Chapter 44 #2
I glance down at my hands, picking at my fingernails. “Theo never really asked. I said it was paper dye once, and that was that,” I muse, thinking aloud.
“You mentioned him before. Who is he?”
His question comes out like an unmistakable demand for information. I glance up at his sharp tone. “We were together for a couple years before he left me for another woman. A fae.”
His expression turns stony. “Do you want me to lure him to a painful death?”
“What?” I choke out with surprise. “No, I don’t want you to kill him!”
I actually can’t tell if he’s serious or not.
“Besides, you already lured him. He’s one of the fae you took from Hamelyn.”
“I see,” he says after a pause. “And nice try on the deflection. But tell me about your fingernails now.”
Damn.
“Now who’s a dog with a bone?” I grumble, and he cocks his brow but says nothing, choosing to wait me out. I’m backed against a wall.
“Fine, it’s not paper dye. The colors change with my emotions like you ascertained. But it was just another thing for people to stare at besides my horns and hair. Another thing to set me apart. So I try not to draw attention to it.”
“I like it.”
His reply is absolute and unwavering. My self-consciousness pauses. “You don’t think it makes me strange?”
“It’s one of the things that makes you . . . you. Truth be told, I’m obsessed with it all,” he tells me, and I feel my mouth go dry. Aside from my family, no one has ever liked every bit of me. But with the look in his eye and the rumble of his tone, I can see he’s telling the truth.
As his words sink in, something heats up in his burnt brown eyes, warming me inside and out. “Your star-reading, and your hair and your horns. Your freckles too—you have no idea how often I’ve thought about those.”
“You have?”
His attention drifts down to where the freckle at my collarbone is visible.
“Yes. I can’t help but wonder how many of them speckle over your body.
” His tone turns rough, making my skin pebble.
“Wonder what it would be like to have you bare beneath me, where I could drag my fingers over each one that glints across your pale skin, and I could read your stars.”
My lips part, my breath kept barred behind my ribs. Every coherent thought has fled from my mind, and I’m filled instead with that image he just painted. The one of me lying before him, stripped down, completely exposed to his burning gaze and his covetous touch.
Fates. I don’t know how to digest that morsel.
We stare at each other across the table.
“Estinya.”
“Yes?” It comes out like a squeak.
His mouth quirks. “Have another drink of your wine.”
“Why?”
“Because your heart is nearly beating out of your chest.”
My fingers tighten around my cup as I take a big gulp.
Then I promptly begin to choke.
The bubbles are clearly not meant to be chugged, because they burst within my throat, and then I’m a sputtering mess. I shove my chair back, coughing, turning so he doesn’t see what an idiot I look like.
But Varrik is at my side in an instant, handkerchief offered as I grapple for air.
How embarrassing.
“Thanks—” I manage to say, throat still spasming.
“Here.” He offers me a drink of water.
I sip this time, until the bubbles are cleared away and they’re no longer assaulting my windpipe. I take a deep breath and blink until my eyes are clear. “I’m okay now.”
His lips twitch teasingly. “You sure?”
“I survived Plagues and a Rat man who goes around playing music and kidnapping people in his spare time. I’m not going to be taken down by a swallow of wine.”
“Rat man?”
“Well. It’s nicer than some of the other names I’ve called you in my head.”
He looks positively delighted about that. “I’m sure.” He steps back and leans against the railing of the terrace. I lean against it too, staring up at the sky, enjoying the clear night air.
“Tell me more about your star-reading.”
I turn at his question. “What about it?”
“Did you read Frid?”
“Yep. Good under pressure. Will take risks. Competitive.”
He hums in thought. “Garren?”
My lips curve. “Resilient. Prefers silence. Tendency to hold a grudge—which I found is absolutely true because he doesn’t like me for trying to run away that first night.”
He laughs. “It is true. Lacera once cheated at a game of cards, and he still refuses to play with her.”
“Well, I mean, that’s not so bad . . .”
“That was ten years ago.”
“Oh,” I choke out with a laugh.
He waggles his eyebrows. “And mine? What did my stars tell you?”
I shrug. “Lazy. Boring. Terrible in b—ad situations.”
His eyes flare and I burst out with a laugh, and he suddenly reaches up, cupping my jaw with his palm. Rough skin, soft touch.
Always an enigma.
I swallow hard, my laughter fading as he drags his finger over my fading dimple. “Exquisite.”
He must be able to hear the flutter in my stomach, because it feels like an entire swarm of butterflies is flying through me. This latch, this connection, this . . . attraction, it feels all-encompassing.
It’s changing everything.
The remnant of my smile falls as I look at him. “What does this latch mean for us, Varrik?” I ask quietly. Vulnerably.
“It only needs to mean what we make of it.”
“And what if I want to make nothing out of this? What if I say no?”
He knows exactly what I’m asking.
“Then there will be space, despite you being my Latch.”
I swallow hard. “And . . . if I say yes?”
His grip tightens ever so slightly, and then he moves to circle his large hands at my waist and pull me closer. Palms brand me with firm warmth, making me want to curl against him. “Then I will consume every inch of that space until there’s nothing left of it.”
My breath shudders out.
I can see right there in his scorching gaze that if I give him the word, he’ll burn away every step between us until we’re standing on ash together and locked in the latch.
And the most dizzying realization is, a part of me wants it.
His expression is bold and fervent. “I have been infatuated with you since the moment I lured you away. I want to learn everything there is to know about you. I want to make up for every botched action and blundered word. I want you, Estinya. But you can tell me now that you don’t, and I will not press you. So tell me. What do you want?”
I’m struck silent, floored by his words. Consumed by a longing that makes me nearly shiver all over.
He waits.
My heart waits too, caught in a pause between beats.
What do I want?
What can I have?
I open my mouth. “I—”
The sound of a door opening interrupts us, and Frid suddenly walks out onto the terrace. Varrik’s hands fall away from my body as he turns to look at him, and I wish I could snatch them back.
“What is it?” he asks.
Frid has a slight smirk on his face as he takes in the scene, but then he looks at Varrik and answers, “Conrad is here.”