I pulled to a hover in front of him. “Tell me how I can be attracted to someone so creepy.”
“So, to be clear…” He didn’t slow his gait to a respectful stop in front of me. Instead, he came closer—andcloser—until he had backed me up against a tree. Planting his hand on the trunk, heangled his head conspiratorially. “Youdon’tlike it when I corner you in the woods?”
My wingtips brushed the tree bark, making me flinch. Jon’s body walled me in, yet I could barely contain a giggle.
“Hate it, actually,” I said.
A mischievous glint ruined the steel in his gaze—deliciously so. “I have half a mind to make you prove it.”
Shivers licked down my spine. No one else was nearby for miles. From behind, a passerby wouldn’t even see me there, cast in shadow by the fir branches and the width of his frame. Jon could do anything to me, and no one would hear me. Somehow, that only heightened the thrill, despite facing yet another near-death encounter mere minutes ago.
Stars, what was wrong with me?
“Make me?” I willed my voice not to crack. “I don’t think you have it in you.”
Jon’s dimple flashed as he fought a smile. “You still have no idea what I’m capable of,cariño.”
I chewed on my lip, my eyes going half-lidded. I was tempted to make him chase me across the woods until we were both breathless and flushed. A soft gasp from Jon made my grin falter.
His posture seized up, expression twisting in pain. His hold on the tree became a vise-grip as he staggered, slumping against it for support.
A glimpse of crimson made me gasp.
“Jon, your nose!”
Flinching, he rubbed the trickle of blood above his lip.
Still breathing heavily, Jon stepped back and blinked blearily.
“Are you alright?” I flew right to his face, searching him all over for injury. Nothing was visible, but anxiety gripped me even as the pain eased from his face.
“I’m fine,” he muttered. “Just a weird headache. Probably because of the weather out here.”
My frown deepened. “We haven’t been to the spectral plane since last night.”
“I promise, I’m alright. The air’s dry as hell. No big deal.” He swiped the rest of the blood away with the sleeve of his jacket and smiled teasingly, that warm glimmer resurfacing in his gaze. “Sometimes, I think you look for an excuse to worry over me.”
“Well, how do you expect to keep stalking meandmonsters if you start falling apart?” The mention of monsters gave me pause. “Jon…”
Noting the weight in my voice, he tensed and searched around us. “Do you sense something else out here?”
“No, I’ve just been meaning to ask if—that is, I was wondering..." Hesitance dried my mouth. I rarely feared speaking my mind to Jon, and his growing look of concern made me spit it out—standing there, looking so pretty and kind, it made my chest ache. "I know we haven’t talked about it exactly, but… You aren’t going to vanish the moment we find Aelthorin, are you? With a gem in the area, maybe we could still…”
Jon huffed a startled laugh. I wasn’t prepared for the tenderness that filled his eyes.
“You’re worth waiting for. I’m not going anywhere, Sylv. After you reconnect with your family, we’ll finish what we've started and find the gemstone. You know,beforeyou put your life on the line wandering after it by yourself.” His assuring smile warmed further. “And hey, maybe you’ll even have some fairies willing to help with the transformation now.”
Perhaps it was idealistic, but we held some measure of hope that Aelthorin was more open-minded than Elysia and less deranged than Veloria.
Given what the Velorians had tried to influence me to do back in that cavern, the bar was admittedly quite low.
Jon's brows pinched together, and he rubbed the back of his neck. It was a sheepish, almostshygesture that always took me off guard on the rare occasions it surfaced. After years of enduring living nightmares and close shaves with death, it took a great deal to shake him. But being in love certainly seemed to rattle his every conviction on its hinges sometimes, like he still wasn’t sure how to grasp such a wonderful thing in an ugly world.
“Sylv, I hope you know nothing changes if we can’t find a stone,” he said. “With us, I mean. I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this for me.”
My mouth went dry, lips parting. It had gone unsaid for weeks, but to hear the assurance aloud made my heart squeeze.Not alone.Even if I could never entwine my fingers with his the way I wanted, he wouldn’t leave me.
I offered him a shaky laugh, blustering with a playful look through my lashes. “You’rethatobsessed with me?”
