Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
Lark nods when she turns her glare on him. I try not to panic. In the next few days? I’m not sure we’re going to have everything sorted in the next few days.
“Yeah, okay,” I say. Felix says he’ll see my mums out, no problem, then tells Quinn and Asher he’s going back to bed.
“I’ll be here a few more days too,” he says, and Asher makes a faintly distraught sound. “Not forever. Like I don’t have my own shit to do. But yeah, we should have our own hangout. Just the three of us. I’m sure you both have so much gossip to share.”
He eyes Lark and Oisin suspiciously, and Oisin doesn’t seem to like him at all, but Lark is being incredibly restrained. He usually doesn’t like people like Felix; or at least, from what I’ve seen at the café. He didn’t like any of the posh fae back in the Otherworld.
But he likes me. And Felix is my friend, so.
Once they’re all gone, I go boneless in my seat. Lark finally breaks away from Oisin and comes to sit next to me, so we’re all but mirroring Kieran and Lucien across the room.
“You can work all that out on your own time, of course,” Kieran says, and I know he means the bond. I don’t think he can sense them—he didn’t seem to even be able to sense his and Lucien’s before they were all but bonded. “But don’t fuck with him again, Lark. I mean it.”
“I would never,” Lark says. He trails his fingers through my hair and down to my nape. “Oisin?”
Kieran tips his head, fixing on Oisin for a moment, too.
“I’ve got somewhere you can stay. Just a room.
There’s a couple of other fae in the flat.
But they’re friendly, and we can sort out something more permanent in time.
You’re too powerful a fae to just have running around London, unfortunately. ”
“That is…” Oisin shifts from foot to foot, and I don’t think he’d leave if he could. Doesn’t mean he’ll have to like it, I guess. “Thank you.”
Kieran nods. “No worries. And if you’re inside, don’t worry about your glamour, either. Spectra’s always complaining about hers.”
That seems to settle Oisin further, and he drops his glamour entirely, shoulders relaxing when no one makes any sounds of surprise or dismay. Lark rubs his hands over my shoulders. “Come,” he says. “We should rest.”
Quinn gives us a lift back to Hallowed Grounds, even though it’s a walk away. Good choice, really. I’m listing to one side when Lark lets us into the café, and he presses some power into the wards before he steers me over to the stairs.
“Oh,” I say. “I didn’t bring anything with me.”
Not even my phone charger, God. My mums are going to kill me if they can’t get in touch.
“Drew said he would drop some things by in a few hours,” Lark murmurs. “He wants to prep the kitchen to open again the day after tomorrow. Come along.”
I make an agreeable sound, and he gently pushes me up the stairs ahead of him.
All the exhaustion of the past few days is weighing on me, but already my mind is whirring, wondering if anyone watered my plants at the flat, considering when I’ll manage to get Ophelia away from her parents long enough for us to hang out with Felix—if she wants to be away from them so soon, and…
“You are worried,” Lark says. The upstairs of the café is one large, open space, a small studio flat. Lark’s bed lies under the eaves, under the largest window in the room. There’s a small kitchen and a door at the other end that I guess leads to the bathroom.
The floor is bare, wooden planks gleaming dark in the sunlight. I leave my shoes next to Lark’s boots, and he hesitates for a second before he pulls me into his arms.
I rest my head against his chest and listen to his heartbeat. We’ve made it. I didn’t think we would. And from the way he’s breathing, the way he’s clinging to me, he didn’t think so, either.
“I should have…” I tip my head back and look into his face. “I shouldn’t have made a deal like that, should I?”
“Why not?”
“I’ve trapped you in it, too.”
Lark laughs softly. He cups my cheek in one hand and presses his thumb to the corner of my mouth. “Dante,” he breathes, “I was already trapped. You freed me.”
I’m ready for his kiss, soft and sweet as it is. His other arm wraps around my waist and I wrap mine around him, soaking up his warmth. There’s no urgency to what we’re doing. We just need to be close, and the bond needs it, too. It vibrates between us, magic pushing back and forth.
“We really should rest today,” Lark murmurs. “We both almost—”
“Yeah.” I’ll tell Kieran about that later. Much later. Maybe never, if I can get away with it, though I already know I’ll give it up by the end of the week. “I need to shower.”
“All right.” Lark kisses my forehead and slowly lets go. “There are towels in the bathroom.”
“I don’t have anything to wear.”
“Do you need anything?” I study his face. He’s not asking lasciviously, even though he could. And he’s not being dismissive.
I consider it. “Yeah.” It’s been a lot. If I sleep naked, I’m not going to rest properly. Not today.
“I’ll find something.”
“You’re not going to have anything that fits me.”
He’s wearing his glamour, and my stomach jolts at the fact that his teeth aren’t sharp when he smiles. “Magic, love,” he says. “What kind of thing would you like to wear?”
“T-shirt. Shorts. Nothing fancy.”
Lark nods. “I will leave you something outside the door?”
“Sounds good.” I sway into him and press our lips together. “Thank you.”
I retreat into the bathroom, and as the water heats up, Lark’s magic flares.
The feeling isn’t as strong as it was in the Otherworld, and I wonder if the increased baseline level of magic amplified everything, even that?
It’s kind of annoying that my phone is dead because I can’t make a note of it, but then I get into the shower and the hot water stops me caring at all.
I rub my hair as dry as I can, grimacing at the purple streaks I leave on the towel I’m using, then wrap it around my waist. Lark is making the bed when I step out into the room, and I glance down to see a neat pile of clothes on the floor in front of me.
He pauses in what he’s doing to look at me. Heat flares, tempered by my exhaustion, and I think it’s the same for him, too. I like it all the same. I drag the T-shirt on and then drop my towel before I pull on the shorts.
Lark makes a faintly strangled sound. “I can sleep on the floor,” he says.
“You’re not sleeping on the floor. If you don’t want to sleep next to me, I’ll sleep on the floor.”
He huffs and fluffs up one of the pillows. I run the towel over my hair again and cross the room. “You need to eat,” he says. “And something to drink.”
“Don’t you?”
Lark presses his lips together. Yes then. Otherwise, he’d just say no. I smile and lean up to kiss him on the cheek. “You go shower. I can get something together for both of us.” There’s a kettle in the kitchen at least, and I’m sure he’s got something we can eat in here.
“Fine,” Lark says, but when he goes to walk away, I grab his shirt and tug him back.
“Thanks for inviting me here,” I murmur. His expression softens immediately. “I didn’t want to be apart from you either.”
He cups my face in one hand. “It is too soon for me to ask you to stay here forever, isn’t it?”
“A little bit, yes.”
Lark hums. His lips twitch. “I will ask you again tomorrow then.”