Chapter 37
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Romance, the cure for all trauma! Probably.
For the past few days, Castor has been a bit off.
The day after movie night, he told me he had some business to take care of, and though I thought it strange he wasn’t inviting me with him to go LARPing, I figured perhaps he needed to remember that there were people who liked to play with him without his soulmate.
Judging by the distress he faced the entire time he was gone, and the fact Zahra answered my “is Castor LARPing with you guys” text with “no,” I’ve since come to the conclusion that I…
have no idea what business he was talking about.
To further my worry, he refused to elaborate when he returned home, insisting that it would be safer for me not to know.
Safer.
Not better.
Safer.
My soulmate left for an entire afternoon to do something dangerous, and I don’t have a clue what it was or how to lift his morose attitude now that he’s back.
Logic demands I recognize that the fae world is vast, and I’m still new to so much of it.
Logic demands I understand that Castor has been around for ages and likely knows of many things I’d be safer not toying with.
Logic demands I let it go in the name of a healthy relationship with boundaries.
Logic demands I trust that my soulmate will sort through his feelings maturely on his own.
Needless to say, no logic entirely dictated the actions I have found myself performing in lieu of all those good and healthy suggestions.
Shock, surprise, interest, confusion.
I smile as the delightful melody of emotions dance along the threads of our soul bond, immediately raising Castor from the consternation he’s been stuck in since Friday. Personally, I think I’ve been very good and patient, waiting an entire weekend before acting on my impulse to perform surgery.
Ever since he came back forlorn and afflicted, I’ve wanted to cut inside him, reach the knot of duress, and pull it free.
Now, I am doing just that.
And I have to say, it’s already working wonders on his mood!
Step aside, Pollux. There’s a new doctor in town.
“My feather…” Castor murmurs, heart fluttering in the quiet hall where I’ve professionally confronted him. “You’ve…stabbed me.”
“Yup!” I chirp, and contemplate whether or not he’d enjoy it if I twist the knife.
Heart skipping a joyous little beat, he skates his fingers against my hand and over the hilt of my weapon. “Is this…my favorite dagger?”
“I went to Willow’s while you were directing progress on the aqueducts. She was reading. I said, ‘I’m going to rob you.’ She said, ‘Don’t take my books.’ I didn’t take her books.”
Positively charmed, Castor smiles at me, wraps his hand around mine, and drags me closer, urging the blade deeper.
A half-pained, half-delirious sound combines in his throat, tantalizing and teasing.
Voice low, he flirts, “I suppose I have been slacking on your lessons for the past few days. Forgive me, my love. Shall we take this somewhere a touch more…personal?”
Before I can answer, he’s already guiding me up the hall and into the quiet study I remember getting drunk in, so very long ago.
It hardly seems right that only weeks have passed since then.
Everything before the here and now feels a universe away.
And I couldn’t be more glad for the endless distance between me and the world I once knew.
After getting settled by the couch in the room, Castor pops the knife out of his side, and I jerk, certain rule one of a stab wound is not to remove the knife until the blood is ready to be staunched.
Castor’s hand snatching mine is the only thing that keeps me from stabbing myself in the face out of shock when he strips.
Deeply concerned, he says, “Gracious. What’s the matter?”
What’s the matter?
What is the matter?
The matter is he’s bleeding, everywhere, all over his bare skin. A second after breaking rule one of having a stab wound, he dropped his robes off his shoulders, leaving them to settle at his hips, baring his chest, shoulders, biceps, forearms…
He’s absolutely beautiful.
Even with the ugly red and gushing wound piercing his firm stomach.
He’s all pretty muscle and paper-pale flesh.
And I’m about to touch him so deeply my magic will lace his cells.
Heat blooms in my face, and I might be at risk of dropping this knife into my foot.
Before such a thing can occur, Castor confiscates the blade and sets it aside, then he takes my hands in his, dragging me a step closer to all his beautiful bare skin.
He kisses my fingers. “Oh sweetheart…” He settles my palm against moist heat, pressing my fingers into him until they’re wet and his shape has engraved itself in my brain.
“This is called the consequences of your own actions. If you didn’t want me seduced, you shouldn’t have started flirting.
” Tenderly, he kisses my forehead, then he lowers his lips near my ear.
“I’m halting my natural healing abilities for you.
Use your magic. Feel the threads of my tissue.
Carefully, slowly, sew me back together.
If you’re too quick about it before you fully understand the process, I’ll scar.
” His lips nestle against my neck. “If you scar me…do it on purpose.”
I gulp, feeling less brazen than approximately five minutes ago. Fancy how I forgot this whole cheer Castor up scheme would involve my hands against his bare open wound.
Cheek to my shoulder, he murmurs, “Just focus on the skin for now. I’ll handle the other organ you hit.”
“I hit another organ?”
“Mmhm.” He snuggles, kissing my throat, perfectly content for the first time in days. “Put my blood back in my body before you close the wound. Sense it with your heart. It tastes like me…” His fingertip grazes my lip, iron, sweetness, addicting ambrosia, him. “Doesn’t it?”
I melt, turning into a puddle of helpless wanting, which wasn’t part of the plan at all. Alas. The consequences of my own actions are brutal this noon.
Kissing his finger, I focus my energy. Flame lights at my fingertips, reaching inside him.
It takes a moment to wrap my senses around the complexity of what I’m trying to accomplish, but once I figure it out, the wound closes—sure and steady.
I’m almost positive I could go faster, but he said slow, so I force it slow.
His damp exhale coasts across my neck. “That’s my girl.”
I shudder as the last bit weaves together.
Castor chuckles. “You did it.” Sultry, he moves my wrist up his chest, makes me push him, then tugs me along after his fall as he tumbles onto the couch.
My heartbeat leaps when I find myself pressed to his cool bare skin.
Blade back in hand, he uses the cold flat of it to tip my chin up.
The point grazes me, cutting, and he pulls it away to replace the scratch with his lips and tongue.
As I fall into the sensation of his magic creeping inside me to heal the cut, he fits the hilt to my palm.
“Carve me up, darling, and heal me just like this, with your fingers and your mouth. Touch me in my soul and sinew.”
I shiver and find myself unwittingly closer, yet not close enough—I fight the pull with everything left in me. His palms fall to my hips, planting there, steadying me. Each of his fingers indents my softness, holding me stable atop him.
“Let my body be your canvas. Take my heart out and hold it in your hands. Let your loving touch bury deep inside my flesh…make me believe in it.” He lets his head fall against the back cushion, and then he says, with a touch more venom, “Rewrite me into your wildest fantasies.”
The terrible urge to cut him open and climb inside compels me. The dreadful wish to place myself in the cage of his ribs, forever taking up the space of his lungs, grips my mind. I want to carve myself into him, sew us together, become one thing, one creature, one entity.
Forever perfect. Forever accepted. Forever loved.
Fluttering, I stop fighting the gravity and give myself the grace to see wherever this moment leads.
“You already are my wildest fantasy given life,” I whisper, testing the blade across his cheek.
The slash of red against the sharp angles of his face is an art unlike anything I’ve seen before.
I follow the line of red with my tongue—slowly—until the cut is healed and my lips are near his long ear. “You are everything to me.”
His hands slide and his arms circle my waist, cementing our bodies together. “What wouldn’t you forgive me for, my sweet heartbeat?”
“Leaving me.” Letting the knife slip to rest on the couch beside us, I embrace him. “Just that.” My cheek falls against his chest, listening for the proof that he’s alive with me. “Only ever that.”
He retrieves the blade, skates the tip over my clothes across my back. “So…if I cut wings for you out of your flesh…you wouldn’t mind?”
“I’d thank you for the chance to fly.”
He lets the blade pinprick into me, between my wingbones, testing, then he drops it, and I listen as it clatters to the floor.
Clutching me, he tangles his fist in my hair and whispers, “What if…I free them, then saw them off, then keep them beaten, bloodied, and useless, like a trophy? What if I display them beyond your cage and keep you, my flightless bird, in the golden bars out of reach of them forever?”
“What if you do? Will I know how to love you less? Or will you have charmed me too sweetly when you kiss the wounds closed? Will I treasure the scars as gifts from you, as proof that I don’t need to be flawless for you to want to keep me?
So what if you hurt me in wanting me, just as I am right now—flightless and fearful?
Will you still say my name as though it is a new word?
Will you still spend your every spare moment seeking to take care of me?
And will you still think of me constantly when we are apart? ”
“Yes.”