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Fighting my better nature, I brush Callie’s hair away from her face. “I’ll be right back.”

I vanish from her room and head off to a ramen house on the other side of the world. The restaurant happens to make halfway decent soup—if, you know, you like watered down shit.

Apparently, sick girls do.

Callie eats the ramen in five minutes flat.

“Thanks, Des,” she says once she’s finished, setting the empty take out bowl on her bedside table and laying back down. “Both for the soup and for staying with me.”

I nod, trying not to act like any of this situation is getting under my skin. “I’m going to have to leave soon.”

Liar.

“Can you stay with me?” she asks.

For the rest of the evening, she means. This is her wish, for me to sit by her side through the night.

This is new. I’m used to getting propositioned by frisky fairies, not sick teenage girls who can’t keep their eyes open.

And gods, how I want to say yes. I want to drop this farce and be honest with her, but the fact remains that she’s a teenager and I’m not.

I shake my head.

“Please.”

Stop making deals with me, I want to tell her. I can’t resist them. I won’t. I crave her too much.

She reaches out and threads her fingers through mine.

I frown at our joined hands.

I can’t even brush a kiss along her knuckles, not without opening a can of worms I’m really not ready to deal with. So reluctantly I give Callie her hand back.

“No, cherub.”

I see a little bit of hope shrivel up and die in her eyes.

You bastard, your mate has no one else.

Why does everything I do with this girl leave me so damn conflicted? There’s no middle ground with the two of us, it’s either all or nothing, and the more I toe the line that divides the two, the worse off we both are.

She rearranges herself in her bed, and I practically feel her pull away from me. I nearly growl at myself in frustration.

I use my magic to heat the room up to make her more comfortable; it’s the best I can do. A minute later she stops shivering, and several minutes after that, I hear her breathing even out.

Sick girl is out, which means I should go.

Instead, I sit down on the floor next to her bed, my back resting against the edge of her mattress.

What I would give to lay next to her! Even now I can imagine slipping under those covers and tucking her body into mine. It would be worth the heatstroke she’d give me.

Fuck propriety and whoever came up with it. I don’t think it’s doing either of us much good right now.

Using my magic, I call Callie’s colored pencils and a sheet of her computer paper to me, and then I begin drawing out my frustration. The image takes the shape of healthy Callie—how I will her to be.

I’ll leave once I finish, I promise myself.

It’s no accident that this particular portrait takes me longer to complete than it should. When it’s finished, I let it drift onto her computer chair.