Watching him lost in this memory with his mother had tears blinding me. He wove in and out of bookcases while they chatted for well over ten minutes about their day. Just a normal everyday conversation we all had with our friends or loved ones all the time… except I was pretty sure his mother had been gone a long time.
I was a sniffling mess when he abruptly stopped, his body standing tall and stiff before he looked around the old library in confusion. He half turned and spotted me wiping at my eyes and frowned harshly.
“Callie?” he said slowly, looking down at his hands as if to see if he was still holding her before clenching his hands into fists and closing his eyes, pain tightening the skin around his eyes.
“She was just here,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “I can still smell her perfume.”
I moved to his side, raising a hand to touch his arm. “Are you okay?”
He sucked in a shuddering breath and let it out slowly before laying his hand over mine and nodding. “Yes. I’m sorry. We were having fun, you and I, but I’m afraid this library—well, this entire portion of the palace, long forgotten as it is—brings forth painful memories. I sometimes get pulled into them.” He looked at me, his ears pinning backwards. “It is best that you don’t interrupt these lost moments, you understand? Some of them are not so sweet as this one.”
I nodded my head, giving his arm a squeeze. “Got it. Does it happen often?”
He sighed and lifted his gaze to stare into the gloom of the library. “Less of late, but it used to be that during the quiet moments, when things were going smoothly and my mind had time to drift that they would happen more often.” He chuckledthen and shook his head. “You would think that high stress would trigger the episodes, but I have never found that to be the case.”
“That makes sense. If your brain is occupied with a fast paced environment, you don’t have time to think about anything else. It's probably why a lot of warriors stay hunting for the next battle. It's hard to think about lost friends when you’re fighting for your life.”
He hummed thoughtfully, meeting my gaze with the laughing eyes I was used to seeing and a peculiar sort of relief flushed through me.
“That is a wise observation, Callie. See? This is one of the countless reasons why I want you so badly.”
A short burst of laughter escaped me and I shook my head in disbelief. “Nice change of subject. That was smooth.”
Rathal stood up straight, his chest puffing out as he ran his hands over the front of his plain black shirt. “I have been known to be smooth. It’s the oils, you see. They make all this luxurious fur decadent to the touch.” He gave me a sly sidelong look. “A fact you would know well if you’d just give in to me.”
If I rolled my eyes hard enough, you think they’d get stuck? If I gave into Rathal, I was sure I’d find out sooner or later. I snorted and gestured at him with my hand. “What’s with the tactical outfit? You get bored with your usual flare?”
He looked down at his no frills all black outfit and then back at me with a raised brow. “This—”he said, waving a hand over his body”—is a conscious choice. You see this horribly boring black shirt opens in the front with little magnetic clips for easy removal. And the pants?” He pinched the matte material between his forefinger and thumb, displaying that it was stretchy. “They slide on…” His smile was a slow creeping thing and his voice dropped low when he continued his thought. “And slide off.”
He wasn’t wearing his usual rings either, just the gold hoops in his ears, probably so they wouldn’t get in the way of his hopeful touching of me. The horny bastard.
“You’re way too confident in yourself, you know that right?”
Rathal splayed his hand on his chest in affront and gasped. “I most certainly am not! Listen carefully, my prize, because this is the single most important piece of advice one as old as I can give. Never be less confident. Ever. Every day you get out of bed, remind yourself that you are agodand every single creature in the universe should feel blessed to be in your presence. Do that, and suddenly no one can harm you… because you are so far above them that their comments are as meaningless as the chatter of insects.”
I grinned at him. “Remember that when I become a menace and can’t be told anything.”
He returned my smile with a toothy one of his own. “Ah, but that is your due, is it not? Terrorize the world, my dear. Be the sun, so that no one can dim your light but yourself, and even then go super nova, become a black hole, and take all the fuckers with you.”
I threw my head back and laughed, the sound echoing through the abandoned halls. When I finally got myself under enough control to look at him, he was staring at me with such an intense expression that it sucked all the air from my lungs and my laughter died a sudden death.
“What?” I asked when I could breathe again.
Rathal stepped close, his hands coming up to grip my shoulders lightly. “You are so beautiful when you laugh, Callie.”
I swallowed hard when his hands smoothed over my shoulders, up my throat and cupped my jaw.
“May I kiss you?” he whispered, leaning down to take up my whole field of vision with his intensity.
My stomach swooped out from under me just in time to miss catching my heart when it dropped so it came as a surprise that I could still feel it beating hard enough against my breast bone that it almost hurt.
Still… there was really only one answer to that whispered question. No force on Earth or space could have stopped me. No doubts or misgivings could ever have stood up to the overwhelming need erupting through me when I gave him my breathy answer.
“Yes.”
twenty-one
Callie
