“Luca, I need to see you. Can I open my eyes?”
A shiver racks my body. I don’t trust myself yet. I’m too on edge. To be safe, I close mine. “Yeah, go for it,” I mutter. Losing our vision makes my basilisk nervous, but it’s prepared to put up with it in exchange for having Celine close.
“You didn’t hurt me,” she insists. Her fingers graze my jaw, then travel up my cheek to bury in my hair. I shudder as her fingernails rake over my scalp. “I’m not scared of your basilisk, Luca. And I’m certainly not scared of you.”
“I’m not myself right now,” I argue, more terrified than ever that she’s not taking this seriously.
“Have you been body-snatched?” Celine asks sarcastically. “Because you look like Luca.” Her fingers tighten in my hair. “You feel like Luca.” She buries her nose in my neck. “You smell like Luca.”
“But my basilisk?—”
“Is still you. You’re still yourself when it’s in the driver’s seat,” Celine declares. “You don’t trust it. I do. But ask yourself this: Does it want to hurt me?”
My forehead furrows, and she smooths the wrinkle out. Meanwhile, my basilisk rattles in my chest, shoving angrily against my control. It’s furious it can’t tell Celine it would never hurt a hair on her head.
“No!” I hiss. “It doesn’t want to hurt you, but accidents happen.”
“I know,” Celine assures me. “That’s why I closed my eyes.Seriously, though, how can you function if you don’t trust half of yourself? I know I can’t fully understand shifter dynamics, but would it kill you to compromise?”
I snort. “I don’t think this bastard knows the meaning of that word.”
“Which is hilarious, since again... it is you.” Celine laughs, and I imagine closing the last inch between us and tasting the lips that consume my dreams. “Why is it pissed at you anyway?”
I want to answer, I really do, but how can I make her understand without telling her about all the nasty, possessive thoughts she stars in? If I tell Celine that my basilisk never agreed to the friend zone, and that it’s only behaved this long because no one else was poaching in territory it considers ours... she’ll break me in half.
“It’s not modern,” I mutter pathetically. “And it causes friction.”
My basilisk grumbles, not caring that it makes us come across barbaric and flatly refusing to accept that Celine would never be interested in signing up for a possessive relationship.
She considers my pathetic response, then drops a smacking kiss to my cheek. “You don’t have to answer; it’s not my business.”
“No,” I grunt, panicking as she pulls back and I lose her touch. “That’s not it. I just don’t know how to answer.” I wince, wishing desperately that I could see her face, and knowing I can’t tell her the truth. She’ll turn her back on me if I come clean, and I wouldn’t survive that.
My basilisk can continue its obsession, but I have free will. I’m the one who chooses our actions. “I won’t let it control me,” I tell her. “That’s important to me, Celine. More important than I can ever say.”
She hums thoughtfully. “Then open your eyes.”
Her statement is firm and straightforward—sodependably decisive, so unmistakably Celine—that a smile curls up the edges of my lips. “That easily?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says. “At least, I think it is.”
When she says it that way, I believe her despite my fears. Opening my eyes, I blink a few times to adjust to the blinding sun, then focus on her face. Celine’s skin may seem like lifeless alabaster, but I’ve never seen anyone so vibrant. She is living, dancing, fighting, cursing perfection.
Her pink lips are grinning mischievously. “There he is.”
My gaze dips, transfixed by her mouth, hungry to discover how it would move against mine. An inch—that’s all it would take.We can’t.Because if I taste her, that’s it. I’ll become as immovable as the people I turn to stone. Forever hers, even if she doesn’t want me.
I step back, the movement as painful as forcing a thorn out of my skin. She’s embedded in me. I allowed that, encouraged it even, and now I’m paying the price.
“You didn’t give me a chance to explain the situation with Alistair,” she says, holding eye contact while wiping her face free of expression. My stomach churns.
“There’s no need,” I mutter. “It’s not my business.”
“Dammit, Luca, that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” she snaps, her brown eyes sparking. “It is your business.” My heart leaps into my throat. Is she claiming me?
“I didn’t want to worry you before, but Ciprian keeps asking questions about Roscoe.” Celine crosses her arms over her chest.
My heart sinks to my gut as I realize what she meant. Of course, she wasn’t claiming me. Why do I do this to myself? “And how does Alistair make that better?” I ask.
