Page 74 of Into Darkness (Night Prowler 6)
“You told me to pack light,” she said defensively. “I found this in one of the drawers.”
“That’s a man’s shirt.”
Lu looked down at the shirt. It was a perfectly innocuous white short-sleeved T-shirt, utterly ordinary. It probably belonged to James. “So?”
His face grew more and more ruddy, his lips thinned to a pale line. Against his tanned skin, both his scars and the thin line of his lips stood out, and Lu thought she’d never seen him look quite so on edge. “So . . . nothing. It’s just . . . short. Just . . . get dressed, all right?” He turned away again, and Lu had the startling thought that it might be in order to hide.
From her.
Because she wasn’t fully dressed.
And there was that hope again, pushing up its stupid, green, cheerful leaves in the dark soil of her heart. Aggravating! Not helpful! But what to do about it? Ignore it, that’s what, Lu told herself, determined.
Inconveniently, her determination was sidelined by two things. “Do the thing you’re most afraid of,” and “Silence always speaks from the heart.”
Crap. Fine, then. Here goes nothing.
Ignoring the fact that she probably had hideous morning breath and her hair was sticking up around her head in spiky, unattractive clumps, Lu rose slowly from the bed, and went to stand directly in front of Magnus. He looked at her, startled, eyes widening, his cool composure cracking as fast as two hands clapping. He waited, watching her watching him, vibrating tension, until finally he couldn’t stand it anymore and snapped, “What?”
Lu almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
“I’d like to ask you a question.”
His nostrils flared. He nervously licked his lips. “No.”
“You don’t even know what it is yet! Just hear me out. If the answer is still no, then fine. I’ll never ask again.”
Her logic seemed to stump him, because there was no pithy comeback, no reply at all. Just that full-body tension and those dark, dark eyes, wary and undeniably heated.
“Okay, so here it is.” She tilted her head and looked up at him, watching carefully for any telling change her words might evoke. “Have I ever visited you in your dreams?”
Watching the cascade of emotion that poured over Magnus’s face while he struggled for words, Lu thought, Whoever said silence is golden was a freaking genius.
First, shock. Then a flash of something that was either embarrassment or chagrin that turned his face white, as if he’d been caught doing something bad. The color swept back in high spots over his cheekbones with the arrival of what looked like indignation. Then followed, in quick succession, longing, desire, and acute despair.
Then his face emptied, as if wiped clean by an invisible hand. He said, “What a strange question.”
Not a no, not a yes, just a simple deflection. Which didn’t matter because he’d told her everything she needed to know in his fraught silence, and everything that had happened between them in all her years of dreaming came back to her in a huge, burning rush, like a wave of lava crashing over her. Her lips parted on the only word that came to mind.
“Magnus.”
It was a whisper. It was a plea, soft and ardent, a plea for him to admit aloud what he’d just admitted in his silence. She wanted to hear him say it, to speak the words, Yes, I’ve made love to you a hundred times, yes, I loved every glorious minute of it, yes, I want to do it again right now, yes, you’re the only one and will always be, yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!
He said none of those things. He said nothing at all. Everything was there between them, bright as danger, electric and pulsing and true, but he held his tongue and Lu held hers, and they only stared into each other’s eyes, a new question burning the pit of her stomach like a swallowed sun.
What is this feeling? This violent, gut-wrenching ache?
She might’ve said it aloud, but a noise shattered their connection. It was a high, keening wail from somewhere nearby.
Magnus reacted instantly. He turned and bolted from the room, shouting over his shoulder, “Put some clothes on!”
Lu dressed faster than she’d ever dressed in her life. In mere seconds she followed in the direction he’d gone, her heart pounding, hands shaking with adrenaline. She found him standing down the hallway, outside another bedroom, its door open to reveal the scene inside.
Nola was kneeling on the floor beside the bed, crying and holding the hand of Grandfather, who lay peacefully in spite of all the noise she was making. James stood behind her with his hand on her shoulder, watching Grandfather with a look of grim resignation.
Magnus murmured, “He’s gone?”
James glanced at them and nodded.
