Chapter 13
Thirteen
My heart stutters.
It’s embarrassing, really, how my body betrays me before my brain can catch up. One look at him and I’m warm all over, like someone flipped a switch labeled disastrous attraction to men who’ve emotionally ruined you.
My breath quickens. Heat blooms in my cheeks.
Damn him.
Why does he always show up like the misunderstood hero—the kind of brooding asshole with a six-pack and a smirk that could undo a decade of therapy?
I grab Alder’s arm and yank him toward the back corner of the kitchen, away from Bernice and Sylvie. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the council meeting?” I hiss. “You know, figuring out how the hell we get home?”
His eyes crinkle at the corners. “I had a better offer.”
“What, food?”
“No.” His gaze drops to my mouth. “You.”
Just one word. One ridiculously effective word. And it slices through my defenses like a hot knife through butter.
His hands close over mine, and before I can yank them back, he raises them and presses the lightest kiss to my knuckles.
The gesture is maddeningly smooth—Alder at his most infuriating.
And yet, there’s a softness in it too. Something familiar and foreign all at once.
It makes me want to slap him and maybe straddle him, which is deeply unhelpful.
“You didn’t get enough to eat in the room?” I ask, more clipped than I mean to be, trying to shore up the cracks he always seems to find.
I’m not falling for this again. I’m not falling for him. No matter how pretty the packaging or how well he plays the role of hero, I’m not the girl who gets fooled over and over…and over and over again by the same asshole.
His grin turns wicked, the kind that used to spell trouble for my clothes. “I always need a full meal before I enjoy dessert.”
My knees go wobbly. I want to throw a spoon at his face.
Instead, I scoff. “Disgusting.”
He shrugs like he’s proud of it. “Delicious.”
And just like that, I’m twenty-one again, hiding a blush and pretending his teasing doesn’t make me feel like I’m standing at the edge of something dangerously enjoyable. I hate how easily he does this. I hate how much I don’t hate it.
“You look…” he starts, and there’s a shift in his tone that pulls all the air from the room. “Lovely.” His gaze lingers. “Good enough to eat.”
“Don’t think you can distract me with sexy flattery.”
He leans in, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth. When he pulls it away, it glistens with a smear of honey. Without breaking eye contact, he lifts it to his lips and licks it clean with the kind of deliberate, slow drag that belongs in a wet dream.
“Sweet,” he murmurs. “Just like I thought.”
My brain short-circuits. Images of last night crash through me—his hands, his kiss, the impossible softness in it and the promise I thought I felt tucked into its warmth. That stupid heat blooms again, curling low in my stomach, desperately wanting to set up permanent residence.
His scent hits me all at once, a heady mix of woodsmoke and dark chocolate.
Before I can stop it, I let out a sigh. A real sigh.
Like a swoony Victorian heroine fainting over a discarded cravat.
I want to fight him. Or maybe kiss him until he forgets whatever he’s hiding from me.
Or maybe I want him to kiss me until I forget too.
I open my mouth to say something—maybe to challenge him, maybe to lie and tell him that he’s gross and I feel nothing—but Bernice saves me from myself.
“If you two are quite finished,” she says, voice flat as a cast-iron skillet, “there’s a task that needs doing.” She thrusts a wicker basket between us. “Couldn’t save the eggs, and a new batch won’t gather themselves.”
I grab it, grateful for the excuse. For the distance. For the chance to get away from the magnetic pull of this man who is both my ruin and reason.
The lights in the kitchen still burn too bright, and the steam-powered contraptions still hiss and sputter, but Bernice and Sylvie have managed to settle the worst of it by the time Alder and I step into the misty courtyard.
The cool air kisses my skin and is tinged with the scent of damp stone mingled with the sweetness of nearby blooming flowers.
Without hesitating, Alder sets off down the narrow stone path, basket swinging easily from one hand. I fall into step beside him, grateful to not have to think about where we’re going.
As we round the corner, the roar of water crescendos, and one of the great waterfalls cascading down the castle’s exterior comes into view. Its torrents crash against jagged rocks far below, shattering into glittering spray that hangs in the air like fairy dust.
I glance at him as we walk. “How did you learn your way around this place so quickly?”
He shrugs, his grin softening into something almost wistful. “Some places unfold themselves to you,” he says. “People too. Those you’re meant to know… You find them, and suddenly, the map appears.”
My breath catches. For a moment, everything slows. The spray, the sunlight, the low thrum of the castle behind us. All of it fades beneath the weight of his gaze.
This doesn’t feel like the Alder I know.
This feels like someone seeing me—not as an accessory to his success, not as some carefully curated image of stability and charm, but as I am.
The woman who walked away. The woman who had nothing left but her pride and a few bruised pieces of her heart she couldn’t bear to hand over again.
The woman who’s scared, if she’s being honest. Scared of what happens if she keeps standing still.
Scared of what happens if she moves forward.
I swallow and quickly look away, tugging at the scoop neck on my borrowed dress like it’s suddenly suffocating.
“Well,” I say, too brightly, “lucky you. A magickal map and all the answers fall into your lap. Meanwhile, the rest of us are hoping we don’t get flattened by a rogue mechanical whisk or eaten by a weird machine. ”
He laughs under his breath, but it fades as he reaches out and brushes a hand against my elbow. “Watch your step.”
The narrow path is slick, the stones glistening like they’ve been polished with moonlight. His touch is steady, casual, protective, and it sends a shiver through me that has nothing to do with the cool air.
We follow the trail as it curves into a garden that looks stolen from a fairy tale. The roar of the waterfall quiets behind us, replaced by the soft rustle of leaves and the sigh of a breeze that smells of sea salt and summer flowers.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper, reaching out to trail my fingers along the velvety petals of a white rose the size of my palm. The bloom is soft and cool, and for a second, everything else slips away.
“What’s it like? Where you’re living?”
He’s watching me. I can feel it before I look up. “You probably know better than I do. You’ve spent more time flying up there for work than I ever spent living there.”
His lips twitch. “Still. I want to hear it from you.”
I hesitate, but only for a beat. “It never felt like home. Not really.”
I glance over at him, expecting him to say something smug or teasing, but he just waits.
“I get why you don’t want to leave South Carolina,” I say softly. “I was itching to get out. I thought if I just got far enough away—got somewhere shiny, somewhere impressive—then I’d…become someone else. Someone more.”
I exhale through my nose, eyes fixed on a cluster of pale blue blossoms at my feet.
“I was supposed to love the city. Everyone does, right? I got out of the sticks and landed somewhere with rooftop views and twenty-four-hour everything and noise that never lets up. It’s what people dream about.
” My voice hitches, a little laugh slipping out.
“But I never stopped feeling like a visitor. Like I was just borrowing someone else’s life for a while. ”
I don’t look at him when I add, “And you know how that turned out.”
The silence stretches. Not heavy, exactly. But full.
“Honestly, if we’d been…different, I might not have left.”
The words hang there, raw and too honest. My chest tightens. I didn’t plan to say that part. But it’s the truth.
And it’s the first time I’ve said it out loud.
A long, aching beat passes. His eyes are locked on mine, and the weight of it feels like standing on a precipice.
I’ve never spoken to him like this. Never been vulnerable without expecting him to twist it, spin it, use it for a pitch or a photo op or a campaign about how relatable we are. But this Alder, he listens.
And that’s the most dangerous thing of all.
“Mackenzie’s convinced that if I asked, you’d buy some ridiculous high-rise in Manhattan and I’d never have to leave.”
He’s still silent, still listening.
The vulnerability makes my pulse stutter, so I take a right turn, desperate to pull myself back into safer waters.
“Being dropped into a place like this has to feel at least a little familiar. You’re used to walking into a mess and taking control.”
He hesitates. His eyes flick to the ground, and for a second, the grin falters. “It…is.”
There’s more he wants to say. I can feel it in the way his lips purse, in the pause that stretches too long. Like he’s weighing something, wondering if he should let me see past the surface.
Finally, he clears his throat, and when he speaks again, his voice is lower, careful. “I think I’ve been waiting,” he says. “Waiting for something—or someone—to show me where to go next.”
He reaches for a nearby flower—deep blue with petals like satin and snow—and gently tucks it behind my ear. His fingers brush my temple. The touch is light, fleeting, but it’s enough to make my breath hitch.
“There,” he says, voice like dusk. “Perfect.”
My cheeks heat, and I quickly turn away, pretending to admire another flower. Anything that isn’t his face, his hand, his words.
But I can’t lie to myself.
This moment feels like the start of something. Something I didn’t ask for. Something I don’t know if I’m strong enough to stop.