why I’m telling you this. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea if you see her hanging around.”
I scoffed and brushed a leaf from my shoulder. How presumptuous. “I’m not going to murder anyone,” I told him. “But you don’t need to worry about her anymore.” His biggest mistake was thinking she’d be anywhere near him in the future. There would be no ‘hanging around.’
I’d keep her away, but there was no need to resort to murder.
“What does she look like?” I asked.
“Why?” His voice shook, and he stepped back. “What are you going to do? You just said you wouldn’t kill her.”
“I’m not going to kill her.”
Killing wasn’t my style. Instead, I would do the same thing I’d done to all of Finn’s admirers: gently encourage them to divert their attention elsewhere.
No one threatened anything of mine.
“You didn’t answer my question.” Miles frowned at me.
I raised my eyebrow. “You didn’t answer mine either.”
He sighed, shoulders slumping as defeat radiated in the air. “She looks like…” His words trailed off, contemplation and confusion growing in his expression. “Actually, I don’t know. It’s all kind of based on her opinion.”
What kind of answer was that ? They’d been with each other intimately. How could he not remember what she looked like?
Miles’s lack of attention to detail was highly concerning.
However, on some level, it made my heart skip happily, knowing he didn’t remember. It meant he could never visualize her naked in his thoughts.
This was good.
Either way, I had other ways of finding things out.
“Okay…” I stepped past him. “Let’s keep going.”
“Hold on!” Miles grabbed my arm, turning me to face him. “Why do you look like you’ve made an important decision without including me in the details?”
“What are you talking about?” My mouth twisted, confusion settling over me. What was he talking about? I was only going to have to guard him every day and night. I would forever be a thorn in his side, never allowing him to be alone. Or at least until Heather was no longer a threat.
She clearly needed a distraction away from my man.
“You’ve decided something!” Miles’s brows furrowed. “What was it?”
Miles continued speaking—something about working together—but his words faded as horror filled me, and a cold settled deep in my bones.
My man ? I pressed my hand to my warm cheek.
What the heck was that? When had I become so possessive? I’d never been like this in the past!
Well, maybe only a little. But this was getting out of control. Why was my heart racing in excitement?
It wasn’t even true, anyway. Miles had only promised to stay with me forever, as I’d promised to stay with him. And we were sort of a couple, but not really because we weren’t dating traditionally. We would never be married.
However, he did say he’d never look at anyone else again so long as he lived.
But did that make him mine ? Maybe.
And he was a man.
So, it was technically accurate and not so far-fetched: he was my man. But that felt weird to admit, even to myself.
“What are you thinking about now?” Miles brushed my arm, his voice cautious. The moment his skin touched mine, my jitters eased and the pounding in my chest slowed.
But I couldn’t hide. Not from him.
Especially not with this bond.
“Why are you nervous?” he asked.
My face flushed—and his did too. Great. First Julian, now Miles. I was rapidly running out of privacy. This was going to be catastrophic when I got my period.
The only thing that’d be worse was if one of these bonds included mind-reading.
“You’re upset.” He frowned at me, moving a thumb over my lips.
I almost choked and stepped back, ignoring his raised eyebrow as I tugged at the bottom of my shirt. “I’m n-n… I’m fine!”
I looked at the ground.
“I’m just getting used to this.” My voice was weak, and my mouth went dry. “It—it will be okay.”
“It will. I would never hurt you,” he said, a thread of determination in his voice.
I nodded. I knew that.
There was a shift in the wind, and my attention snapped up as a crash rang through the air. Miles dropped his hands from my sides as he turned his head toward the noise.
We’d been stopped for quite some time, but I hadn’t even taken notice of our surroundings until now. Miles’s… stories had been a distraction.
The wind rustled through the air, carrying away the last sounds. Orange and red leaves swirled at our feet. The air surrounded us, and every movement felt like I was walking against the current.
But I stepped forward anyway. The wind washed over me, bringing with it a newfound clarity.
“What is that?” I asked, focus zeroing in on a barely-there pathway to the right. Miles was looking in that direction, too, his expression severe. But he didn’t look surprised.
“It has the same energy as the thing that distracted me at the river,” he replied. “It must be Kathleen’s monster.”
I frowned, recalling their conversation—and my pamphlets. “The Snallygaster?”
She’d said that it was the manifestation of a creature that came to her in a dream.
“Yes,” Miles said again, his voice uncharacteristically grim. “But if it’s made from her magic, it should have disappeared after Kathleen died. Why is it still alive?”
He looked at me, but I knew nothing of witchcraft besides what I’d gathered from my few sources, and I shrugged.
“Let’s go see,” he said, brows lowering. He walked past me, this time holding the stick properly, as he moved into the forest. There was a determination to him that had filled the spaces of his careful cautiousness from before, and my heart began to race.
He was no longer afraid.
I stepped after him, skipping to catch up. “Okay.”