Chapter 23 Overload
Overload
He let me lead us away from the table. He followed behind me, silent at first, but Bones swiftly altered course once we were out of sight of the dining room table. As soon as we’d gone deep enough into the dark hallway and well past the circle of firelight, he lengthened his strides.
He walked up to my side, clasped my hand in his, and brought me down a side corridor and then into a study filled with bookshelves, a desk, and leather furniture. He shut the door behind us, waved a hand over the lock, and I felt the chimaeras over the space alter around me almost physically.
Seeing the intensity already rising to his eyes, I raised a hand to head him off.
“Bones,” I said, my voice a touch sharp. “I’m not discounting your feelings about what you read. I’m not. But I think we should really make an effort not to overreact. Not until we know more. I’m not saying the book is wrong, exactly. It just feels… incomplete.”
He stared at me for a beat, his eyes flickering between mine.
“Fine.” I saw his chest relax slightly, but none of his scrutiny lessened on my face. “Then tell me what’s wrong with you, Leda. Are you angry with me? Is this about Tunis?”
I stared up at him, feeling my throat close.
“Angry?”
“Yes, angry,” he growled. “I can feel it, like a fucking pulse under my skin. You’re suppressing it so much, I’m surprised you haven’t given yourself a bloody aneurism.”
Thinking, I clenched my jaw. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?” he asked dryly.
“Maybe I’m angry, yes.” Still thinking, I clenched my jaw, shaking my head. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “And now definitely isn’t the time. You’re injured. You’ve barely come out of a two-week coma, and––”
“Leda.”
I fell silent. I bit my lip when he didn’t go on, still avoiding his eyes.
I fought back and forth with everything that had gone on in my mind over the past two weeks.
The sheer depth of how betrayed I’d felt, and fury at myself for the intensity of that reaction, and for so many other reasons.
We’d barely been together long enough to call what we were doing dating.
I repeated that to myself, over and over.
I reminded myself how short a time had passed, but it never seemed to penetrate.
I’d just be back to wanting to scream and shoving the feeling down because I knew I didn’t have any right.
“You have every right,” he said, his voice colder.
I stared up at him, biting my lip. “Stop doing that.”
“You think loudly,” he said unapologetically. “You’ve always been a loud thinker. And you have a fucking right, Leda.”
“I don’t, though. We’ve only been doing this since––”
“That’s rubbish and you know it,” he warned, colder still.
I fell silent, fighting with that feeling, too.
I knew he was right. I could feel what he was nudging me towards with his mind, what he clearly saw, just as much as I did. I hated that he seemed to understand it, and to accept it, when all it did was fill me with panic.
“I don’t know what you’re waiting for me to say.” My jaw hardened. “Maybe I’m not sure I want to say anything to you, especially after you left me in your room without a gods-damned word so you could try to get yourself fucking killed again!”
“There it is,” he said.
My jaw hardened to stone. “Fuck you.”
“Leda, I’m sorry.”
I felt tears rise to my eyes, so quickly I couldn’t even try to stop them.
I scoffed a little at his words, and wiped my face. “Great. Thanks.”
“Let it out,” he growled. “Fucking yell at me!”
“No,” I snapped. For the first time, I looked up and really stared at him. “Maybe you’d enjoy it, but I can assure you, I wouldn’t. And what difference would it even make? It’s not like you aren’t going to do the same bloody thing again, first chance you get.”
At his motionless stare, I exhaled an angry breath.
“Look, I already know what you’re going to say, Bones.
I know you had a good reason. I get it. There are places you can go that I can’t.
You saw an opening and you took it. We needed to learn more about those rituals.
We need to stop your father, stop Dark Cathedral, and on and on, and so on, and whatever.
Why do you need me to tell you how worried I was?
Is it an ego thing? Because I can’t think of a single other reason. ”
“Can’t you?” he growled.
My jaw hardened more. I felt stupid, which only made my anger worse.
I took a breath.
“It doesn’t matter,” I repeated. “It doesn’t fucking matter now.
” My jaw hurt. “And now I’m regretting telling you about that caelum ignis thing, because Ra fucking knows what you’re going to do with that information, if you’re going to light yourself on fire and walk into another Dark Cathedral holdout, maybe with a bomb strapped to your chest––”
His arms wrapped around me.
He stood over me, breathing harder, and suddenly too close for me to keep him out.
He pulled me tightly to his chest. I couldn’t look at him when he was that close.
I couldn’t keep his magic out of mine, or mine out of his.
I didn’t pull away, couldn’t even make myself want to, but I didn’t hug him back. I raised a hand, wiping my eyes.
“I know I sound crazy.” I bit my lip. “Maybe we should go back out there. They’re probably wondering where we are. We should talk later, Bones.”
His hands felt like they were holding me in place, like he thought I might bolt out of the room if he let go.
He caressed my hair back from my jaw and cheek, rubbed the back of my neck with his fingers.
I felt myself melting against him. I could feel the part of me that just wanted to close my eyes and sink into him, forget everything.
I almost hated him for it.
“Leda.” His voice was thick. “I’m sorry.”
I shook my head. “No. Honestly. Just… don’t. It doesn’t matter.”
“Please stop saying that.” He kissed my face, wrapping a hand around my cheek and pulling me against him. “It does matter,” he said, lower. “I do care. Fuck, I care a lot. More than I really want to tell you.”
When I didn’t answer, he swallowed, hugging me tighter.
“I scared you,” he murmured. “I can feel it. I can feel it about your parents, your brother. I fucking scared you, and I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was going.
I’m sorry I didn’t turn around when I realized how dangerous it was.
I should have left as soon as I saw who was there, and called your cousin. ”
He swallowed again, leaning his face into mine.
“I was stupid,” he murmured. “I won’t do it again.”
I bit my lip. I wanted to scoff.
I also wanted to believe him. I think I did, at least.
I couldn’t help looking at the suit he wore, with his chest and a good amount of his body pressed into mine.
I leaned my face against the black shirt with the moonstone threads, and the matching vest. I couldn’t help noticing how damned good he looked in it, or how good he felt, and smelled.
It felt so infuriatingly good to have him holding me.
I still couldn’t quite bring myself to meet his gaze, but when I saw his jaw harden, I exhaled in frustration.
I’d already softened towards him, just from his magic being all over mine. I hated how impossible it was to keep my distance whenever he got close to me at all.
“Why?” he asked. “Why do you hate it so much, Leda?”
“Why do you think?” I leaned my forehead against his chest. Closing my eyes, I shook my head. I didn’t want to say it, but somehow, I said it anyway. “You know I… I care about you. A lot. Way more than I should.”
I swallowed and bit my lip harder, until I tasted blood.
“I know you know,” I said, still talking to his chest. “I’ve felt you feeling it, and you might be a lot of things, but you’re not stupid, Bones.
And I probably shouldn’t be saying it out loud, since that seems to be the unwritten rule with the two of us.
I can think of a lot of reasons I shouldn’t be saying it out loud––”
“I’m completely mad about you,” he cut in. “I’m fucking gone, Leda. I have been for a while. Before we had sex. Before I’d even properly kissed you.”
My mouth closed.
I fell silent.
Before I could react, or even think, he stepped the rest of the way into me, and wrapped his arms around me tighter.
“I don’t know how relationships worked on Earth,” he continued in a lower growl.
“But I’m not interested in counting days, Shadow.
Or the number of times we’ve fucked. Anyway, it’s been a year and a half by my count, or twelve years, if you want to go back to when I first touched your magic, so don’t give me this shite like we’re teenagers who fucked at a party and you’re somehow making more of it than it is. ”
I didn’t answer.
I felt my magic merging more deeply into his, and I didn’t try to stop it. As usual, my emotions didn’t know how to cope with what my magic wanted, much less anything he’d just said.
My logical mind could sense the truth of his words, though.
Both of us stood there, breathing, while I warred with panic, relief, confusion, not to mention everything I’d felt watching him lie there, looking dead for days on end, when he’d still been barely breathing.
His magic had been so depleted, his skin had looked grey.
It looked the same way when I’d thought he was dead before, lying on the floor of his room.
He pressed his face to mine, and held me tighter.
“I thought you knew,” he murmured into my ear.
“I really thought I’d been absolute shit about hiding it in any way.
” He kissed my throat, then my collarbone around his mother’s moonstone and diamond necklace.
He raised his head to kiss my cheek and mouth.
He cupped my jaw in his hand and met my gaze, his own jaw hard.
“I’m sorry that wasn’t clear,” he said, his voice gruff. “You’ve misunderstood me, Leda. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to scare you off.”