“What are you trying to ask here, Red?” I lean closer, elbow propped on the counter, bringing our faces just inches apart. “What do you want to know? Ask me.”
“Are you all already bonded? Like a platonic bond? Or familial, or…” She doesn’t say the next one, hanging onto the silence in hopes I’ll fill it.
But I’m enjoying her nervous energy. It calms me, because it means I need to step up. My girl doesn’t ever need to be embarrassed about asking me things.
Not with me. Never.
“No, Red,” I say, and her eyes go a little wide. “I think we thought we’d bonded.Platonically.” I make sure to drag out that word. “We could hear each other, our darknesses seemed compatible, we became a unit… eventually.” She frowns at that. “Oh, if you think Kane was in denial about you, you should’ve seen his face when he met me and Julien, and thenIstarted talking in his head.”
I grin, and she gives me a little smile.
Fuck, she’s so fucking gorgeous it’s unfair. Not to me, but to every other creature that exists.
I hold her gaze as my voice lowers. “But we always felt like there was something else. Something more. Then, we met you.”
She blushes, the soft peach lighting up all that scarlet. All that colour burns away everything else, melting the grey. I can’t look anywhere but her.
She clears her throat. “So… do you guys have a surname? I know most units take one person’s when they form.”
“Nimur.”
“That’s pretty.” Her cheeks flush deeper as she glances away, teeth catching her lip. “Whose surname was it?”
“No one’s, we created it for the unit.”
“You created it?” Her nose scrunches. “Why?”
Now it’s my time to look away. I stare at the board etched with too many fancy names for hot water with shit dumped in it.
“We’ve all got a past, Red. None of us liked ours. So we ditched it, names and all, and built something else.”
When I look back, she’s staring at me, those stunning red eyes so pale in the blinding light they’re almost pink.
“What does it mean? Nimur.” The soft way she says it, the roll of the ‘r’ on her tongue.
How is this the same woman who tripped over half the menu?
She devoured this word. Made it hers.
“Ashes.” I shrug, like it means fuck all, ignoring the ache that promise still brings, the one we made that ended with that word.
“I like it.” Her face glows with that sweet little smile. I’m so desperate to feel it on my skin, sink into her calming warmth.
Fucking hell, this girl’s making me say some crazy shit, and I’ll keep going. I’ll write some poetry if it means I can have her.
“I… I don’t have a surname. I picked my first and then… I just didn’t see the point.” She tries to act casual, like it doesn’t bother her, but I see it.
“How did you choose?”
And was it just chance she could spell her name with the letters of ours? Of course it fucking was, but I’ll still believe it, like she was destined to pick it.
She tilts her head in thought. “I’ve always liked plants and nature. Ferne, she’s an earth elemental, she has all these books with pictures of exotic flowers, and when I was flicking through, I… I dunno.”
She shrugs, trying to brush it off as meaningless, just like I did—but it only makes me pay more attention.
Her voice is quieter when she adds, “I guess I liked the way jasmines looked like little stars.”
“You like stars, Red?” She rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t get it.
