Page 55 of What Fools These Immortals Be
“The Huntsman came to me not long after that. I tried to kill him, but he was far stronger, and he had an offer. He could give me the one thing I truly missed from life.”
“What was that?” Njáll whispers. He’s closer than he was before, but I don’t mind that.
“My magic.”
“The fae blessing doesn’t…?”
“It gives all of us some ability,” I say, “but mine is different. The others can manipulate the environment around them, glamour themselves, things like that, but I can still cast spells in much the way I used to.”
“And you’re happy with that?”
I can’t help my smile. “More than. As soon as my sire turned me, I thought that was it. I’d never get it back, and my magic was—is—the most important part of me. I owe the Huntsman a great debt.”
Njáll tips his head to one side, blinking slowly as he watches me. The tension has leeched out of him throughout our conversation, and this time when he moves his fingers, they catch mine.
“I’m sorry for all that happened to you,” he says.
From anyone else, the words would ring with pity, and I would have an answer for it. But sympathy? Empathy, even, because although he cannot fully understand what the loss of my magic meant to me, he was turned too, and he knows the change for what it is.
That is why I lean forward, shifting my hand so that our fingers are threaded together, palm pressed to palm. Njáll does not move back. He lets out a quiet, contented sigh, and when I kiss him, he sinks into me as though he wants to be nowhere else.
Chapter Sixteen
Njáll
Onehandisclaspedin Maurice’s, but my other is free, and when I slide it up and over his thigh, he makes the most delightful sound against my mouth, the muscle leaping under my touch.
“Njáll,” he murmurs, our lips parting for only a second, and any reservations I might harbour about this—that he does not truly want me, but merely the closeness I offer; that this is just a result of the high-stakes situations we’ve found ourselves in—vanish.
Maurice’s other hand tangles in my hair, tugging lightly, and I kiss him harder, my tongue sliding alongside his. My fingers curlaround his thigh, digging into the muscle. I want him to push me back on the sofa and climb over me. I don’t want him to ever stop.
We’re still holding hands. Even as he pulls my hair again, this time forcing my head back, our lips parting. I look at him through half-lidded eyes, admiring the flush on his cheeks and the rosy colour of his lips. I have no ability to sense magic, but for a second, I think I see it spark over him as he looks the length of me and growls.
He kisses me again. Harder. I move my hand from his thigh to his hip, where, frustratingly, I cannot get to his skin because his shirt is still tucked into his trousers. Maurice laughs against my mouth when I start to tug his shirt free but kisses me again instead of helping.
We should leave my office. This sofa is too cramped, my bed far larger. But getting up means distance, means our hands won’t be on each other, and the thought of that is much, much worse.
Maurice kisses the corner of my mouth and manoeuvres us so he’s half on top of me, one foot still planted on the floor. It’s uncomfortable, but I don’t care. I give up on his shirt—I’ve hardly made any progress as I seem to forget what I’m doing every time Maurice’s mouth is on mine—and grab his arse instead, hauling him closer against me.
“Here?” Maurice says breathlessly. He loosens the hand he has in my hair and traces the shell of my ear in a way that makes me shiver. “You’ll never concentrate again.”
“Do youwantto get up?” I ask, my tone a little prissier than I mean it to be.
Maurice laughs all the same. It’s a quiet sound, just for the two of us. “Not at all,” he says and kisses me again.
He pins the hand he’s still holding next to my head, and I know he’s allowing me to touch him otherwise, the extent of hispower so heady that I want to melt and bare my throat and have him take me apart. I haven’t felt this way about anyone in years. Decades, maybe.
Just as Maurice’s lips skim my throat, someone knocks on the door.
We both freeze, just for a second, and then Maurice sits up straight, his eyes wide. “Afsaneh,” he hisses, and I stare back at him with mounting horror.
I forgot… I shake my head. Maurice is still between my legs, now frantically trying to right his shirt, though I think it will matter little; he doesn’t look as put together as many of the vampires I’m used to, but even he is not usually so creased as this.
He gives up on himself quickly, hands moving over me as Afsaneh knocks again.
“Njáll?” she calls through the door as Maurice straightens up my tie. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes!” There’ll be no hiding what we’ve done. Fuck. “Sorry, one second.”
