Chapter Fifty-Nine #3
He presses his lips into a line as his thumb swipes across my palm, his eyebrows furrowing when he holds it up to inspect.
I pull in a sharp breath to brace for what’s next.
Yet this sorcerer proves he isn’t so predictable as his eyes soften, and rather than admonishing me, he raises my hand to press a kiss over the crescent-shaped divot where each of my nails dug into my flesh.
He repeats the action, moving over the delicate skin in the palm of my hand, pressing his lips to each area of injury—proving his love with acceptance and healing.
His eyes lift to mine when he kisses my hand a fourth and final time, keeping hold of it as he lowers his own, all while pinning me with the intensity of his gaze.
“The only way to accomplish this is to extract you, Tasch.” Something behind his eyes reminds me of what it felt like when I was determined to help him find a purpose—a reason to continue living—so strangely incapable of fathoming a world without him in it.
Back when we collectively repaired a soul consumed by tragedy into something neither of us could have dreamed.
When we took a being so lost to the darkness, while shackled to the abyss, who we refused to abandon until he became this sorcerer standing before me.
A sorcerer I could not be more proud of were he to save the whole of the Continent from tyranny, because he has already fought and won the hardest war one can in choosing to stay with us.
“Thank you,” he says, voice returning closer to the deep timbre I’d recognize anywhere.
“What for?”
“For being you. For caring. For knowing the right thing to say and when.”
I huff, recalling countless moments with evidence to the contrary.
“You don’t recognize it, do you?” he asks, and I shake my head.
“You have this ability to shift my mood—not with your magic, but with a look, a stare, or sometimes even a glare. And more often than you may recognize, with what I consider to be perfectly placed words.” His eyes flick down to where my lips have parted, and my stomach flips without a care for how dangerous it would be for us to kiss—because I want this.
His hand rises to cup my chin, and I lean closer, heart leaping. “You don’t need to use your magic to bewitch me, Tasch. All you have to do is be you.”
My chest rises and falls more fervently the longer he takes to make a decision.
And I cannot guess what he is waiting for when the tip of his tongue glides along the fullness of his lower lip in a torturously slow motion, increasing the urge for me to just say fuck it and crush my lips to his, with this hunger, this need to draw the tip of his tongue in to tangle with my own.
I am tired of caring if we get caught. I need to feel his lips on mine—
Then my ears ring, and my vision grows hazy when he releases his hold on me and takes a step backward, shattering my heart.
I clutch my chest where a piercing pain drops to the pit of my stomach. And a prickling sensation fills my veins, as if it is poison my heart is pumping, not blood.
“I’m sorry if I said too much.” His voice emits an otherworldly tone.
I shake my head, and my chest aches, with my heart becoming a clogged grate, failing to filter the detritus of the day.
Every moment I have attempted to connect and been abandoned.
Every time I have tried to meet a need, only to be denied.
Every flicker of hope I’ve had extinguished.
All of them, every one, sits on my chest. Unable to digest anything quickly enough, with the deep burgundy of rejection taking over my being.
Warmth casts over my shoulders, and tingles spark along my skin where Varic’s arms wind behind my back, splaying his fingers wide as he pulls me in to envelop me in the tightest hug.
My eyes fall closed, and I lean into the comfort, allowing my head to rest against his neck as I draw in full breaths of his warm spice scent.
A soothing sensation blooms in my chest, and I let out a breath, casting its warmth through the threads of his uniform.
Anxiety prickles beneath the safety he brings, so I break my own heart and pull out of his grasp, ripping myself away from the one I need the most—only to startle when he erases the space I created between us.
“Come on.” He holds out his hands. “Let’s get you to bed.”
I shiver the moment he takes my hands in his own and slowly guides me toward the bed when he says, “I’m sorry for burdening you with all of this before you try to sleep.”
“You didn’t burden me, Varic. You are never a burden to me.”
He pauses, and I halt with him while his eyes seem to have lost their ability to focus.
I squeeze his hand. “Besides, when would you speak to me other than at night? It’s fine. I’m used to upheaval, no matter the time.”
“Yes, but you deserve better. Especially from me.”
The way he holds onto me once we reach the bed feels different. Sturdier, somehow. As if something shifted within our conversation, and he’s being more intentional in the way he touches me. His contact—this pressure—it’s like a tether within our uncanny connection.
He smiles down at me as I lie back on the pillow, pressing four pulses into my hand. He releases his hold and pulls the covers up.
“Are you ever going to tell me what those four pulses mean?”
His shoulders lift in a shrug. “Perhaps that can be your reward for allowing us to take you somewhere safer.”
I huff out a breath and flex my fingers, which have already grown cold in his absence.
He looks down at the movement, then releases a breath. “You know how you mentioned wanting me to be able to claim you?”
My face softens as I recall every other time he’s pressed this pattern into my hand—including all those years before, much earlier than I would have guessed he felt the same.
“You mean—”
“I’m sorry if that makes you feel uncomfortable, or if it seems inappropriate—”
“No, I’m just thinking back to how long you’ve been performing this ritual.”
His cheeks pinken, and I reach for him, encouraging his eyes to flick up and meet mine. “I am simply surprised you thought me worth claiming this long, when I had assumed you were annoyed by my presence at the time.”
A small laugh sounds from his chest. “No amount of you ‘annoying me’ could ever make me want to claim you less.”
“The same can be said for you, you know.” My smile can be heard in my voice.
A flash of something lights across his eyes, and my heart quirks. “You’re very convincing. Now try to get some sleep, mei waella.”