The word fell from her lips, and it slid through him, warm and wet, rooting in places he’d never felt before.
He wanted her to say it again. Wanted it brushed against the tender seam of his ear. Wanted it panted as her body arched beneath his.
The surge of need snapped through him, his hidden vines flexing just under his skin’s surface. He forced his gaze to the floor, steadying his breath until the air felt cool again.
Green gods above and below.What is wrong with me?
Goldie’s hand slowed, carding through the fur of the cat in her arms until ginger hairs clung to her sleeves like shed sparks. For a heartbeat, he could almost see her habitual glitter flaking away in delicate slivers, exposing tender cambium beneath bright bark. His breath hitched and he swallowed, hard.
“Do you wish me to… find someone for you?” he asked, haltingly.
Goldie shook her head. “No. I’ll text someone.” She summoned a flicker of dramatics, wrist rolling. “Can’t have anyone see me in this tragic mess.”
You are not a mess,Splice thought.You are unbearably alive.
His god’s pulse echoed agreement.
“I’ll stay until they come,” he exclaimed. The words felt like seeds thudding into fertile soil.
Goldie finally looked up. Beneath her tear-rimmed lashes, her eyes were all raw earth: brown, rich, ready to be tilled.
“If you don’t mind,” she whispered, voice catching on the fragile edge of honesty. “Yes. Stay. Thank you.”
A breath he hadn’t known he held seeped out between his lips. Mycor’s approval thrummed inside him—a low chord that carried both duty and desire, winding through his own like twin roots seeking the same water.
Splice sank down beside her, careful as dew on new shoots. Goldie’s shoulder brushed his sleeve, a slight graze of warmththat had every hidden vine in his body reaching toward that contact, aching to coil around it.
“Are you okay, Splice?” she asked, voice tinier now. “I mean, you’ve probably seen… a lot of dead bodies. Maybe it doesn’t hit you the same way, since you’re not, you know, human.”
It does affect me. Because it affected you. And I don’t know why that matters, only that it does.
“I’m… fine,” he managed, the words reed-thin, almost splintering.
He shifted on the couch, and at the movement, the dark feline flowed onto his lap. Splice froze, body locking as the cat butted his chin with a low, imperious cry. The ginger one, not to be outdone, jumped from Goldie’s arms to the couch back to sniff at the living wood of his neck.
Splice closed his eyes, muttering an inward litany.Green gods of earth and sky, grant me the strength of an oak, the serenity of a stream, the steadfastness of a forest.
A soft sound beside him snapped his eyes open. Goldie was crying again, quietly now, her thumb moving clumsily on her phone. A single tear slipped down her cheek, and he felt it like a blow to the sternum.
Instinctively, he leaned in and pressed a hand to her damp cheek, his thumb tracing the tear’s path. The cat in his lap gave an indignantmmrphand hopped off.
Goldie’s breath caught. Wide, earth-brown eyes locked on his for a moment before she surged forward, arms looping his neck, as she pressed her mouth to his with desperate heat.
Chapter
Fifteen
He had carried her home and sat beside her like a mossy statue. He didn’t react when the glitter cracked and it was just her, just Goldie, puffy-eyed and falling to pieces. He had made her feel safe.
She hadn’t meant to do it. Shereally, reallyhadn’t. But when he touched her cheek so gently, so absurdly carefully, like she was something delicate and wondrous, a fierceneedlanced through her, hot and fast and verdant, and her body reacted before her brain could catch up.
The moment she kissed him, she knew it was a mistake.
The Assistant—Splice—stiffened like she’d set off a spell. Goldie froze, and had a horrifying flash of what they must look like: him, all sleek bark and silent bewilderment, and her, melting against him like a sex-starved moth fluttering against a very stoic lamppost.
Holy gods and goddesses, you stupid, horny bitch.
Her brain snapped back into her skull. Heat flooded her face. She jerked away from him with a sharp gasp, hands flying up like she could grab the moment and stuff it back into her mouth.
