Page 44 of Brought to Light
Hugging the wall, and keeping Linden between me and it just in case, I strode down the terrace as quickly as possible without looking like we were running away. I glanced around, evaluating the options. The garden had a lot of nooks and crannies. Of course, the gardens were also open to the party, and I had no idea which of the plants might come alive at night…but presumably Linden did. I towed him down the farthest set of stairs at the end of the terrace and along a path between flowerbeds.
“This way,” Linden said. I let him tow me in turn, past a huge flowering bush and a fountain, and then down another path.
Linden tugged my arm, pulling me toward what looked like a tall, impenetrable hedge. “What—” And then he let go of my arm, dodged to the side, and vanished into thin air, leaving me gaping.
His head popped out of a gap in the hedge, which wasn’t impenetrable after all: it had two overlapping layers, and a hidden space in between just large enough to fit through. His golden hair gleamed white in the fading moonlight.
When I squeezed through, I found myself in a little—room, really, with walls made out of hedge and a partial roof of flowery branches. A carpet of soft grass dotted with tiny flowers that shone in the dark like stars spread out under my feet.
And Linden stood in the middle, fidgeting with his hands in front of him like he’d suddenly gotten hit with an attack of nerves.
“Kaspar and I used to hide here when we didn’t want to study our history books,” Linden said, his voice hushed.
Maybe that would’ve been exactly the kind of thing I’d have wanted to know about Linden if I’d spent the last three days sleeping in his bed and spending time with him during the day, but right now the detail just irritated me. I hadn’t come out here with him to get distracted by childhood anecdotes.
“Why haven’t I seen you since we got back?” It came out too harsh, too demanding.
“You’ve seen me every day.”
“Linden.”
He stared down at his hands, twisting and twisting them around each other. “I didn’t know what you wanted from me.”
I closed the distance between us in two quick strides, stopping a foot from him, close enough to breathe him in. Close enough that he had to tip his head down and away to avoid looking into my eyes, baring the slightest curve of the side of his throat to me. A little gust of breeze drifted by and tangled a strand of his hair at his temple.
That did me in.
I caught his chin in my hand, tipping his head up until he had to look at me, brushing that tendril of hair away with my other hand and then cupping his cheek, framing his beautiful face. “I came back,” I said. “That ought to make it pretty goddamn clear what I want.”
“I woke up alone, Callum.” For all his avoidance before, he’d found the courage to stare me down now, and I felt like the one who ought to look away. I couldn’t, though. He had me. “When I went downstairs, you were already gone.”
“I had to get back to find Jesse, make sure he’d made it somewhere safe. Make sure no one was still after him.”
“I understand that,” Linden said slowly. “But you could have told me that. You could have—Lady Lisandra said you’d made no arrangements to return. You didn’t even leave a message for me.”
Because she wouldn’t let me. True enough as far as it went, but I bit the words back. She’d been right not to, and Linden didn’t deserve a bunch of bullshit excuses anyway, especially not with the raw, miserable hurt in his voice and in his beautiful face.
He’d avoided me, and he’d had every right to. And now I had one more chance, maybe, to convince him to change his mind.
“It didn’t even occur to me that I had a choice until I’d already made it, and it was too late,” I said, my words halting and hoarse. My turn to swallow, my throat painfully dry. Fuck. Linden was right. Humans did lie a fuck of a lot, and I lied more than most. Why did honesty have to feel like ripping out a fistful of my internal organs and tossing them in the dirt at Linden’s feet? “I have—had—a life. I’m used to it. I guess the plan was kind of—to make enough money and retire. Except I already did the first part. I think I couldn’t imagine doing anything but what I was doing, until I ran into someone who did it better and took one too many bullets. Like—like fate. I thought I’d never see you—”
My voice broke, right as the look in his eyes broke me. Confusion, and hope, and lingering anger. Betrayal. I slid my hands down to his shoulders, and then lower, sweeping them over his back, my fingers snagging the delicate silk of his clothing. I had to feel him. Words didn’t work well for me. I could—God, all the things I wanted to tell him would be so much easier if I could do it with my body, but I’d done that already.
And then left him.
No wonder he felt betrayed.
“Oskar punched me in the jaw,” I said at last. “Before we came back from my realm. I deserved it. You could too, you know? Maybe that’d help.”
The joke didn’t land, and I didn’t even get a smile.
“No need,” he said flatly. “I already defeated you in single combat, remember?”
He’d defeated me in every possible way, he just didn’t know it yet, and I couldn’t seem to figure out how the fuck to tell him. I wasn’t sure if he’d want to keep the spoils of victory, though. I wasn’t much of a prize, unless you needed someone to kill an evil sorcerer with random plastic objects.
“Yeah,” I said softly. “Yeah, you did. Tough guy.”
Finally, the corners of his lips quirked. “Not tough enough to do what I probably ought to do, and tell you to stop touching me.”
