Page 65 of Witchlore
“Maybe after I’ve slept for twenty hours.” He yawns, eyes drifting closed again. He really does have the most fantastic eyelashes.
“Do you want to go to your bedroom?”
I look around, trying to assess the distance to the nearest doors and if I can get him there safely.
“No, I don’t think I can move and this is wide enough for both of us.” He flops a tired hand against the sofa. I stare at him for a second, wondering if I’ve misheard him.
“For both of us?” I repeat.
“Oh. Um.” Bastian opens his eyes and shoots me an apologetic look. “You don’t have to stay.”
“Do you want me to?”
“I… Yes.” Bastian sighs heavily. “I probably need someone here, in case the wounds reopen and… I’d like your company.”
“Then you’ll have it.”
It would have felt beyond cruel to leave him now, on the sofa, barely able to move. A part of me is still in the cathedral, holding his head in my lap, seeing his blood and panicking that he was going to die right in front of me, just like Elizabeth. I reach down and unlace my boots, helping Bastian ease off his shoes, too.
“Thank you.” I feel Bastian’s hand stroking my hair, and my breath catches in my throat. I sit back up. He doesn’t move his hand away. Instead, he drifts it cautiously around, so slowly that Ican pull away if I want, until his thumb is stroking my cheekbone and my jawline, mapping out my new face.
“I always want your company,” he whispers.
“Bastian…” I don’t want him to stop but I don’t know what to do, either.Don’t do this if you don’t mean it,I find myself thinking desperately.Please.
“I know.” He’s breathing sharply through his nose, each word costing him. “I know you’re not over your girlfriend, I get it, but I almost got eaten by a hellhound tonight, so I feel like I just really need to say… that I think you’re beautiful.”
My expectations go into free fall. My body is so heavy with crushing disappointment. This is a pretty form; I’ve got big eyes and nice cheekbones. This skin that barely feels like mine yet,that’swhat he finds beautiful. Not me.
“Yeah,” I say hollowly. “This is… a nice form, I guess.”
“No.” His voice is so fierce and his hand holds my chin, forcing me to look into his eyes. “Not your form, whatever it is, butyou.All the time. Because whatever your form, you’re always sharp and funny and you always give me the same eye roll and the same annoyed look and eat biscuits like a weirdo—”
“Rude,” I mutter, and he smiles, rubbing his thumb over my new nose, my different freckles, like he’s been looking at them fondly for months.
“You’re always you,” he goes on. “And nobody else has made me feel…”
“Feel what?” I ask, wondering how I’m still breathing when he’s saying all this.
“This.” He takes my hand and presses it over his heart, just like he did when I had a panic attack at college. This time, it’s nolonger slow and calming, but vibrant and frantic. I reckon it could match my own. “Whether you’re in a hoodie or daft dungarees, redhead or brunette, whatever, you always make me feelthis.I think you’re… brilliant, Lando.”
He rubs a thumb across my lips. They tingle. There’s a residue of spellwork in his hands and I can suddenly taste it, that smoky air of the magic inside him leaking out of his pores. Maybe I should have hesitations, but how can I? After everything, we are both here, unexpectedly together, miraculously alive.
“Is it really weird if I say I’ve been thinking about kissing you for weeks?” he whispers. The relief is unimaginable, it sweeps away every other feeling in its path. Fear, anxiety, even guilt dissolve into his soft brown eyes.
“I thought you were into men,” I blurt out, but I have to know, even as I’m leaning toward him, even as his other hand is slipping to my waist. “Are you…?”
“I’m pansexual.” His eyes are fixed on my lips. “Is that okay?”
“It’s amazing,” I say, and I kiss the life out of him.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
I’d forgotten this. I’d forgotten how when you first kiss someone, time stretches and bends around the taste of them. I’d forgotten how having someone touch me is a solace, calming the parts of me that ache so deep down they can’t be soothed by anything else. It’s blinding, the way it runs through me and wipes out all thought in blissful relief. I thought I’d feel weird or sad doing this with someone after Elizabeth, but I don’t. All I feel is wanted and safe.
After a long, very delicious time, I’m lying across the giant sofa in just my T-shirt with my head in Bastian’s lap, reading to him fromThe Witchlore of Bodiesas he passes me Oreos to munch on. I’m reading about the shifter’s adventures with their newfound love in 1940s Manchester when I realize something: I am happy.
“I have a confession to make,” Bastian says.
