Neither North or I move.
The tension in the air makes it feel like time has stopped.
When neither of us move, Juniper eventually lets out a heavy, tired breath and shakes her head. “I just… I need time to process all of this.” She frustratedly drags her hands through her hair. “I need to be alone. Please.”
I reach for her as I make my way to the door, but she backs out of my grasp.
“Don’t touch me yet,” she whispers.
God, this hurts.
“Okay,” I say softly.
North says something to her when he follows out of the door behind me, except my mind is so fuzzy that I don’t catch it. I make my way out of her screen porch and slump on her steps, head hanging.
North sighs as he settles at my side.
“I pushed her too hard,” I say softly. “I should have walked away the moment I began to feel something for her. She’d be safe. She wouldn’t have to deal with this.”
“She wouldn’t still be alive to say yes, and you know that,” North replies.
The notion makes me clench my fingers tighter.
Because I know he’s right.
Chapter 25
Juniper
Soft snores sound from the couch on my porch—Blaze slumped back with his head on the screen, North lying curled up against his shoulder in nothing more than his boxer briefs. The sight of it brings a smile to my lips.
Little spoon.
I snicker, heart swelling and aching at the peace on their faces. It’s the most serene I’ve ever seen Blaze look, a striking contrast to the fear that had been in his eyes last night when he told me the truth.
Fae. Demons. Sprites. Trolls…
God, it’s all so much. I’m still wrapping my head around it all, still trying to process the details of Blaze’s story and how cruel his mother’s been to him just for love. Throughout the entire story, all I kept wondering was how North fits into all of this, and if he’s ever even known love. Blaze… that’s the look I couldn’t figure out. The pain of loving someone he knows he shouldn’t, with the consequences that love inflicted on him… It haunts him.
I don’t think either has left the porch, at least not in the short amount of time I was able to sleep. I stayed up staring at the house I’ve never left, the home that, up until last year, wasn’tempty. The walls that have heard me scream, cry, shout, and beg. Been there to see every struggle I’ve ever gone through.
I shouldn’t be this attached to a house, but it’s the only home I’ve ever known—until now.
Now it isn’t the walls of this home I know I’d miss. It’s their arms, their embraces. When I think of where I’m most excited to be after work, it isn’t my home on the couch alone. It’s with them, wherever they are.
Oreo jumps onto the library table in front of the window and begins to purr as I continue watching North and Blaze sleep. Her purrs remind me to breathe. All night, my brain has been trying to use logic to justify this decision, to rationalize the way my heart seems to give out just thinking about going on without them. They’ve brought me joy and happiness and desire that I didn’t know was possible. Each of them. I’ve never felt this way about another person, much less two.
However, looking out at them right now, I know no one else could ever come close to how I feel about them.
I fell for two demons.
And I want to be with them. Forever.
The sky is turning a shade of navy that lets me know the sun is on its way up. I kiss Oreo on her head, grab the red leggings off the back of the couch where I left them, then go to the door.
The moment I open it, I smell a smell that is so rare, I stop in my tracks.
Is that…snow?
