Chapter Six Lyra #4
“Och, nothing. Just had a wee moment.” I shrugged, angling my face away from him. In fact, I was trying to look everywhere but at him. At the moss on the stones. At the reflection of the lanterns in the water. At the faint glow of the stars between the leaves on the trees.
But finally, my eyes landed on his face. It was impossible not to look at his face. That gorgeous, stupid face of his.
“You look…” He cleared his throat. “Really pretty, Lyra.”
I bristled. “Don’t.”
“Excuse me?” His brows shot up.
“You cannae call me pretty,” I blurted. “Not you.”
The way I said “you,” as though he were something I’d scraped off my shoe, had his jaw tightening.
“Ah, I see. Not good enough to be kissing your feet, am I?” His mouth twisted. “You fancy the posh men now, do you? The ones that shower you in gifts and whisk you off to luxurious trips and don’t live in wee Scottish villages with muddy boots?”
“It has nothing to do with that,” I snapped, the old hurt spiking. I whirled and began to pace the edge of the spring, skirts swishing. The lantern light fractured on the water, making the whole world look slightly off-kilter.
“What, then?” he demanded. “Because from where I’m standing, you’ve spent the last decade collecting every fancy man in Europe like they’re stamps in your passport.”
I froze. “Have you been keeping tabs on me, Rab? Should I be flattered? Or concerned that you’re listening to the gossip?”
“Hard not to hear the stories when every time someone from Briarhaven travels they come back with another tale of ‘Oh, I saw Lyra in Barcelona or Paris or bloody Prague. She was on the arm of a bloke with a yacht.’ ” His eyes flashed.
“Meanwhile, some of us were here, scraping winter ice off the same car window every morning.”
“What would you have had me do?” I demanded. “Sit at home and hide myself because a stupid curse has made it impossible for me to stay anywhere for long? Or actually go out and live my life?”
His lips parted. “That’s not—”
I took a step toward him, ignoring the sting of tears. “You have no right to be angry that I built a life. That I took what I could get in the scraps between towns as we ran from a curse.”
He stared at me. For a heartbeat, something like regret flickered across his face.
Then his gaze dropped, catching on my bodice, the pendant, the way my cloak had fallen open when I stepped closer. Heat slid through his eyes.
“Just…” He swallowed. “You look pretty tonight, Lyra.”
“Don’t,” I repeated, louder this time. “I already told you. Not that word. Not from you.”
I’d craved his compliments once, my tender young heart hanging on his every word. Even now, I felt myself stepping closer, the magnetic force of Rab making it impossible for me to turn away.
Instead, I took a breath, trying to steady myself, fingertips brushing the dragon-scale pendant as if it might magically supply emotional regulation.
The air around us prickled.
My magick, which had been humming quietly, suddenly surged, reacting to the thick knot of longing and hurt between us.
My fingers twitched.
Something in the air popped.
Rab jerked, his eyes widening. His glass vanished from his hand with a soft whoomph of displaced air, and in its place was something warm and prickly and decidedly alive.
I shrieked. Rab almost dropped the… thing… before catching it and cradling it reflexively close to his chest.
“What the hell?” he hissed, looking down at the hedgehog now curled into a terrified ball between his palms. Tiny feet. Tiny nose. Tiny, outraged eyes.
“Did you do this?” he demanded, looking up at me.
I stared, equal parts horrified and secretly delighted. “I… I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” He lifted the hedgehog in the air and held it under my nose. “Did you or did you not do this?”
“I don’t know,” I repeated, stomping my foot.
“How can you not know?” The hedgehog uncurled slightly, poking its nose out and sniffing the air before rolling back in, and Rab instinctively tucked it back against his chest. His voice gentled. “Hey, buddy, it’s okay. You’re just fine. I’ve got you.”
“I just don’t, all right?” Frustration laced my voice, underpinned by old shame. It reminded me of all the times I’d struggled with my homework, unable to explain why numbers refused to behave in my head.
“Okay, that’s fine,” Rab said after a beat, injecting a soothing note into his voice that still tugged at something soft inside me. “We can—”
“There’s no ‘we,’ ” I cut in, fisting my hands. “There is no ‘we,’ and there never will be a ‘we’ again. Just leave me alone, Rab.”
His mouth dropped open as I stormed past him, cloak snapping behind me like a banner.
“Och, isn’t that rich?” he yelled after me. “Here you are. Running away again. Just like you did before.”
The words slammed into my back like a shove.
I didn’t turn around.
If I did, I might throw him in the water. Or kiss him. Or both.
The forest swallowed me up, the sounds of the main clearing growing louder with each step. I shoved my mask back on, squared my shoulders, and walked toward the lights.
Ruth flew to my shoulder and nestled in. She must have followed me to the clearing.
So, hedgehogs, huh?
“Not a word, Ruth. I don’t even know what to say.”