Chapter 19 #2
He gets to his feet, moving like he’s about to start pacing the room.
“The thought of you crossing that Ward on your own, Lucina…Of not being there in case something goes wrong…” Callan makes it one step away from the desk before he turns back to face me.
“No one has stepped foot in the Estate in over twenty years, and I’m supposed to just let you go alone? ”
I blow out a breath. “Yes.”
Callan shakes his head, spinning back around to resume his pacing. “This is fucking insane.”
My gaze falls to my bare feet. “I know.”
“Nobody can cross that ward with you, Lucina.”
“I know that too,” I sigh, picking at a loose thread on the hem of my shirt.
It feels like an eternity that I sit, twisting the dark grey string around my pointer finger, suffering in the silence while I wait for him to say something else.
It isn’t until I hear his pacing stop and I see the toe of his boots step into my field of vision that I lift my head.
Whatever Callan sees on my face softens his troubled expression. He exhales through his nose, and I feel the breath across my cheeks. For a moment, he just stares, silver eyes darting between my own.
I knew he liked to be in control. I knew he preferred order and rules and managing risks to rewards…I just didn’t know how deep it ran. Honestly, I’m surprised he’s put up with me as long as he has. I wouldn’t say that I’m trouble, but it always seems to find me.
And wherever I am, Callan is too.
Worse even, he takes responsibility for some of the situations I’ve found myself in. The fire, the poison, the stunt I pulled tonight…None of it was his fault. Something tells me I could explain that until I’m blue in the face, but he’d never listen. He’d still be carrying weight that isn’t his.
Taking a step closer, he reaches up to brush a strand of hair out of my face, and I accept the touch willingly, savoring the warmth of his hand against my cheek and the slow brush of his thumb across my cheekbone.
Callan exhales, whispering into the silence, “I wish you would have told me.”
It’s a punch to the gut. I thought knowing it was coming would make it hurt less, but it doesn’t. Swallowing, I nod. “I know.”
But everything I’ve kept from him was withheld for the same reason.
The Eldral, my father, Fenton, and my second split.
It’s all information that could destroy everything I’ve found on this side of the Barrier.
I was terrified—still am. But I didn’t keep it from him out of spite; I kept it from him out of fear, and I’m realizing now that I shouldn’t have been afraid.
I have someone good. Someone who understands. Someone who would never let anything or anyone hurt me.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, but the apology falls flat. It isn’t nearly enough.
Callan nods, and I feel him shrinking away. As if he’d forgotten for a moment what it was I was sorry for, and now, with it all rushing back in, it’s not settling as easily as he wants it to.
My mind is still a mess.
He’s trying, and I can see that. He wants to be okay with this, but whether he loves me or not doesn’t change the fact that he’s lived his whole life loathing the very thing that lives inside me.
Just because he wants to doesn’t mean he can.
It isn’t just Rogue blood pumping through me. It’s magic that ran through my father—the same man who led an army into Streatham and oversaw every horrible thing that happened that night.
My father is the reason Callan grew up without his, and how can I expect him to get over something like that?
Love is a powerful emotion, but what if it isn’t strong enough?
The situation we’re in is unprecedented.
There’s no manual on how to move forward, and there’s no estimate on how long it will take.
This is exactly why I shouldn’t have come in here.
I shouldn’t have pushed him to decide because what if he isn’t ready yet but gives an answer anyway? What if he chooses me, all of me, and regrets it?
Or worse.
What if he doesn’t choose me at all?
Callan moves to pull his hand away, but mine darts up to keep it in place.
“Please,” the word spills out of me.
Callan’s brows furrow, a dark lock of hair falling over his forehead when he dips his chin to get a better look at me. “Please, what?”
I don’t even know. I’m unsure of what exactly I’m asking for. All I know is that the thought of him walking away, leaving the skin he’s touching cold, makes me want to cry.
“Don’t…let this change things,” I force out.
“Lucina, it’s changed everything—”
“But not this.” I press his hand further into my cheek, my fingers squeezing his. “Please don’t let it change this.”
“Why do you think I came in here?” he asks. “I’ve spent the last six hours in that chair, punishing myself for thinking, even for a moment, that maybe…” his words trail off, his demeanor shifting into something distant and…unsure.
A lump forms in my throat, panic rising in my chest. “Maybe what?”
A muscle in his jaw twitches. “Maybe there’s a whole side of you that I do not know.”
My mouth pops open in shock, a whole heartbeat passing between us before I shake my head, refusing the idea. “There isn’t.”
His shoulders sag, something like remorse curving his lips into a frown. “I’m sorry, Lucina.” His hand falls from my face. Too quick for me to catch it. “I’m trying to process everything, and I’m trying to do it honestly, but—”
“That’s ridiculous.” The words burst from my mouth.
Callan blinks back at me. “What?”
Before I can talk myself out of it, I surge up on my toes and kiss him.
It isn’t a hard kiss, but it isn’t soft either.
It’s a firm press of my lips into his. A reminder of all the other times we’ve been this close.
All the other times we’ve ignored the weight of the world even as it presses down on our shoulders—nothing between us except a steady hum of electricity. A rope tying me to him.
That’s where our love lies, where it always has been, even before we understood what it was.
I pull back, just far enough to look at him, but I keep my palms firmly pressed into the sides of his face. “Callan, it’s me. Still me. And I love you with all my heart. I’m sorry I kept this from you; that wasn’t fair, but please, don’t let it change who I am to you.”
He watches me for a moment. Frozen. The smooth lines of his perfect face tense in thought.
Remember me, I quietly beg, hoping he’ll think of the night he took me to the creek.
When I was supposed to be watching the stars, but I was mesmerized by him, lost in a world where nothing else mattered.
He showed me that world, and I want him to remember that it still exists. It doesn’t have to change.
I’ve never let anyone know me the way Callan knows me, and dark as my father’s magic is, I am not my demons, and I deserve to be loved despite them. I won’t accept anything less, and he wouldn’t want me to either.
Slowly, his expression shifts—from one of uncertainty to one of recognition. His hands slide up my waist, grip tightening to pull me closer.
Callan’s stare falls to my lips. “You love me?”
I nod, heart thrashing in my chest.
He holds my gaze as he lifts me off the ground, carefully planting me on the desk. “You swear it?”
I nod again.
“It is you,” Callan whispers. “It’s always been you.”
A grin spreads across my face as he surrenders every last hesitation, slides a hand through my hair, and drags my mouth to his.