Page 46 of His Greatest Treasure

Perhaps I should tell him that I loved him. Maybe that would help him articulate his feelings better, too. We were a right pair, each as clueless as the other.

I didn’t have the breath to tell him right then, though. I barely managed to lean down and peck Alfie on the lips without collapsing because he’d sucked everything out of me.

Somehow, we made it across to the chair and Alfie sat in it and I crawled into his lap and curled up there.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I, Blaze?”

I shook my head.

“I don’t know what came over me. I just needed- I needed—”

If my sweet blabbermouth, Alfie, couldn’t articulate what he wanted to say, something was wrong. He really needed me to help him make sense of it.

Only my passion had burned hot and used up all of my energy. I barely managed to mumble, “Love you, my darling,”

I had never felt safer than I did when I had Alfie’s arms wrapped around me, and I slept – properly slept – for the first time in years.

Chapter 19

Alfie

Iwas alone in my room, thinking about Blaze. He’d said he loved me.

I replayed the moment. Yes, I was sure he’d said he loved me.

It was just that he fell asleep straight after and I couldn’t be sure he’d meant to say it. Should I say it back? Or what if he hadn’t meant to tell me and that made things awkward?

I was spiralling.

More than ever, I needed Morgan back because he always knew how to keep me grounded. He was so unflappable that he made me feel like he was a calm rock that I could cling to and never get swept away in the tide.

I missed him every day.

Our bond was still bright and I called it up regularly to check on it, to make sure the bond wasn’t sick or weakening. That was a fear of mine, that Morgan would be perfectly safe and well only he’d just gradually stop caring about me. Our bond would get weaker and thinner until one day it just… broke.

I kept calling it up to check, but so far it had stayed strong.

How long would that last, though? With us never able to see each other again, we’d grow apart and soon he wouldn’t remember what I looked like and—

I was spirallingagain.

I wanted to sneak outside and see Blaze but I needed to decide what to do first. I needed to know whether he’d meant it when he said he loved me.

Something vibrated inside me when I remembered it. It was like I imagine a cat laying on my stomach and purring. Only I was the cat.

Whatever, something was wrong with me and I didn’t like it. I wanted to get it sorted but I also wanted to tell Blaze how much I loved him.

It was more than just loving him. It was- it was that he was my favourite person in the world. Icouldn’t describe how deep my feelings for him were. Our bond was brighter than any other I had, and I was sure that was all him, radiating warmth and light and love. Who wouldn’t fall completely in love with someone like that?

I picked up my book, intending to at least look like I was reading, but I didn’t open it. Instead, I stared out of the window, watching our bond and wondering what Blaze was doing right at that moment, whether he was in human or flame form.

Perhaps it was because I was concentrating on a bond, but I suddenly felt one of them twang against me. It went hard and brittle and I had to take deliberate deep breaths before I could work out which one it was. It was tugging at my insides in a nasty way, making them feel like they’d rip open. Only this time it wasn’t like I’d burst from the inside out, it was that I’d be ripped open from the outside.

It was Lord Somerville’s bond, and it was one of the strongest I had. All of us had a bond with him, of course, and all of them were the same iron-hard ones.

He was our elder. He was in charge of all of us. That meant we had to obey.

Only I wished he wasn’t tugging at our bond like that.

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