Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Avery
Avery nudged Maya awake enough to convince her to go back to her own room. They had stumbled their way through the hallway, and Avery had tucked her in.
When Avery came back into the dorm, Felix leaned against a wooden beam, looking so effortlessly handsome that she had to take a shaky exhale just from looking at him.
A smirk graced his face, and the silver light caught his jaw in such a way that made him look more god than shifter.
Not that she would ever tell him that, his head would get so big it would simply float away.
“I have something to show you,” Felix said.
“Oh?”
Grin widening, he pushed the window up, the night air prickling her skin and rippling the fire in its hearth.
Avery’s eyebrow shot up. “You wanted to show me that the window opens?”
She really shouldn’t taunt him so much. Don’t bite the hand that fingers you, or whatever the saying is.
“Funny.” Felix grabbed the top of the pane and hoisted himself out of the window onto the ledge outside in one fluid motion.
Damn his cat-like grace. Avery was more akin to a foal than anything.
When she was a child, she attempted to climb a tree and was barely a foot off the ground before falling and breaking her arm.
Heights had never really been her friend since.
Crossing to the window, she leaned out far enough to see him balanced on a stone ledge barely wider than his boots. “What are you doing?” she hissed under her breath.
He held his hand, waiting for her to take it. “Do you trust me?”
“No,” she said too quickly.
He leaned back in, close enough that she could see the mischievous glint in his eye. “Liar,” he said, and grabbed her hand anyway.
She didn’t resist. Didn’t snatch it back.
She let him pull her over the sill and onto the ledge with him.
The wind whipped through her hair and bit through her thin clothes.
It was fucking freezing. But that wasn’t the worst of it.
Stupidly, and against all logic, Avery looked down over the ledge and gasped.
Why was the ground so far away? It was far enough that her stomach dropped and her fingers clamped around his.
Felix caught her chin, tilting her face up to meet his instead of the drop below.
“I have you,” he said simply. But it still made her heart jump.
Even if he didn’t, she would make damn sure that he came off the ledge with her for putting her in this precarious situation in the first place. She was not a cat and would most definitely land on her head instead of her feet.
Felix’s grip tightened even more as he led her across the ledge to where two slanted sections of the roof met. The black tiles overlapped enough that they weren’t completely vertical, but they were still fairly steep. What was his plan here?
He gestured upward. “Climb.”
“Are you insane? I’ll fall.”
“The only way you’re falling is for me, little witch.”
For a moment, that made her pause, heart lurching in her chest. The truth was she had already fallen. Far fucking further than she ever wanted to. Would he fall too?
The rustling of the trees filled the silence before she could scramble her thoughts back together. “Shut up. I’m not climbing that.”
Felix’s fangs glinted in the moonlight. “Oh, but you are.”
Before she could argue further, he grabbed her, one moment she was on the ledge; the next, she was splayed against the roof tiles, clinging to them like her life depended on it. Because it did. “Felix!” she whispered harshly.
“I’ll be right behind you.”
Goddess, strike him down. Actually, wait until I’m back on the ground and then strike him down.
Taking a deep breath in, she reached for the next tile up, fingers finding the lip where they overlapped, and hauled herself higher. The rough ceramic bit into her palms, but it kept her from looking down.
“Good girl.” Felix’s voice purred through her mind.
She ignored him, but her body had other ideas, sending a shiver running down her that wasn’t from the cold. Stupid horny body. Stupid climbing cat. She would not help him down again if he got stuck.
True to his word, Felix climbed behind her, acting as a cushion if she fell.
It was the least he could do, but it still didn’t make her feel any better.
Though she had to admit, as the adrenaline kicked in and her muscles burned with the effort, part of her was enjoying this.
Or maybe she was still drunk. Thank fuck Felix was there to catch her.
His voice came from just below her. “Keep going until you reach the top, and you’ll see it.”
A few more feet and the view opened up. The familiar lantern tower of her dorm rose beside the roof.
She had seen it from below, of course, its tall stone arches were hard to miss.
Up close, though, the arches seemed to pierce the very sky, reaching up to the stars like they wanted to touch them.
And underneath, a circular platform ringed the tower’s base that was impossible to see from below.
Carefully, she hoisted herself onto the flat ridge where the roof peak converged, then crawled across it on her hands and knees because standing seemed like asking for certain death.
Felix followed closely behind her, standing, hands in his pockets like he was strolling the goddessdamn promenade. Show off.
Reaching the platform, she lowered herself down, boots hitting the stone.
When she turned around, the view stole her breath right out of her lungs.
Caerwyn spread out below in every direction, the whole island visible from this height.
Lights from the town and university dotted across the rolling hills, the sea beyond dark and infinite.
A desperate need to know what was beyond clawed at her.
If only she could go with Felix. But there was no place for a witch in a den.
Felix landed beside her with barely a sound, and she twirled on her heels to face him. “I can’t believe you made me do that.” She slammed her palms against his hard chest and barely moved. “I hate you. I hate you so fucking much.”
“Is that right, kitten?” He smirked, clearly enjoying the contact between them.
“You’re a beastly oaf, a thorn in my side, you dog.”
His smile only widened at the blatant insults. “I could do this all day, kitten.”
“I could have died.” Her voice cracked on the last word, embarrassing, but there it was.
The smirk vanished. He took a step closer to her, closing the distance between them. The space between them became electric, like he was pulling her closer without even trying. “I wouldn’t have let you fall.”
Except they both knew what went unsaid. Would that still be true later?
When the bond was broken, and they were enemies again?
She pushed those thoughts out of her head, labeling them for a later Avery problem.
Because just for one night, she didn’t want to think about the future, as much as her mind demanded it to be heard.
He exhaled hard through his nose. “Let me show you something else.”
Taking a few steps back, his eyes never leaving hers, he moved to the center of the platform and crouched, pressing his palm flat against the stone.
Light bloomed under his hand, thin golden threads that raced outward like veins, climbing the arches and spreading across the tower’s roof.
Slowly, the stone roof started to fade, translucent at first, and then gone as if it never existed.
Only the arches remained, framing a view of a sky so clear and vast it seemed like a painting.
Her lips parted as she took in the night.
She started to lower her gaze, but Felix’s fingers found her chin, tipping it back up. “Keep looking,” he said.
At first, nothing changed. Then a streak of light, so fast she almost missed it. Another followed. Then three more. Within seconds, the sky was full of them, hundreds of shooting stars streaking in every direction like the cosmos had caught fire.
“It’s the dragon’s fire,” Avery said.
An almost childlike smile came to Avery’s face.
It was beautiful. She hadn’t seen it since she was a child.
Her dad had been the one to show her; he took her up to the highest hill in Caerwyn, and they had pointed at the stars long after she should have been in bed.
Since then, she had avoided it. Avoided the pang of grief that would have gone through her.
But standing there now, she felt none of that.
Perhaps in caging her grief, she had lost more than just letting it fly free.
When her eyes wandered back to Felix, he wasn’t looking up but staring straight at her.
She wanted to squirm under his intense gaze; instead, she held her ground. “At least that’s what they told us.”
“We were told the same.” His voice came out quieter than before, laced with the same grief that festered within her. “I watch it every year.”
He went to open his mouth again before stopping, deciding against whatever he was about to say.
She wanted to press him, to find out every little thing about him.
But the pain ran down the bond; it was something she knew all too well.
Instead, she just sat with him. Sometimes it was all that was needed.
“My father and I used to watch it together.” An unguarded smile formed on his face, like he was recalling the same memory that she had. “But I’m glad I get to watch it with you.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Avery spotted movement near the base of one of the arches.
Felix followed her line of sight as they both watched a fluffle of dust bunnies doing something.
They maneuvered back and forth, gathering dust from somewhere and wriggling around the floor until she realized that they were trying to spell something.
N-o-w k-i-s-s.
Oh my goddess. Of all the things.