Chapter 17 Morning #2
It struck me that the fingers of his other hand were entwined in mine. He held my hand and arm down by the other side of his body, gripping me tightly.
It also hit me that the long white shirt and workout shorts I wore had to be his.
I was wearing his clothes. When had that happened?
He burst out in a low laugh.
The chuckle was low and vibrated my neck and chest, and it sounded so relaxed and unlike him I could only lie there, bewildered, as he stroked my bare skin under the shirt.
“Do you remember anything from last night?” he asked in a murmur.
Before I could answer, he shocked me, kissing the side of my neck.
His fingers stroked my ribs and side, pausing to grip me tightly now and then, maybe even compulsively, before his thumb and fingers resumed stroking my skin.
I felt an aftershock-like wave off his magic, and briefly, nothing but his relief and contentment and gratitude washed over me, mixed with what might have been… affection?
He held me tighter, even as I felt it, and I fought not to react.
Unbearably, some part of me wanted to cry again.
I wrapped my free arm and hand more tightly around him, and realized my fingers were still clenched in his hair.
I was practically holding him against me.
He didn’t feel like he was in any way trying to get free of me, or like the thought had even crossed his mind yet, but I still felt oddly guilty about it, anyway.
He’d been trying to get me to leave him alone for a year.
Yet here I was, again.
I’d practically forced him to come save me. I might’ve even aimed my cries for help at him on purpose. And he’d probably felt obligated, given he was likely the only person who could hear me screaming into the void like that.
“How much do you remember from last night?” he asked into my neck.
I swallowed, grew conscious that he’d felt me do it, and cleared my throat.
“Not enough, probably,” I admitted.
He grunted. When he spoke next, his voice grew deeper, harder. “Do you remember enough to know I’m going to murder Graham Strangemore?” he asked coldly.
I considered answering that, hesitated, then decided to shift the topic, maybe in the hopes it might redirect some of his murderous instincts.
“Where’s Alaric?” I asked. “Do you know?”
He raised his head slowly. When he looked down at me with his gold eyes, I couldn’t help noticing they looked nearly normal again.
His face had lost that gaunt, deathly-pale look.
The dark circles under his eyes were completely gone.
It was bewildering, seeing him look so different from so close, in the exact same morning.
“Are you really asking me about your boyfriend, Shadow?” he asked drily. “Now? Right now? Really?”
I stared up at him.
All thought of how he’d looked and how he hadn’t looked, and even what we’d just done, and all the questions swirling in my mind about everything I’d felt on him, entirely left my head. My jaw loosened as I stared back at him.
I think I actually gaped at him.
“My boyfriend?” I let out an involuntary laugh, but I’m not sure there was much humor in it. Some part of my sluggish mind finally caught up well enough to be genuinely incredulous. “You, of all people, believe the tosh going around that Alaric Greythorne is my boyfriend?”
“Isn’t he?”
“Absolutely not,” I scoffed. “Gods. I thought you knew him?”
“I do know him,” he said, a touch colder.
“Then you should know he’d be a lot more likely to try and shag you than he would me,” I retorted. “Alaric doesn’t even like women. Not like that, not really––”
That time, it was Bones who let out an involuntary laugh.
“Is that what he told you?” He lifted an eyebrow, staring down at me cynically. “Wings of Hermes, are you really so precious, Shadow? Alaric will put a leg over anything that stands still long enough.”
When I only scowled back, he studied my eyes.
“I don’t know why he would tell you such an outrageous lie,” he added, colder.
“Unless he likes you a lot more than I realized. Have the two of you really not fucked yet? If so, he’s playing a longer game than usual.
Maybe he’s hoping to convince you that he’s so enamored of you, you’ve made him crave pussy after a lifetime dedicated to cock. ”
I flinched at his words, then glared up at him.
“He didn’t need to tell me anything,” I said, annoyed.
“I have eyes. Not to mention, we talked a lot, including about his love interests, and his past relationships, and I noticed just how few of them were witches. We’re friends.
Maybe that concept is entirely foreign to you, Bones, but some of us actually know how to be friends with the opposite sex.
I never got the remotest inkling he saw me as anything other than a good mate.
If he told you he did, or hinted there was something going on between us, then I’m afraid you’re the one who got played. ”
There was a silence after I spoke.
Bones hadn’t let go of me, I realized, and I hadn’t let go of him. My fingers still clutched his hair with one hand, and his fingers with the other. His other hand still wrapped around my side. He looked down at me, and the dark green shirt I wore, then met my gaze.
“You’re really not with him?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes. “No. Emphatically not.”
“And Joran?” he asked, his voice a touch harder. “Are you with him now?”
I stared at him, my incredulity turning rapidly to anger.
“Are you seriously grilling me about other mages?” I snapped. “When you’ve literally slept with half the witches in the school?”
He blinked at me, as if startled by my words. He opened his mouth, as if to respond, but I cut him off before he could. I could admit to myself fully that I in no way wanted to hear him respond to any part of that. I really, really didn’t.
“You seriously aren’t going to tell me if Alaric is okay?” I asked, not hiding my resentment. “Or who has him? Or why they took him? Are you really such a maddeningly stubborn git that you won’t ease my mind about someone I obviously care about? Who you obviously care about?”
There was a silence while he stared back at me.
In it, his eyes went briefly blank. I saw him thinking then, and frustration mixed with anger flashed in his expression, right before he exhaled an annoyed breath.
“His father has him,” he said. “You already know who has him, Shadow.”
“But what does that mean?” I asked, exasperated. “Is he okay? How far would his father go? How far would Dark Cathedral make him go? Is Alaric in real danger? And if he is, is there anything we can do about it? Do you know any way to help him?”
Bones fell silent, but the look in his eyes changed.
When he still didn’t speak, I gripped his fingers more tightly.
“Why did they take him?” I demanded. “Why now? Do you know?”
I watched him study my face as if weighing something, or maybe trying to make up his mind. I saw one side winning even before he spoke.
“I kind of wanted to ask you that, Shadow,” he said, his voice close to blunt. “What the fuck were you and Alaric up to this summer? What was the big ‘project’ the two of you were working on? Because I’m pretty sure that’s the reason his father came for him.”
I stared at him, uncomprehending at first.
Then, all at once, a sob tore out of my chest.