27. Callan
CALLAN
Lucina stumbles forward one step. Then another. But I have no patience for a third, so I snatch her off the ground. I’ve waited almost three weeks for this. I’ve had dreams about it.
I wrap her up so tight that there is no escaping and there is no letting her go.
Never again.
“I’ve missed you,” I tell her, and my eyes fall shut when she exhales heavily, the beat of her heart frantic against my chest. I’ve felt many pounding hearts, I’ve felt many die off, too, but the rhythm of hers is unrivaled.
There are tears in Gemma’s eyes as she stands, but there’s a bright smile on her face too. “I’ll wait on the porch,” she says, “but I just got her to agree to a party, Cal, I won’t let you hoard her all night.”
I give her the same wild look I gave her when we were twelve and I climbed the Banyan even though Aunt May told me she’d punish me into oblivion for it. That’s what this felt like, making it to the top.
“I’m glad you're back,” Gemma whispers, gently squeezing my arm as she steps out and into the hall.
Lucina flinches in my arms when I kick the door shut, then she’s on the cusp of laughter when I hastily clear off the bench at the end of the bed and pull her into my lap.
There are tears in her hazel eyes, magnifying the tiny flecks of gold that swim in her irises, and there is a rosiness to her cheeks and the tip of her nose that matches the color she’s painted on her lips.
“You’re alive,” she breathes.
Chiaros, her voice. I hadn’t realized how badly I needed to hear it. “I am now.”
“I thought you were—”
“I did too.”
It’s taking everything that I have not to kiss her, but I want that decision to be entirely hers.
I know how I feel about Lucina, I’ve known it for some time, but before I left, I don’t think she knew how she felt about me.
Whatever she decides is more than okay. I’ll have her in any capacity; a friend, an enemy… anything, but it’s her decision.
When her watery eyes dip to my mouth, I shiver, but when her gaze snaps back up to mine, it’s serious and…borderline frightening. “Where the fuck were you?”
Oh, she missed me…a lot more than she thought she would. I know she won’t appreciate a taunting smile, but it slips past before I can stop it.
“I’ll kill you,” she snaps, and the sincerity in her words is utterly devastating.
“Lucky me,” I fire back, my arm locking around her waist when she threatens to get up. “Wait, wait, I’m sorry,” I breathe. “Stay, please stay.”
She settles back in my lap, keeping her arms crossed over her chest. “Where. Were. You.”
I take a deep breath. The soreness in my lungs still hasn’t gone away, and the only thing that can heal me right now is this woman and sleep. A lot of it.
“We were in the mines when the storm hit.” I trace circles on her thigh to remind myself that I’m here.
I’m home. “The walls came down on us when we were feet from the exit. Phoenix and Devon made it out, but Easton and I…got stuck. We had a small pocket of air that we managed to ration for four days, but Phoenix and Devon still hadn’t found us when the air ran out. ”
“That’s when you and Easton summoned your Velkans,” she mutters almost to herself, and my brows furrow.
“How did you know that?”
“Pa told us.”
Chiaros, no wonder Pax looked so relieved to see me, and no wonder she had tears in her eyes when she stumbled out of the bathroom. They truly thought we were dead.
“Yeah…we uh—our Velkans were able to buy us time.” I rest my hands on her thighs. “When Easton and I came to, Phoenix and Devon had dug us out. We had to wait in the bunker until the storm cleared, but Lucina, I couldn’t get back here fast enough.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, the tip of her tongue darting out across her bottom lip, and without thinking, I reach for one of the curls falling over her shoulders, mindlessly twisting it around my finger. Her hair is as wild and perfect as she is, and impossible not to touch.
“Did you find anything?” she asks, and the strand of hair falls from my fingertips.
“Yes.” We found a problem. A big one. “There’s a blood ward. Rogues put it up around the Palace.”
I can see thoughts churning behind her bright hazel eyes. “I’m guessing that means—"
“We can’t cross it. Only their kind can.
” My chest falls as I exhale, and she tracks the movement.
“We were feet away from the wall we needed to get through, and even if we could find a way past the ward, the mine entrance is caved in now. Everything collapsed.” I run a hand over my face, then I let it fall back down to her thigh, a lump forming in my throat.
“My father is on the other side of that wall.”
Her eyes meet mine, scanning my own as if she’s searching for a solution.
That’s just the kind of person she is, empathetic to a fault.
Vicarious to other people’s problems as if she has the responsibility to solve them.
She doesn’t. Growing up, I think there were a lot of things she was responsible for, things she was too young to carry, but now that weight is familiar to her. And it shouldn’t be.
“You’re going to figure it out,” she says, and it isn’t a question.
“I’m going to figure it out,” I repeat back to her. A few breaths pass between us, unhurried. Everything is unhurried around her. Peaceful even. “Speaking of figuring things out.” I toy with the fabric of her dress. “Pax said you’ve been holed up in my office, pouring over Vaelith?”
Lucina huffs, blowing a smaller curl out of her face, then her sun-kissed shoulders fall. “It was a good distraction.”
“I was worried about you, too.” Her gaze softens at that, relief shining back at me in those big, beautiful eyes. My hands roam instinctively, finding her hips, then she flashes a heart-stopping smile.
It takes me a minute to catch my breath. Even longer to think of what to say next. “I was glad to see that your punching bags survived. Are you going to show me what you’ve learned?”
There’s a wicked glimmer in her stare, and with a long and drawn-out sigh, she loosens her hold on that beast beneath her skin, as if it’s nothing.
As if what’s in her blood isn’t unprecedented.
Preternatural. Matchless. It won’t matter how many times I witness it; I’ll never pinpoint its bounds, and I’ll forever be in awe of it.
With a sharp crack, the lanterns around the room go dark, and for a moment our faces are lit only by the full moonlight streaming through the windows—
And then they’re lit by fire.
A flame dances in the palm of her hand, twisting and swirling across her skin. She pulls it up to her pointer finger, entirely in her control, then she lets it flicker there.
Heat flares through the fabric of her dress as that stunning magic of hers makes her skin hot to the touch, but I’d rather burn than take my hands away.
A ravishing flush hits her cheeks when I whistle low. “Look at you.”
She lets the flame linger a little longer, and I watch her watch the fire until I’m almost jealous of the attention she gives it. Gods, if she looked at me that way, screw Gemma’s plans, she’d be mine for the entire night. Mine indefinitely if it were up to me, but it’s not.
Her decision, I remind myself, when she gives light back to the lanterns, and I’m nearly blinded by the need to kiss her. Just to remind myself of what it’s like. But what if she doesn’t let me ever again? My fingers dig into her hips as if that might keep her here, exactly where she’s meant to be.
Lucina’s breath catches when my grip tightens, and I almost lose it entirely. She has to feel the same way. I think I’ll die if she doesn’t.
“I’m scared of the way you make me feel,” she confesses out of the thickening silence, and all the air is knocked from my lungs.
Had I said that out loud? Chiaros, I might have ruined this whole thing if I had said that out loud. The inhale I take is sharp and undeniably panicky.
“Gods, Callan,” she laughs. “Are you okay to have this conversation? I’ve only said one thing, and your face is pale—”
“Yes.” I clear my throat, and her grin widens. “I’m fine. Just keep talking.”
She lets a moment of silence pass, torturing me with it, while I cling to the silky fabric at her waist as if it’s the door to heaven. It’s ironic considering the things I’d do to her in this dress would surely send me straight to hell.
But maybe not.
Maybe I’d find a new religion.
“I think it’s a good kind of scared,” Lucina says finally, and my patient silence is all the reassurance she needs to keep going.
Her smile fades. “I missed you,” she forces out, “a lot more than any sane person should, and I guess I didn’t realize I felt that way until you weren’t here. Maybe that makes me needy or pathetic—”
“Stop.” My hands freeze, and she presses her lips together. “I could listen to you talk for hours, but I draw the line at pathetic. If you’re pathetic, then I’m deplorable. Lucina, we crossed Griseo in half the time it usually takes because all I wanted was to get back here to you.”
Her eyes roll, and she gives me an incredulous shake of her head.
“Oh, you don’t believe me? Ask Devon. He tripped me every few miles just to slow me down.”
That has her laughing, and if there is anything I missed more than the sound of her voice, it’s the way she laughs.
I straighten in response to it, and she jostles in my lap, leaning into the hand I slide under her jaw while the other tucks a soft, wavy strand behind her ear.
“Be mine,” I whisper when her eyes slide shut. “I’d do just about anything for you, Lucina. If I had the power to give you the world, I would.”
“What if I don’t want the world?” she asks, her eyes cracking open, burning pits of devastating gold staring boldly back at me. “What if I just want you?”
“Then I’m yours.” Her breathing stutters at the lack of hesitation, and some of her confidence slips, but there is no room for hesitation when it comes to her. Hesitation would fuck this up and I can’t afford it; the risk is too great. I slip a hand around her waist. “Yours, Chaos.”