Chapter 28 #2
“You didn’t hear them?” I ask. Though I know he didn’t—he wouldn’t be consoling me like this had he heard them call me by my title.
Another tear breaks free, this time more from the weight of my secrets than the anger at the shadow hag’s unwelcome breach.
Brynn’s hand raises—he does not wait for permission.
He wipes the tear from my cheek and I lean into his palm.
I hang my own from his wrist, holding him to my face.
The sound he emits is half-gasp, half-sigh.
No one has ever touched me like this.
I don’t know how to come back from this. I don’t know if I want to come back from this. It’s like I am at last falling from that cliff.
No. Not falling. Jumping. I was not pushed. I chose this. My heart thumps so loudly that even I hear its thunderous echo.
“I woke up to you shouting at the trees,” he says, studying my face as if he may never see it again. His thumb now rubs consoling circles against my jawline. I fight to ignore the warmth coiling low in my belly.
“Glo said there were…” I start, swallowing the lump that rises in my throat. “Creatures that try to lure you into the forest with… promises.”
Brynn’s thumb stills on my chin. His brow creases, a rigid concern coloring his expression. “Did you see something?”
I nod against his touch. “Did Glo tell you what happened when she found me after the ambush?” He shakes his head. I continue, “A shadow thing… moved over us like… like it was searching for something. And when I went to find Shadow and Moon, I—”
My hand drops from Brynn’s wrist. I recognize how ridiculous it sounds. Even here, in Sanctuary, where there’s magic and minotaurs and fish-headed people. Even the fae enjoy fairy tales. Children’s fantasies, Glo had said. What if it was just that—a fantasy?
“You can tell me, Thea,” Brynn promises.
His hand has slipped down my neck, the heel of his palm resting atop my shoulder, like he knows he should release me but cannot bring himself to do so.
My thighs tremble when he caresses the sensitive spot under my ear.
I know he feels my heartbeat, my pulse raging.
He likely mistakes it for fear of the shadows, yes, but it’s also fear of this new, unfamiliar heat growing inside of me.
“It called to me,” I breathe. “It knew my name—everything about me. Earlier I—I just ignored it. It started again tonight and it—I could feel it enter my mind. Searching for anything it could steal and use. It offered me a trade.”
Brynn’s whole body stiffens. He holds his breath. “Tell me you didn’t—”
I step back, out of his reach. He flinches as though bitten. His hand floats there, made buoyant by the heavy tension between us. At last, it drops to his side, flexing in and out of a fist.
“Of course I didn’t,” I huff, my anger returning. “What you heard was me taunting it. To see what it would promise me. I wanted to see how much it knew. What it could possibly want with me.”
Brynn’s unexpected and radiant smile flashes in the dark. I cross my arms and glare at him, confused knots twisting in my gut. I don’t want to admit how cold I am now that he’s not touching me.
“You mean to tell me that you provoked a shadow hag in the Blackwoods? By yourself? In the middle of the night?”
“What of it?” I snap. I still clutch the dagger and it digs into my side.
“‘What of it?’” he echoes incredulously, running a hand through his hair. His eyes burn right through me—that stare of mingled reverence and disbelief returning. “I’ve never met someone like you. You’re absolutely fearless.”
I tilt my head, eyes narrowing. Stupid. Reckless. Heedless. Those are better adjectives to describe me. “Surely you jest.”
“No. Truly,” Brynn says. This time it’s him who closes the gap. It looks like he might pull me into another embrace when—
“Is this what friendship feels like?” I ask, staring up into his face. His brow rises as his arms fall to his sides. Mine tighten across my chest. What a dumb, childish question. I am struck by the memory of once asking my mother a similar one. I swallow the lump this brings to my throat.
“You’ve really never had true friends before, then?
” he asks quietly. Something akin to pity pinches his expression and I huff.
I think of Alma. Alma, who helped ground me when she witnessed my panic attacks.
We talked about what caused them, discussed my troubles.
But I could not tell you a thing about hers.
Perhaps I was the problem.
“Not really—though, I’m only now realizing that it’s likely my fault. I’ve… not made it easy to love me.”
Brynn wears a bemused look.
“I—yes… it does feel something—something like this, I suppose,” he says at last, voice thin. He clears his throat. “Friendship, I mean.”
“I don’t think anyone has ever held me while I cried. It’s… nice.” Maybe too much so. I bite my lip.
“I’m here anytime you need me, Thea. When you’re not crying, too.”
I uncross my arms and fumble with the dagger, jamming it back into my belt loop. The coward in me is too afraid to meet his gaze. The fervor in his voice is enough.
Fearless, my ass.
“In the spirit of friendship and trust,” Brynn says in forced casualness, lowering his face toward mine and compelling me to look at him. “Can you tell me—what did it offer you? The shadow hag?”
My heart aches to crack open like an egg. To tell him everything. Who I am, where I’m from, how fucked in the head I know I am for keeping it from him, Glo, and Jasmeen. Fuck. Why can’t I just be honest with him?
Because he will never forgive me.
He will never trust me again.
I’ve stalled too long and now the damage will be irreparable. And I need him to get back to the mortal realm.
He withheld his title because he simply wanted me to know him.
The real him. I withhold my title because I wish to be anyone else.
There is no real me. I haven’t discovered it for myself yet.
He called his secret selfish—he knows nothing of selfishness.
I drugged my father to go shopping. And look where we are now.
“That I can’t tell you. Not yet at least.”
Brynn’s answering smile is sad, but he does not push. He glances back through the trees toward our camp, at Shadow and Moon peacefully grazing by the pool’s edge.
“I can tell you what it wanted in trade, though,” I say, quickly weighing my options. How much I can give to stay in his trust. And I yearn to give him something in return for his kindness. He turns to me, once again wearing that old, unreadable mask.
“It wants Mavick.”