Page 48 of Claimed By the Mothman

The bond crooned. He did not call out.

She did not smile, but she went inside, still clutching his bouquet in one hand.

Sig stood a long time after the door shut, one hand pressed to the wall, listening to the building breathe around her.

—

The Special Collections sorting room was unusually cooperative today, which meant the books weren’t biting, the floating scrolls weren’t phasing through the walls, and only one tome had tried to re-shelve itself.

Nell was grateful. She needed the quiet.

It had been a week since the claiming. The urgency in her blood had cooled, like embers buried under ash. Her body wasn’t screaming anymore. It just hummed sometimes—low and strange and constant—like background static she’d learned to live with. The mark between her thighs no longer pulsed like a threat. It ached quietly, like a bruise half-forgotten.

Her anger had ebbed, too. She staunchly refused to give it up, but it had dulled, muted by time and exhaustion and the slow, creeping realization that maybe the whole thing actuallyhadbeen about saving instead of taking.

She still hated the whole situation. Maybe even more so with that realization, because it made everything harder and less justifiably furious.

Now she was left with quieter, confusing feelings. She caught herself looking at the button for his floor when she stepped into the elevator. She hated how her hand lingered on the rail of the staircase, or how sometimes she dreamed about the feel of his claws and woke up feeling lonely instead of scared.

She’d tried to throw herself into work. Yesterday she’d reclassified an entire cart of misfiled grief manuscripts just to stay busy. But every time her hands stilled, her treacherous brain wandered back to him and to the strange, oddly beautiful bouquet she’d found on her doorstep.

Today, she and Goldie sat on opposite ends of a long velvet-padded bench beneath a skylight. Between them, a pile of oddly-shaped returns teetered like a tiny, magical Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Goldie sipped her iced chai, eyes dancing. “So, about your broody mothman.”

Nell groaned, dragging her hands down her face. “Please don’t call him that.”

“Sorry, sorry. About your emotionally tormented cryptid with apparently a love language of foliage.”

“That’sreallynot helping.”

Goldie twirled her straw innocently. “What did you do with the bouquet?”

“It’s…” Nell hesitated. “On my counter.”

“Oooh.” Goldie grinned. “So we’renotthrowing away the weird gift?”

“I didn’t know what to do with it! What if it curses me if I toss it? What if it calls him like a bat signal?”

“Or,” Goldie said, drawing out the word like she was speaking to a particularly adorable but confused puppy, “what if it just means he’s trying? In an awkward, possibly-traumatized way?”

Nell picked at a loose thread on her cardigan, staring at the return cart like it might offer an answer. “I don’t know what he wants. I don’t know whatIwant. I didn’t get to choose any of this.”

Goldie’s expression shifted. The teasing faded from her voice.“Do you want to?”

Nell sucked in a breath. “What?”

“Choose,” Goldie said. “Even if it’s messy and terrifying.”

Nell looked down at her hands. “I’m afraid to,” she whispered, the honesty ripping from her like a prayer.

There was a long silence between them. One of the books on the bench sighed.

Then Goldie perked up like a cat who’d just spotted a doomed canary. “You know what would help? Jem and Hollis invited us to the dinner party this weekend, remember?” She leaned in, eyes glittering. “You should invite him.”

“Ican’tdo that!” Nell wailed, and one of the books on the shelving cart toppled over in shock. “It’s not my party! That’s like hijacking someone else’s wedding to propose!”

Goldie waved a hand, unconcerned. “Details. Jemlivesfor drama. I’ll message her—she’ll think it’s romantic.” She wagged a finger at her friend with an evil grin on her face. “And I notice you didn’t sayno, absolutely not.”