Chapter 17 #2
Damn, I guess I’m just making myself right at home, aren’t I?
But I swear I can still feel the grime and smell the stink of all those spores, so there’s no way I’m not going to take him up on the offer.
The bathroom is bigger than I expected.
Made to accommodate wings, I suppose.
With a deep soaking tub, a toilet that thankfully looks similar to what we use in the human realm, a basin sink, and a small, round mirror on the wall.
Goddess, I could have done without the mirror.
I look like death warmed over. Whatever Soleil forced down my throat in her workshop stopped the effects of the spores, but did absolutely nothing to keep me from looking like the corpse I was trying so hard to become.
Maybe it’s overstepping, and maybe it’s presumptuous to think that ‘freshening up’ means drawing myself a full bath, but hell if that’s going to stop me.
By the time I’ve spent a good half-hour soaking, washed myself from head to toe, and pulled on a fresh set of clothes, I feel almost like a person again.
An exhausted, sore, mentally drained person who almost died today, but at least I’m clean.
And a little more clear-headed.
Clear-headed enough to feel a brand-new wave of nerves about going back out into the living space and facing Callum.
But there’s no sense in hiding out here any longer. I’m going to have to come out eventually, and I guess now’s as good a time as any.
I ease the door open and peek out to find Callum in the kitchen. He’s cutting into a loaf of bread, there’s a plate of sliced meats and cheeses on the counter beside him, and even though I wouldn’t have thought I’d have much of an appetite after everything that happened today, my stomach growls.
Callum glances over his shoulder, and I press a hand to my belly.
Did he hear that?
“Hungry?” he asks, turning back to the food.
“A bit.”
I cross the room and sit down at the tiny kitchen table. He joins me there, setting a plate down for each of us.
We eat in silence.
And really, what the hell is there to say?
What do I talk about over dinner with my supposed demon mate who saved me from certain death, traveled between realms with me, offered me a place to stay, and then fed me even though I’ve done absolutely nothing to deserve it?
“Can I get you any more?” he asks when my plate is empty.
I shake my head. “No. And thank you, really. For all of this.”
The corners of his lips curl into a not-quite smile, and he shrugs. “It’s nothing.”
Before I can argue with that, he stands and takes the dishes to the sink.
Goddess, I can almost bite into the awkward tension in the air. Thick, cloying, way outside my wheelhouse for knowing how to deal with it.
If we were back in my realm, I would probably just leave. I’d take the first excuse to get out of here. I’d go distract myself with something else so I didn’t have to sit with all these… feelings.
But that’s not exactly an option right now.
I mean, sure, I could probably find some other demon to give me a lift back to the Veil, and I’ve certainly dealt with worse than some awkwardness on my other travels through the realms, but somehow I just can’t.
I can’t go.
Not now.
Not yet.
There’s a small settee at the far side of the room. I walk over and sit down, letting my head tip back to rest against the cushions.
“Do you want to talk about any of it?” Callum asks, finally breaking the silence from where he leans against the workbench in the kitchen. “What happened in Faerie, or… back at your coven?”
I let out a groan. “No to the first, hell no to the second.”
He chuckles, and it eases some of the tension in the room. “For what it’s worth, I think you could have handled yourself with those lizard fae, if the bastard hadn’t shot that mushroom through.”
Another groan. “Don’t remind me. And that’s what they were, then? Some sort of fae?”
Callum nods. “The Fair folk come in all shapes and sizes. Most fairly monstrous.”
After only having taken a brief foray into Faerie, I’m inclined to believe him.
“And I think you could have held your own with Esme, too,” he continues, more quietly. “Had she not taken the opportunity to flex her power against someone who was already injured.”
It feels like praise I haven’t earned, especially not after what a nightmare I’ve been toward him since the moment we met, but I find myself warmed by it, anyway.
He almost sounds… impressed.
Like even though he saw me at arguably the lowest and most vulnerable I’ve ever been today, he still sees something he admires.
“That was… not my finest moment,” I admit.
“It was not her finest moment,” Callum insists. “No matter the nature of your past conflict, she handled it badly. And your sister should have—”
“Soleil did her best.”
Callum falls silent, shifting a bit uncomfortably.
“I know it’s probably hard to understand,” I explain, torn between the dual impulses to soothe over any discomfort he might feel for overstepping, and—inexplicably—to defend my sister. “But all of this is… complicated. Beyond complicated, really.”
“I think I can keep up, if you’d like to share.”
Would I like to share?
Have I ever shared?
The answer to both questions is probably no, but I’m having a hard time remembering why I shouldn’t.
Besides, maybe I owe him this. He put up with a hell of a lot today without blinking an eye. He could have left me the moment we got to the coven hall. He could have wiped his hands clean of me and gotten out of all that mess.
So maybe he deserves to know at least a little about what happened and why.
And maybe some part of me wants to tell him.
“I left the coven when I was eighteen.”
“And you never went back?”
He asks the question innocently, earnestly, and there’s no way he can know how deeply it cuts. There’s no way he can know how much shame it dredges up even now.
I’ve been away from the coven for almost a decade.
I’ve got my own life, my own priorities. I’ve never seriously regretted my choice to leave.
But somewhere inside me is still the young witch being told by the High Priestess that she saw something in me, that I was special, that the Goddess had seen fit to give me a gift that was now my responsibility to put to work for the good of the coven.
Even after all this time, it’s hard to remember I never owed them anything.
It’s hard not to feel the weight of the shame of walking away, of abandoning that responsibility, even though the grown-up, rational side of my brain knows it was never my burden to bear.
“No. I never went back.”
“But you miss it still.”
It’s not a question, the way he says it. It’s quiet and firm and absolute. Simple. Like the acknowledgment costs nothing and doesn’t cut all the way down to some soul-deep wound I’d rather bury and never face.
“I don’t… there’s no reason I should…”
The protest is weak, even to my ears.
Callum moves toward me.
I should stop him.
I should get up.
I should do anything in the world but stay right where I am, seated on his stiff settee, still as stone as he takes a seat beside me.
He rests a hand on my back.
Slowly, tentatively, like he’s not sure if I’m about to slap him away, or curse him or something. When I don’t, he starts moving it in gentle, steady strokes.
He’s warm. Warm enough to melt away more of my resistance as I lean into that touch, as I let him soothe me.
In my chest, that same stubborn tingle of magick stutters back into being.
It’s been quieter since I woke up—probably on account of the whole almost dying thing—but with Callum so close, apparently it needs to make sure I know it’s still there.
Stupid cursed Goddess magick.
“It’s not an easy thing, feeling like you can’t return home.”
“Home?” I scoff. “Hardly. My home is with my parents. With my… sister. Well, at least before we were shipped off to the coven.”
I tell him a little bit more about it—the way we were chosen to stay and train because our magick made us worthy, the endless competition and fear of not measuring up, the demands of the coven elders. The choice I made to leave and try a different life. The choice my sister made to stay.
What I don’t say?
I don’t say that the coven hall has some of my happiest memories in it, too. With Seren, with the friends I had before we became rivals, with the time I spent discovering my magick and what I was capable of.
It’s too hard to make sense of it, especially in the face of all the rest.
“So no,” I finish when I’ve given him the abridged version of two decades’ worth of baggage I’ve barely started to unpack. “Not exactly a home.”
“No, not a home,” he agrees, then thinks for a moment. “But perhaps somewhere you belonged, once, even if it was never meant to be the place you stayed?”
“Somewhere I belonged.” I turn the words and the idea over, examining them slowly.
“Sure. I guess that’s fair. But never because of who I was, only for what I could give them.
And when they saw parts of me that didn’t suit their picture of an ideal witch, they tried to force me to give them up. Fall in line.”
“What do you mean?” Callum asks. “As far as I can tell, you’re powerful beyond measure, and they were lucky to have you, fools to make it so you could not stay.”
I can’t help it, I laugh. “You don’t have to be so nice to me, you know. I haven’t exactly earned it.”
“You never have to earn it, Seren.”
He sounds so sincere. He looks so sincere with that gleam in his crimson eyes and a softer expression on his face than I’ve ever seen there before.
I can’t look at it.
I can’t bear to see him looking at me like that, despite what he says.
“Well,” I say, determined to break any illusions he has about me, “I wasn’t a perfect witch.
I wasn’t even a good one. I was always challenging my teachers, getting into trouble, bringing the other girls with me when I wanted to break the rules.
It was honestly a miracle I wasn’t expelled from the coven. ”
“But you weren’t. There must have been a reason for that.”
“My magick.” My voice is hard, flat, with echoes of all the lectures Esme gave me over the years buried within it. “They’d never seen anything like it. The way I can find things, break wards and protections, the way there never seemed to be any stopping me.”
“Perhaps they were just intimidated by your abilities.”
“It wasn’t just that, though,” I insist. “And believe me, I didn’t always use my abilities for good.
I was wild when I was younger. Wilder than I am now, if you can believe it.
And so restless. So angry about everything.
Part of me doesn’t blame them for making it clear I couldn’t ever come back if I left. ”
Callum hums thoughtfully. “They couldn’t accept you for who you are. And that’s their fault, not yours.”
I shrug, though I’m almost certain he can see right through it.
“Maybe it’s a quirk of my magick that makes me like this,” I begin, speaking slowly, trying to put words to the thoughts I’ve never been able to fully articulate to anyone.
“Or maybe it’s me, shaping my magick. I don’t know.
We’re all so different, Crescent witches, but our powers always seem to reflect who we are at our core.
And my reflection didn’t win me many points with Esme and the other coven leaders. ”
Callum continues those maddeningly gentle strokes up and down my back, but doesn’t speak.
“I don’t know what it says about me.” I huff a humorless laugh. “That I’m always running, that I’m always… always… possessed with this urge to test limits, to act so impulsively, to follow instincts I barely understand. That I can never just stop to think for a damn second before I—”
Stop. I have to stop.
I’m tired.
Too tired to be talking about this.
Too tired to be baring my soul to a demon I barely know. A demon who looks at me like he hears what I’m saying and understands it.
And maybe Callum can see that, too, with his soft crimson eyes lit with that same damned tenderness I can barely stand to look at.
“Sorry,” I say on a rush of breath. “I’m rambling.”
“It’s alright.” He removes his hand from my back, and I swallow a plea for him to keep it there. “And it’s late. Perhaps we should both get some rest?”
“Sure.” I stand and look around the room.
There lies a new problem. The settee is only a two-seater, cramped, but I suppose I could make it work if I scrunched up. Because the alternative would be…
“You’ve only got one bed,” I murmur.
He gives me a strange look. “I, uh, yes? I live here alone.”
“Right.” I shake my head. I’m still way too far out of it to find the humor in the situation. “Do you have a sleeping bag or something, then? Somewhere I could crash for the—”
“You’ll take the bed.”
Again, he doesn’t give me any time to protest before he stands and crosses to a closet in the back corner of the space.
Damned high-handed demon.
From the closet, he pulls a bedroll, a pillow, and a few blankets.
“I’ll take the floor.”
“No way.” I shake my head vehemently. “There’s absolutely no way you’re taking the floor after everything you did for me today.”
“There’s no way you’re taking the floor after all you’ve been through today.”
“Callum.”
“Seren.”
He holds his ground. I hold mine. By the firm, determined set of his jaw and the glint in his crimson eyes, I’ve got a feeling he could stand here all night and wait me out.
And maybe it’s the day wearing on me, maybe it’s the way my name on his lips sends a shot of inexplicable warmth through me, maybe it’s the fact that for once—just once—I want to let myself be taken care of.
“Alright.”
A flash of surprise across his handsome face, but he hides it quickly with a brusque nod.
Callum busies himself laying out his sleeping arrangements and extinguishing the lamps in the room. After choking down one of the doses of medicine Soleil sent me off with, I slowly make my way to the bed.
The big bed.
The big, soft bed that nearly makes me groan in pleasure when I pull back the covers and sit down on its edge.
The big, soft bed that’s designed to accommodate wings and would certainly be big enough for two if I wanted to call out to Callum and invite him to…
Nope. Not going there.
When the last light is put out, he settles down to sleep, and I do the same.
“Sleep well, Seren,” Callum says softly in the darkness. “And don’t hesitate to wake me if there’s anything you need.”
Tears prick at the backs of my eyes, hot and sharp and embarrassing.
I clear my throat. “Good night, Callum.”