Chapter 13 #2
Sweat slicked his chest and shoulders, muscles flexing as he swung the axe in a clean arc.
The wood cracked with a satisfying thud, falling neatly to either side of the chopping block.
His jeans rode low on his hips, his muscles rippled, and the whole scene looked like one of those thirst-trap lumberjack calendars come enticingly, beautifully, to life.
“Okay,” I muttered to myself. “You are a mature, composed adult. You are not going to climb him like a tree.”
Bracken dropped onto the bonnet of my car with a thump, making me jump. He peered through the windscreen at me, whiskers twitching.
“Careful there, lass,” he said. “Your eyes are about to fall out of your head.”
I squeaked and slapped a hand to my chest. “You can’t just appear like that.”
“Tell that to your thoughts.” He snorted. “They just appeared straight in the gutter.”
“Shut up,” I hissed, grabbing my bag.
As I climbed out of the car, Torin straightened, wiping the back of his wrist across his forehead. He spotted me and smiled, slow and wicked.
“Welcome home,” he called.
My brain short-circuited. “Hi,” I managed, hoping I didn’t sound as breathless as I felt.
He set the axe down, leaning on it with one hand. “Shift go all right?”
“Fine,” I said, then cleared my throat. “Good. Busy. Z came by with Mitch to say hello. I only broke one glass, so that’s like a personal record.”
He chuckled, his gaze sweeping over me in a way that made my skin tingle. “Good.” He nodded, then straightened fully, the movement making every muscle in his torso shift and flex like some cruel, deliberate show. “You’re staring, Liora.”
“I am not,” I lied, badly.
His mouth curved. “You are. I’m not complaining, mind you.”
Heat pooled low in my belly. I dropped my gaze, suddenly very interested in the state of my trainers. “It’s your fault for being … all … that.”
“All what?” he asked, feigning innocence as he walked toward me, slow and unhurried, like he had all the time in the world to ruin me.
“Torin,” I warned.
He stopped directly in front of me, close enough that I could see a bead of sweat slide from his collarbone down the center of his chest. My imagination happily followed its path.
“I asked you a question, wood nymph,” he murmured. “What am I?”
“Annoying,” I said weakly. “And … obscenely fit.”
His smile turned smug. “There it is.”
“Ugh,” Bracken groaned from somewhere up in the nearest tree. “Get a room.”
“Go away,” I hissed under my breath.
“I live here,” he chittered back. “I’m trapped in a forest romance.”
Torin’s lips twitched. “I’m assuming you’re talking to Bracken and not me?”
“He doesn’t like being third wheel to my hormones,” I muttered.
Torin’s eyes darkened, his gaze dropping briefly to my mouth before meeting my eyes again. “Are your hormones doing something right now, Liora?”
“Yes,” I blurted. “They are doing many things. All of them inappropriate to discuss while the squirrel is listening.”
“Thank the goddess,” Bracken murmured.
Torin laughed, delighted. “Good to know.”
He leaned in, not quite touching me, the heat of his body washing over me like a physical thing. “For what it’s worth, every time you walk by in those tight jeans, my brain turns to sawdust. So we’re even.”
Something in my chest fluttered, wild and reckless. I swallowed. “We should probably … go inside. I need to get ready. The girls invited me to dinner at the castle.”
“Fancy,” he said, still too close. It was becoming increasingly hard to breathe.
“Yeah. Sophie says it’s for the Order. Witchy girls’ night.”
His expression stilled. “Is that a good thing? Are you excited?” We still hadn’t talked too much more about the Order, after I’d told Torin I needed more time to learn about it and absorb just what my role was going to be.
“Terrified,” I admitted. “And excited. It’s been a while since I had proper friends in my life.”
He studied my face, something flickering in his eyes. “They’d be daft not to love you.”
I blinked rapidly, emotion catching me off guard. “Stop saying nice things. I’m still trying to be mad at you for weaponizing your torso.”
He opened his mouth, probably to say something else infuriating and sweet, when the air … changed.
It was subtle at first. A prickle on the back of my neck that sent the hairs on my arms lifting. The breeze stilled. The birdsong that usually filled the clearing quieted, like the forest was holding its breath.
“Do you feel that?” I whispered.
Torin’s muscles tensed under my hands. I realized I had, at some point, grabbed his forearms. “Aye,” he murmured. “Something’s … different.”
Bracken scrambled down the tree in a flurry of claws and bark, landing on a lower branch, tail puffed. “What the—”
The light in the clearing shifted, brightening, going almost pearlescent. A soft glow coalesced at the edge of the trees, like fog gathering in one spot, swirling tighter and tighter.
My heart pounded. “Torin…”
He slid an arm around my waist, pulling me against him instinctively. I clung to him, eyes wide, as the glow elongated, took shape.
A horse stepped out of the trees.
Except it wasn’t a horse.
It was … impossibly, undeniably … a unicorn.
Its coat was a luminous white, not just pale but radiant, like moonlight made flesh.
A spiraled horn, long and slender, rose from its forehead, shimmering with faint iridescent light.
Its mane and tail flowed like silk, each movement slow and graceful, and its eyes—luminous, deep, ancient—took us in with unnerving intelligence.
“Oh my God,” I breathed.
“Holy shite,” Torin whispered, his arm tightening around me. “Is that—”
The unicorn’s hooves made no sound as it pranced lightly into the clearing, the grass seeming to brighten under its steps. It came to a halt a few feet from us, head held high.
Then, slowly, it lowered its head.
Bowed.
Once.
A simple, graceful nod that felt, somehow, like … acknowledgment.
My throat went tight. I had the wild, irrational sensation that it could see straight through me—threads and all.
It felt like standing in front of something pure.
Something old and powerful and utterly uninterested in human nonsense, except that, for this one brief moment, it had decided we were worth a look.
Heat flooded my eyes. I gripped Torin’s hand where it rested on my hip.
“Are we hallucinating?” he asked hoarsely.
“If we are, we’re having the same hallucination,” I whispered.
The unicorn held our gaze for another heartbeat, then gave the tiniest toss of its head, mane rippling like water. It turned, hooves barely kissing the ground, and trotted back toward the trees.
As it reached the shadow of the branches, its body began to glow brighter, edges blurring, until it dissolved back into mist and light and then—nothing. Just the ordinary green of the forest, the faint rustle of leaves, and the birdsong returned.
“Okay,” Bracken said finally, sounding slightly hysterical. “Okay. All right. No, that’s fine. That’s … that’s just a unicorn. It’s only the rarest bloody magickal creature in existence. No big deal. Totally normal Sunday.”
I exhaled a shaky laugh that came out half-sob. “Did that … just happen?”
Torin turned to me, his face alight in a way I’d never seen before. With pure, childlike wonder.
“Liora,” he said, voice thick. “We just saw a unicorn.”
“We did,” I said, my own chest too tight to contain it all. Awe, joy, terror, excitement—they all tangled together in one glorious mess.
His free hand came up to cradle my cheek, thumb brushing my skin. “I knew there was magick here, but … that …” He shook his head, laughing in disbelief. “That was … beautiful.”
“It chose to show itself,” Bracken babbled from his branch, pacing. “They don’t do that. Not to just anyone. I need to sit down.”
I leaned into Torin, resting my forehead against his chest, trying to steady my breathing. “What does it mean?” I whispered. “Why would a unicorn just … appear? And bow?”
“Maybe it was saying hello,” Torin said softly, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “Maybe it was … blessing the place. Or you.”
“Us,” I corrected automatically. “You saw it too.”
What did it mean that it appeared to both of us? Was it giving us its blessing? The way it had nodded? Because how right did it feel to be in Torin’s arms in that moment?
We stood there for a long moment, clinging to each other in the quiet, the afterglow of impossible magick humming in the air.
I laughed, a little hysterical, and tightened my arms around Torin just once more before pulling back.
“I have to get ready for dinner,” I said, still breathless. “And at some point, I need to process the fact that we were just casually visited by a top-tier magickal creature in the front garden.”
“Go,” he said, brushing a strand of hair from my face. “I’ll … finish this.” He gestured vaguely at the wood pile, like his brain hadn’t quite rebooted either. “We can freak out properly later.”
“Deal,” I said.
As I headed for the house, my legs a little wobbly, I glanced back once more at the edge of the trees.
Nothing but shadows and light and ordinary birdsong.
But I could feel it. The forest was watching.
It didn’t feel like a threat, though. It felt comforting. Affirming. As if to affirm I’m here for a reason.
And now I’d have to spend the rest of my life peering into the woods hoping, once more, to glimpse the beauty I was just shown.