“No, I’m not tired.” I turned away from the window and faced him, my mouth dry as I contemplated how much of my upbringing and conditioning I’d need to overcome if I wanted to repair the damage I’d done. The hurt I’d caused him. He stood there, arms by his sides, probably forgetting I could hear the hammering of his heartbeat even though outwardly he was doing a damn fine job of seeming cool and collected.
I swallowed, trying to find a spare drop of saliva to coat my tongue. “I think Eleanor sent us here deliberately. She was giving us a message.”
Charley’s gaze narrowed. “In what way exactly? I can’t see her encouraging us to sully this fabulous bed with a fast and dirty fuck.” He shrugged, trying to look unbothered at the prospect, although his pulse stuttered, and the sudden sharp scent of his arousal drifted across the room towards me. I made fists of my hands and squeezed them, ignoring the way my own dick immediately clamoured to be set free from the confines of my jeans.
I sighed again. “I don’t think she meant that exactly, no.”
“Then what?”
I sat on the edge of the bed and patted the thick coverlet in invitation. Charley hesitated, but then came to join me, although he kept a distance between us. I found I couldn’t look at him, so I lay back and stared instead at the embroidered flora and fauna on the tapestries above our heads. “What you said, about this being a place for lovers.” He gasped softly. “It was a nudge, a way of telling me to pull my head out of my arse and confront my issues with you being…” My throat tightened around the word. This was stupid. If he’d been planning to harm me, he’d have done it already. “About you being part Fae.”
“Ahh, that,” he said bitterly. “Ain’t like a change of scene and some pretty interior decorating is gonna override your wolf, is it? You hate me. But I can’t change who I am.”
“I don’t hate you!” I protested loudly. I turned to see his expression was cynical, and pushed myself up until our faces were level with each other. “I really don’t,” I insisted, unsure who exactly I was reassuring, myself or him. “I’m not…comfortable with your Fae heritage, but I don’t hate you. I could never hate you, Charley.” I realised I meant it. In a matter of days, this stranger with his black hair, sapphire eyes and throwaway attitude to life, love and sexy times masking what I was certain was a sensitive and wounded soul, had burrowed so deeply into my heart, that I wasn’t sure a full body transplant would have been enough to stop me wanting him.
This time my sigh was shaky as I reached across to hook a hand behind his neck and pull him closer. “I fucked up, Charley. I know I did. I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?”
24
CHARLEY
I letmyself sag onto Luc’s shoulder and inhale his scent like my own personal drug. Tears clouded my vision, so I let my lids slide closed at the same time as I encircled his waist with my arms, trying not to cling too desperately. He didn’t hate me after all!
Perhaps I’d known he didn’t, but I needed to hear him say it, out loud and unequivocally, before I could believe it. I took a few ragged breaths, then raised my head to look at him. His own eyes were a tad misty, so perhaps he’d been struggling as much as me.
“You really fucking hurt me, Luc. Like, alot.I don’t want a racist boyfriend, and that’s what it felt like to see your reaction to what Rosie said.”
He flinched, and paled, but didn’t break eye contact as he said soberly, “I didn’t think of it that way, but I totally get where you’re coming from. No wonder you were upset.” He swallowed and inhaled shakily. “I’ll say sorry as many times as it takes, but I’m concerned after the hundredth time in ten minutes, you’ll think I’m taking the piss.”
Against my better judgement, a snigger escaped. “You’d do it too. Just to annoy me.” I exhaled hard through my nostrils, and sat upright, wrenching a hand through my hair which no doubt looked as fucked-up as I felt. “Mind you, I’m sure I’m annoying enough for six people. It’d be justice for putting up with me.”
His mouth twisted. “I don’t put up with you, Charley. I genuinely enjoy your company and—” He bit off whatever he’d been about to say, and got to his feet. “Should we light a fire? This tower is pretty, but it’s sure as hell not getting much warmth from the sun.”
I could take a change of subject, especially as I felt perilously close to standing on a crumbling cliff edge of emotion myself: it was insanity to think of the L word. We’d barely known each other a week and there was no way I could possibly mean that much to him.Except,my inner monologue reminded me,you thought he was going to say it yesterday.
Had it only been yesterday, really? I guessed it made as much sense as anything else since making my escape from Tratton. In fact, considering my apparent blood line, it made a damn sight more, because I was potentially barely even human, and that was an issue my brain was struggling to comprehend.
I dropped to my knees in front of the fireplace and looked around for something with which to light it. A lighter might’ve been nice, but no chance there was one in this throwback to the eighteenth century or whatever the hell aesthetic Dalziel was aiming for. Because I was absolutely certain this tower owed its current decor to him; the stones themselves seemed imbued with his presence.
Luc came and stood behind me, his scent warm in the cool air. “Use a spill,” he offered.
“A what?” I countered, feeling a bit dim.
He picked what looked like a straggly wood shaving from a slender china vase on the mantelpiece and handed it down to me. “A spill. Here, take these.” He pulled a box of matches from somewhere above my head, then bent to crouch next to me. “Look, you light the spill, then move it around so the kindling catches in as many places as possible. Shouldn’t take long; there’s no hint of damp in this place. I reckon Dalziel keeps it pristine.” He watched as I struck a match and lit the end of the spill — a new word for me — then, guiding me with a hand over my wrist, we lit the fire together. I sat back on my heels and watched, enjoying the way the creeping flames caught on the thin twigs and pine cones. It satisfied something deep inside me as the kindling heated the bigger logs, and the whole fire began to glow red, orange and yellow.
Luc shuffled me away from its intensity until our backs met the ornately-carved wooden chest at the bottom of the bed. We sat, legs stretched out in front of us, our torsos barely touching, and waited in not quite comfortable silence as the room warmed up. Eventually I had to say something. “I’m sorry too.”
“What the hell for?” Said with a considerable hint of disbelief.
I tried to sound nonchalant. “For being rather more extra than your average disaster gay. Can’t have been easy for you, hauling my arse around this past week. And…you know, the Fae thing on top. I’m just…I wish I could make it all go away.”
Luc gave a ginormous sigh, and dragged me into the reassuring embrace of his muscled arms. “Christ, Charley, you can’t think Iblameyou for what you’ve been through, surely?” he mumbled into my hair. “There’s a notorious motorcycle club after your blood, maybe literally, I damn near ran you over with my car, and last but not least, as far as I know, there’s no possible way to put in a request pre-conception to ensure you get a genetic background that makes your life simple. Not that it’s always much cop being human from what I can tell either. But my point is—” He drew a pained-sounding breath. “My point is,noneof that is your fault. At all. And it wounds me to think you think it is.”
My vision blurred again under the dual weights of his indignation and conviction. But this time I didn’t try to wish the tears away, and let them fall, dripping onto Luc’s top while he held me. The trickle became a stream, and then a river, as everything I’d kept pent up inside me suddenly overflowed and burst its banks. I cried because I was tired; tired of running, tired of never fitting in, exhausted of pretending I loved my supposedly carefree lifestyle of shitty jobs and all night clubbing. Fuck it, I was tired of shagging random blokes whose names I didn’t even ask, let alone cared to learn.
I cried for younger me who’d never understood why he couldn’t just be that child that everyone else’s kids seemed to manage to be effortlessly. The child whobitother kids, for fuck’s sake, who had well-meaning parents who tried everything they knew — I knew I was a miserable shit who’d never appreciated them but theyhadtried — and hadn’t given up on me until I’d finally appeared to have given up on myself. No wonder they didn’t want me ruining their holidays. I’d epitomised the cliché of the nastiest, most ungrateful goth teenager in the history of the world ever, as well as the most stubbornly independent. If I dwelled on how much I hadn’t changed…But no, that was a painful road to walk down. I wasn’t going there.
Finally I cried for the baby I’d been, abandoned by my mother, unknown to my father, and with my heritage, unlikely to settle even if they’d handed me into the care of a literal angel. Unless, of course, that angel had been Aziraphale, in which case, I allowed myself a glimmer of a smile amongst the tears, I’d have grown up with a penchant for ancient books and tea at the Ritz. Although maybe I’d have had a second baby daddy in the form of the wickedly sexy Crowl—
