CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kol
INEED A HUG.
Fucking hell. Those four words killed me. Sliced me right to the quick.
A hug. How had everyone around Nova been so blind to the fact that she wanted human connection but was too scared to ask for it? How could I have been so blind?
I stared at her for a beat of one, two, three. I memorized her raven hair in the moonlight. The way her pale skin seemed to glow. The curve of her lips, pink as the lupines that grew deep in the forest.
Doubt flashed in those gray eyes, and Nova started to retreat. I moved then. Not waiting. I didn’t often hug people other than Skylar. And she was a tiny ball of energy that hurled herself at me most of the time.
This was so damn different.
My hand slid across her back, feeling her shoulder blades through her worn, bright-purple sweatshirt. My arm curved around Nova as I pulled her to me and waited.
There was no scream. Only a scent that took me out at the knees. Nova smelled like sunbaked cherries and the barest hint of vanilla.
Her heart hammered—I could feel it through the wall of her chest—and then she let out a sort of animalistic sound. A keening. Her hand fisted in my tee, and then she was climbing.
Nova hoisted herself into my lap as if she was meant to be there. But she never let go of my shirt, her fingers clutching. So damn strong. She curled into me, forming a tight ball.
And I did the only thing I could do: I held on.
I covered her body with mine in a silent promise to be her shield or her comfort anytime she needed it. It was such a simple request: A hug.
Contact. Connection. The knowledge that someone else was there.
Nova pressed harder against me, those delicate fingers pulling at my shirt even more. My chin rested atop her head, and I just kept holding on. I could feel her heart against my chest, the intense, fluttering beats. It was erratic at first, and then it started to slow.
I was drowning in sunbaked cherries and vanilla, but it would be the best way to go.
“I’m not screaming.” Nova’s voice cut through the night air and the quiet stillness all around us.
“You’re not screaming.”
She sighed, her body relaxing even more into me. “This is nice.”
My mouth curved. “It is.” And not just for Nova. For me, too. “It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to hug someone like this.” This might have actually been a first.
Nova’s head tipped back, the moon making her eyes glow silver. “Really?”
“Not really in the market for someone in my life in that way.” And it wasn’t because I didn’t want it. It was because I knew I’d never be able to trust in the way you really needed for a relationship to work.
A tiny frown pulled at her beautiful, lupine lips. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but where is Skylar’s mom?”
The barest bit of tension stiffened my muscles. In response, Nova started rubbing those fingers that had a hold of my shirt in tiny circles. The minuscule gesture eased something within me, allowing me to speak.
“It wasn’t a relationship, exactly. We met at a bar a couple of towns over. I’d gone there to hang out with a friend from college who was in town. Kendra and I probably saw each other a handful of times. It wasn’t serious, but it was … nice.”
It wasn’t a deep connection, but it was comfort. “We would talk, but not usually about anything especially deep. Work. Our families, a little bit. What we wanted from life. Then, one day, she stopped returning my calls or texts. Just … gone.”
It was Nova’s turn to stiffen, and I knew why.
“Not that kind of gone,” I assured her. “But that’s where my head was at, too. I went to the diner where she worked, and she told me to take a hint. Said she wasn’t interested.”
Nova’s mouth thinned to a hard line. “She could grow up and say that. Not make you worry.”
“I told her no problem. Promised I wouldn’t bother her again.”
Nova shifted. “Why don’t I have a good feeling?”
Because she was smart. That was why. “A little over nine months later, she showed up on my doorstep, a baby in her arms. Told me it was mine, and she didn’t want anything to do with me or the baby. Someone had told her about my father.”
Nova sucked in a sharp breath, fingers fisting tightly in my shirt again.
“She didn’t want anything to do with someone who had ‘psychopath DNA’ running in their veins. And that’s what she thought of me and Sky. She hadn’t even named her. The birth certificate said Baby Girl Keller.”
“Kol,” Nova whispered.
“I tried giving her time. Thought for sure she’d come around.
That maybe it was the shock of the pregnancy and birth, hormones, just …
everything. But she never did. Not six months in, or after a year, or two.
She wanted nothing to do with her daughter.
I should’ve told her about who my father was. I just—”
“You don’t owe anyone that.” Nova’s voice was pure steel. “Not one damn person. That is deeply personal, and it doesn’t sound like you two were serious.”
“No, but—”
“But nothing,” she snapped, her silver eyes searching mine. “Is that why you told me? Because you thought I’d freak out and want nothing to do with you?”
That stiffness returned to my muscles. “You deserved to know whose house you were moving into.”
“I did know. The man who saved me when I’d all but given up. The man who gave me back my fight when I couldn’t find it. The man who found me. The man who hugged me when no one else would.”
Fuck me.
My hand lifted, ghosting over the side of her face. “Phoenix, I’ll hug you anytime you want.”
Her whole face softened, and more than that, it lit with a glow. “You’re an amazing man, Kol. And Skylar is pure magic. Everyone who comes into your orbit is better for it. If your ex couldn’t see that, then it’s her damn loss.”
And for the first time, the burn of everything that had happened didn’t hurt quite so much. And Nova? She was pure magic, too.