My breath snags in my lungs at the sight of his bare chest. I hope I never get used to it. I hope he always fills me with longing.
There’s a beat of separation, of disconnected thought where all the scars I still carry fight through, but I push past them, I’mableto push past them, and I widen my grin to give Otto a suggestive leer.
“I’ve changed my mind,” I tell him. “I do want to seduce you. Defile me, jäger.”
His gasp is dramatic. “What happened to my saintly hexe?”
“Those two words have no business being used together.”
My grin holds on his, and he seems to realize what I have—that we haven’t done this, teasing andfun, in far too long.
I push on his shoulder. “Lie down.”
This time he obeys, resting his cheek on his folded hands as he stretches out on his stomach.
I straddle his hips and take a small jar out of my pocket, an ointment typically used for healing, beeswax laced with mint and lavender. The smell of it permeates the air with floral and heady mint, and I take some on my fingers and work it between my hands until it warms.
“We haven’t yet talked about what you did with water in the chamber under Trier,” Otto says, his voice half-muffled in the bedding.
“We haven’t,” I agree and rub my hands from his neck straight down his spine.
He hisses, more in surprise than anything, his muscles going tense at the contact. But I do it again, more firmly, working my thumbs in circles down his back, and after another repetition, he starts to relax into the mattress. Two more swipes, and he emits a low groan.
I want to talk about what I did in the chamber. How I controlledwater and stones to encase Johann, and how those simple acts have cracked open something in my chest so that now I feel like part of me is slipping through that crack. How I can see the world that Holda wants, a world of wild magic and infinite possibilities.
But as wonderful and miraculous as it could be, wild magic wasn’t enough to save Johann, and I’m so sorry, so unspeakably sorry, because I don’t know if this kind of magic will ever be enough to save everyone.
I want to talk to Otto, I do. But all we’ve been doing is talking, and planning, and worrying, and this moment feels simplified, the way our travels did when it was just him and Liesel and me. The fact thatthattime suddenly feelssimpleelicits a chuckle from me.
Otto flicks an eye open but doesn’t turn to look back at me. I push the pad of my hands into a muscle on his shoulder, and instead of asking why I laughed, he keens, long and low and ending on his own chuckle.
“Why haven’t we been doing this the whole time?” he mumble-whimpers into his arm.
“There were far many other things I wanted to do with your body,” I say.
“So this is you being bored of me, is that it?”
“Excruciatingly. Can’t you tell?” I find another knot and work it with my thumbs and the noise he makes is sinful, so deep that my stomach tightens.
“I missed it,” he says softly.
I frown down at him. He doesn’t see, but he answers my unspoken question anyway.
“Your laugh,” he whispers.
My hands still.
It’s the barest pause, but he flips beneath me, and I lurch up with a squeal. He catches me and resets me on his hips, only with him facing me now, and he yanks me down, capturing my mouth with his.
17
Otto
When she starts to pull away, I follow her, my lips unwilling to part from hers. She giggles, swatting at me, but I do not relent until we’ve shifted positions. Her hair splays on the bed, golden curls unfurling over white linens as my arms frame her shoulders. She watches me languidly, eyelids hooded, mouth slightly parted, as if she is merely waiting for me to draw a gasp from her lips. The heady aroma of the salve she used weaves around us, drawing us together.
I drop my face closer to hers, the end of my hair tickling her upturned cheeks. When I lift my hand to her face, my fingers tremble.
There is fear in love.
