Chapter 1 #2
“And if we’re right, I’ll be able to sense the glamour trying to keep nosy humans like you away,” I said lightly.
He cracked a smile. “You love to bring that up.”
“It’s good news in the long run. You’re lucky to have me.” I batted my lashes as I flew past him, leaving the harpy to finish smoldering.
When Jon didn’t immediately follow, I checked over my shoulder. His eyes were closed, but his brow unknitted. I wondered if he was trying to sense the gemstone’s aura with me, for me.
My heart gave a squeeze when I realized he was listening to the faint birdsong and sounds of the forest carried on the breeze.
He was coming down from the harpy's unexpected ambush, savoring the peace and the biting sharpness of the evergreen trees. I’d seen him like this before while deep in nature, but the winter somehow suited him especially—the slight flush to his olive skin, the snowflakes peppering his unruly locks of dark hair.
I had lost track of whether I’d had that effect on him, teaching him to be more attuned to nature’s simple pleasures, or whether that was part of the reason I had fallen for him in the first place.
After we set off together through the trees, leaving the smell of the burning harpy behind, Jon gave a small hum.
“What was that you said before about me stalking you?” Jon's deep voice smoothed out, replacing tension with a playful, lingering warmth. “Last I checked, you were into that sort of thing.”
I pulled to a hover in front of him. “Tell me how I can be attracted to someone so creepy.”
“So, to be clear…” He didn’t slow his gait to a respectful stop in front of me. Instead, he came closer—and closer—until he had backed me up against a tree. Planting his hand on the trunk, he angled his head conspiratorially. “You don’t like it when I corner you in the woods?”
My wingtips brushed the tree bark, making me flinch. Jon’s body walled me in, yet I could barely contain a giggle.
“Hate it, actually,” I said.
A mischievous glint ruined the steel in his gaze—deliciously so. “I have half a mind to make you prove it.”
Shivers licked down my spine. No one else was nearby for miles.
From behind, a passerby wouldn’t even see me there, cast in shadow by the fir branches and the width of his frame.
Jon could do anything to me, and no one would hear me.
Somehow, that only heightened the thrill, despite facing yet another near-death encounter mere minutes ago.
Stars, what was wrong with me?
“Make me?” I willed my voice not to crack. “I don’t think you have it in you.”
Jon’s dimple flashed as he fought a smile. “You still have no idea what I’m capable of, carino.”
I chewed on my lip, my eyes going half-lidded. I was tempted to make him chase me across the woods until we were both breathless and flushed. A soft gasp from Jon made my grin falter.
His posture seized up, expression twisting in pain. His hold on the tree became a vise-grip as he staggered, slumping against it for support.
A glimpse of crimson made me gasp.
“Jon, your nose!”
Flinching, he rubbed the trickle of blood above his lip.
Still breathing heavily, Jon stepped back and blinked blearily.
“Are you alright?” I flew right to his face, searching him all over for injury. Nothing was visible, but anxiety gripped me even as the pain eased from his face.
“I’m fine,” he muttered. “Just a weird headache. Probably because of the weather out here.”
My frown deepened. “We haven’t been to the spectral plane since last night.”
“I promise, I’m alright. The air’s dry as hell. No big deal.” He swiped the rest of the blood away with the sleeve of his jacket and smiled teasingly, that warm glimmer resurfacing in his gaze. “Sometimes, I think you look for an excuse to worry over me.”
“Well, how do you expect to keep stalking me and monsters if you start falling apart?” The mention of monsters gave me pause. “Jon…”
Noting the weight in my voice, he tensed and searched around us. “Do you sense something else out here?”
“No, I’ve just been meaning to ask if—that is, I was wondering...
" Hesitance dried my mouth. I rarely feared speaking my mind to Jon, and his growing look of concern made me spit it out—standing there, looking so pretty and kind, it made my chest ache. "I know we haven’t talked about it exactly, but… You aren’t going to vanish the moment we find Aelthorin, are you?
With a gem in the area, maybe we could still… ”
Jon huffed a startled laugh. I wasn’t prepared for the tenderness that filled his eyes.
“You’re worth waiting for. I’m not going anywhere, Sylv.
After you reconnect with your family, we’ll finish what we've started and find the gemstone. You know, before you put your life on the line wandering after it by yourself.” His assuring smile warmed further.
“And hey, maybe you’ll even have some fairies willing to help with the transformation now. ”
Perhaps it was idealistic, but we held some measure of hope that Aelthorin was more open-minded than Elysia and less deranged than Veloria.
Given what the Velorians had tried to influence me to do back in that cavern, the bar was admittedly quite low.
Jon's brows pinched together, and he rubbed the back of his neck. It was a sheepish, almost shy gesture that always took me off guard on the rare occasions it surfaced. After years of enduring living nightmares and close shaves with death, it took a great deal to shake him. But being in love certainly seemed to rattle his every conviction on its hinges sometimes, like he still wasn’t sure how to grasp such a wonderful thing in an ugly world.
“Sylv, I hope you know nothing changes if we can’t find a stone,” he said. “With us, I mean. I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this for me.”
My mouth went dry, lips parting. It had gone unsaid for weeks, but to hear the assurance aloud made my heart squeeze. Not alone. Even if I could never entwine my fingers with his the way I wanted, he wouldn’t leave me.
I offered him a shaky laugh, blustering with a playful look through my lashes. “You’re that obsessed with me?”
Jon chuckled—dimples flashing, the strong planes of his face softened.
“Do you need me to remind you?” He lifted a hand in gentle invitation.
I took my time in perching lightly on his first two fingers, my wings allowed a brief respite from the long flight as I sat with my knees bent.
“How I’ve never met anyone like you. How you’ve disarmed me in every way possible—and continue to do so every damn day. ”
I couldn’t possibly blame the cold on the heat flushing my cheeks. No, that was all from how Jon looked at me like I was everything, even with all the differences between us.
“Mi vida,” I said, my voice soft.
I knew what it meant now and took great joy in watching the effect it had on him. There was nothing more terrifying than offering your raw heart to another, unguarded—yet nothing more exhilarating than when they protected your offering with equal tenderness.
“Mi vida,” Jon echoed back to me.
My life.
His phone chimed, a cold noise that made me flinch a little. I drew back into a hover so Jon could dig his cell from his pocket. He glanced at the screen, and I swore excitement flickered over his face, but he buried it masterfully.
“Come on,” he said. “Cliff’s asking where we are.”
Buoyed by Jon’s promise, I flew off.
His steps quickened to match my pace “I could get used to a view like this.” There was something achingly sincere in his tone—a gentle vow underscored his every promise of waiting for me.
“Maybe we can find a spot in the area to start making a place for ourselves.” His voice dropped as though the trees might overhear. “Like the one we’ve been imagining.”
I chewed my lip, thinking of our last venture to the spectral realm—the new things he had created and what he had done to me.
Jon had grown particularly skilled at wielding a unique power over our private world.
He no longer shied away from tracing glowing runes over my body or stirring the sky around us at his bidding, as though he had to prove to every single star that watched above that I was claimed.
More often lately, he would conjure a beautiful image for us both. A home he promised he would build for us in the real world someday. A place for us to finally have peace—together.
Our stolen time there was always so real in the moment yet dreamlike in the waking world. I tried to picture such a future—really picture it—and I couldn’t help but smirk at him. “You’ll be stir-crazy without a fight.”
“Maybe we could find a new rhythm with hunting,” Jon insisted, shrugging. “We don’t have to constantly be on the road to find monsters stirring up trouble. Look at the harpy, for instance. Maybe it’s possible to make a life and save others at the same time.”
The crunch of snow beneath his boots came to a halt. He regarded me with odd reverence, like he still couldn’t quite believe that I was real.
“You alright?” I asked, worried his nose might bleed again.
“It’s…you,” he said wryly. “Whatever our future looks like, I want it to be with you. You’re giving me this seed of hope.”
“Should I apologize for that?”
He snorted. “Hope’s a very dangerous commodity in this line of work.”
“Well, I think it’s beautiful.” I shivered as another breeze bit down on me. “The cabin’s just over this ridge, isn’t it? Once we’re warm inside, how about I set up the rune, and we refine the details of this home you’re going to make us?”
He shot me a suggestive glance—one that made my pulse race with the unspoken assurances that he wanted to do far more than that. But with some measure of discipline, Jon tethered back his desire with a small shake of his head.
“Not just yet.”
As he strode past me, I frowned after him.
“Why so ominous?” I called.
He gave no reply, leaving me no choice but to fly faster to catch up with him.