Chapter 4
S he stayed late that Saturday, happy to work into the night to create more candles for shop inventory and ignore the longing growing in her every day. The bulk of what she made were the new Christmas scent, but she had to refill a few of her standbys because when someone bought one candle, they often bought another. Especially when they shopped online. Better to pay for shipping once and all that.
She spread the last of her printed labels on the last of her filled jars, patting it affectionately for good measure, when a cold wind somehow blew through her lab. The sensation wasn't unpleasant. The air moved up her spine like a caress and, with the pleasant chill, it caused a deep shudder to trip over her body, leaving goosebumps in its wake. The smell of pine and winter winds filled the space, despite the mix of so many scents, and she whipped her head to the window, somehow knowing what she'd see before her eyes clapped on Boreas.
He stooped by her backdoor, a basket in his hands heaped high with wild ginger. He'd known her need without even being told. The god stepped back, paused for a second to look over his offering, then turned on his heels so quickly his wings faced her before she registered any movement.
Her heart thumped and a string somewhere in her gut tugged, making her reach up and give three quick knocks on the glass. Boreas stopped, looking over his shoulder to lock icy blue eyes with winter gray ones. Lily smiled brightly at him, held up a finger in the universal sign of "Give me one sec," then hurried as fast as her human feet could move her to the backdoor. Before she opened it, her hand flew up to her head, remembering the tattered old headband she wore. Cursing slightly, she ripped it out of her hair, stuffed it back in her apron, and slicked a hand down her thin, brown bob before heaving out a breath and stepping into the cold night.
There stood the god, in front of her in all his glory once again, the same, or at least a very similar toga draped across his ridiculously wide chest. He stood shoeless on the freezing asphalt of her back lot, the claws on his feet gripping the ground so tight it looked as if he’d leave gouges. His wings shuddered as she opened the door, but he ruffled his feathers and tucked his wings tight to his back. His forearms and biceps, full and bulging, were on full display because he had his arms crossed on his chest, waiting. Why he looked so defensive, she didn't know, but she smiled again to try to put him at ease.
"You must be cold. Wanna come on in?"
"I do not get cold," he said, firm and strong, his delicious voice doing all kinds of things to her insides.
"O-kay," she said after a long pause. “Doesn’t answer my question, though. You wanna come in, have some tea with me?”
He stared, icy eyes unwavering, until he slumped slightly forward as if giving up some internal struggle. “Yes.” A simple answer, but when he took the first step toward her, relief washed over her.
Lily didn’t voice this, however. She simply stepped aside, sweeping her arm into the store in welcome. He stopped right inside the door, his body locking inches from her, his breaths coming in loud, deep pulls.
“The smell can sometimes be overwhelming,” she said, referencing the candles, of course, but in the moment, she was overwhelmed by his unique, intoxicating scent. She even swayed slightly toward him, but snapped herself out of it. “Excuse me,” she said, grabbing the door to shut it, but finding Boreas’s large body in her way.
He side-stepped so she could close the door and lead the way into her small office, where she kept an electric tea kettle. She poured in water from a jug beside her desk left there for this purpose and fired up the thing before moving to the shelf behind her desk to grab two mugs. Lily did all this to calm herself and give herself time to get used to the scent and sensation of him so damn close to her.
When she finished her task and sensed she was a little more in control, she spun to smile up at him. “Please. Have a seat.”
His wings rustled as he perched on the edge of the small chair she had in front of her desk. Isa was usually the only one who sat in it. Seeing Boreas in the small white chair, trying to get comfortable with his wings and his bulk, was almost laughable. The unhappy scowl on his face as he maneuvered made her control the laughter.
She busied herself again, steeping tea bags, when she asked over her shoulder, “Sugar? Would offer you milk, but I don’t have any.”
“No, thank you,” he said, all politeness and civility. Lily turned to take her seat and left his cup on the opposite edge of her desk. The small expanse between them, only wood and bits of metal, felt like nothing given the pull in her stomach. A sudden but vivid vision flashed in her mind: Boreas tossing their teas aside, laying her across this desk, and trailing her skin with those sharp claws until she begged him for more.
His nostrils flared, as if he could scent the wetness her vision caused, and Lily blushed. Hell, he was a god, he probably could scent all kinds of things. Something to remember in the future.
“How have you been?” she asked, taking a sip from her too-hot tea but letting the burn focus her attention from her body’s reactions to the man. Pleasantries weren’t deep or anything, but they were as good a jumping off point as anything else.
“Well. And you?” Boreas also knew niceties then.
“Thankfully busy.” Another sip of hot tea, then, “Oh, wait. I forgot I have these.”
She grabbed her purse from its handy hook and rummaged in it to find the shortbread Betty’d given her earlier in the day. That woman gave her so many sweets it had to be digging into her profits. Lily complained about it occasionally. Only occasionally, though, because Betty bit her head off any time she did it.
When she opened the small wax bag, the soft scent of orange filled her nose, competing momentarily with the wind and pine. “Want one?” she asked, offering the buttery, citrusy goodness to the god in front of her.
He cocked his head like a crow studying some new, shiny object, then plucked the offered cookie from between her fingers. When his lips wrapped around the thing, she had to scurry away, albeit a short scurry, to the opposite side of the small room.
“Good, right? The bakery next door keeps me in sweet treats.”
“Do you enjoy such things?”
“Of course. Who doesn’t? A little sugar makes the world brighter.”
“As do candles,” the god muttered before putting the final bit of his cookie in his mouth. Lily blushed at the intended compliment. Unsure how to proceed, she took her own bite of orange-y goodness and gave a soft moan at the burst of flavor.
Boreas stood abruptly, the chair bouncing back from the force. “I must go.”
She left her seat and hustled around the desk, laying a soft hand on his chest, pleading with her touch. “Why?”
“I came only to help, not to…” he trailed off.
“You did help,” she added. “Thank you for bringing me more ginger. I was just thinking I needed to go back out for more.”
His chest puffed. “You are not to go to the woods alone again.”
Her eyes narrowed in on him. She felt… something with him. She didn’t know it, couldn’t name it, but it was insanely strong and unwavering. Still, she was no pushover. She’d stopped being that long ago. Wouldn’t start up again, even for a god. “I’ll do what I need to do to help my business.”
He ignored the hard turn of her voice. "Are you in dire straits?"
Lily forehead wrinkled at the question, not quite understanding at first. "Oh, you mean the business? Not exactly. Definitely not anymore, but, you know how it is. With any small business, you’ve got a razor thin margin of error between making and losing money."
His brows dipped, the deep V they created snagging her interest and mesmerizing her for a minute. So much so she didn't at first hear what he said. "Huh?' she asked, shaking her head to get her focus back on track. To the conversation at hand and not the god's beautiful body hot under her hands.
"I asked if you need assistance."
"Oh, no thank you. I mean, you've already helped an awful lot, what with the ginger and all."
"Do you require more?"
She thought of the basket he’d deposited inside her back door, somehow brimming with wild ginger despite the winter weather and its tendency to wither at the root in the cold. More ginger sat stacked in the hefty basket than she'd ever seen in her life. A possibly illegal amount of ginger, truth be told. "Um, did you take out an entire field of wild ginger?"
He shook his head. "I... I like the smell of ginger. Grow it close. This is but a fraction of what I have spread over the years." They were so close now, his breath feathered over her face and it took her a moment to get her bearings once again.
To deflect, she made a little joke. "You a god of ginger, too?"
She felt him stiffen under her hands, almost like he turned into a marble statue, then he took a large step away, almost to the door of her office. She felt the loss of his body in her chest. From the doorway, he asked a soft question. "You know what I am?"
She blinked at him then waved him off. "You might be too old for it, but I know how to Google. Your name is rather unique."
He looked her up and down, as if sizing her up and finding something new and interesting. Since he was going to be all open about it, she did the same, taking in all his bronze, hard muscle on display, the twinkling onyx of his clawed feet and hands, the beautiful angles of his face. She almost lost herself in thinking about how those massive incisors of his would feel on her skin when he brought her out of her thoughts with a question. "You do not mind?"
"Mind knowing a god? It’d be awfully hypocritical of me, seeing as you keep helping me out. Plus, you are what you are. No changing that. Shitty to hold it against you."
He nodded but remained stiff, unyielding. “Unlike most humans.”
“What do you mean?”
“Humans are not often so accepting, Lily.”
She couldn’t exactly argue with him, but there was something darker in his tone she didn’t like. “Do you not like humans?” And by extension, her ?
“I steer clear of your kind.”
“Seems a bit odd,” she muttered. He’d helped her multiple times and all.
“Odd is watching others like you ripped to shreds in front of your eyes by callous humans,” he spit, and the force of his words, the image they brought forward, the pain she saw flash across his eyes, made her take her own step back. It was a hard jump from talk of cookies and business and ginger.
“I’m… I’m sorry.” Little enough to say, but all she could muster in the moment.
“Yet another reason why I must go.”
“The first reason?”
He shook his head, refusing to answer. The invisible tie binding them, making her feel him when he was near, was enough answer for her, though. If she felt it so much, as a human, surely the god felt it as well. She just needed to pull on the thread a bit, get him to acknowledge it.
She regained ground, came toward him as he loomed in her doorway. He didn’t back down, didn’t flinch. Appeared every bit the god, and ready to fight back, though she knew beyond a doubt he’d never harm her. Physically. “Why are you helping me so much? And why are you here?"
"I brought you what you needed." He answered only the second question, so she pressed forward, with her body and her tactics, letting her longing and feeling of rightness drive her.
"I felt you tonight."
A chill wind blasted across her front and his eyes turned more intense and probing. "How so?"
"Breeze at my back. I smelled you, too. Like a winter wind through the pines."
"You smell of ginger and flame," he admitted, then bit his lip with one sharp fang, as if he gave her too much.
Thinking she could get him to give her more, she whispered close to him, “And thanks for the book, too."
She watched the sure, stoic god snarl and back into her hallway, moving fast toward her backdoor as he kept eye contact with her. "What book?"
"The old, leather, Latin and sorta English one. Found it in my shop a few days ago. You left it, right?"
Boreas managed to somehow open the backdoor and step outside without turning from her. Lily hovered in the doorway and watched his wings flare as if he was about to take flight. "The book believes it is yours, now." That didn't exactly answer her question about the thing, but Boreas liked to only half-answer things, at least in her limited experience with the god.
Her mind blanked, though, because in that instant, he took flight. With a mighty jump into the air, his sharp, feathered wings flapped, causing a loud whoosh in the alleyway. She watched in awe as he quickly rose into the blackness of the winter night sky, losing sight of him in seconds. Lily kept her eyes trained upward despite this. Sadness and anger warred in her after he left like he did, especially because they’d had such a pleasant beginning to their little tea date. Honestly, everything about her interactions with the god left her confused. However, she remained certain about one thing: he was hers. Even if she didn’t fully understand the why or the how of it all. They were bound together, ready to burn at any moment. Like wax and wick.