Page 56 of Fanged Embrace

And that was fine, that was safe—but that was not what she did.

I was too lost in the barren landscape of my own head to even notice at first. To feel her arms wrapping around me, her body shrouding mine where I curled on the floor. I barely registered her hands reaching for my face, brushing the wetness from under my eyes.

It was only when she pulled me onto her lap and laid my head on her chest that I returned to the present, to the steady throb of her heart against my temple. That beat pulled me back, grounding me in the moment—and my first instinct was to recoil. To pull back from her kindness like it burned.

But like I said, I was tired. Exhausted. Hollowed out. So I lay there and let her rock me until every tear ran dry. Until I was conscious enough to feel shame again, and desperate to hide from her judgment.

“I’m sorry.” My voice emerged cracked and broken, barely there and fading just as fast as it arrived. “I’m sorry. I can leave—I’ll go.”

But River only shook her head, held me tighter, and I heard the double meaning loud and clear in her reply. “No. No, don’t say that. I don’t want you to go.”

I didn’t deserve kindness, but my body insisted on craving it.

Later that night, after I’d wrung my voice box for everything it was worth, River led me out of the kitchen without a word. She didn’t comment on the meltdown, didn’t offer up any more hopeless reassurance. All she did was pick me up off the floor, and walked like a brace at my side while I hobbled down the hallway toward the guest room.

I was fine with the silence. I had nothing left to say that hadn’t already been stated loud and clear.

When we made it to the door River released me, her face a calm mask while I hovered in the doorway. I searched her eyes for judgment, disappointment, maybe even disgust—and found none of it. Only a weak smile and tired eyes, fathomless black and glistening gold. They never once left my face as she bid me goodnight.

She closed the door behind her, and then I was alone. And free to face the shame of my outburst.

The bed was tempting, but sleep was not often the comfort it should have been. So instead, I hauled myself toward the bathroom and stripped, determined to rinse off the ordeal with clean water.

Normally, I’d sit on the floor of the shower with my bowed head pressed against the wall, staring into space until the geyser inevitably ran cold. Tonight, I predicted, would be much the same.

I stepped in without testing the temperature.

Hot water blasted my shoulders so fiercely I yelped and stumbled, hand smacking painfully against the tile. I blinked through steam, ready to curse at the ache, when the bathroom door exploded inward.

River barreled in, arriving in seconds like she’d been waiting outside the door. “Are you all right?!”

“Jesus Christ!” My voice ricocheted around the bathroom and River yelped in return, startled by my shriek of surprise.

For a heartbeat, we just stared at each other. Her, frantic but still looking fantastic, and me, gripping the shower wall white-knuckled and stark naked, dripping like a drowned rat.

Then River tilted her head. “Are you okay?”

“Am I—” Mortified, I thrust an arm over my bare chest, grabbed the nearest towel and flung it at her face, flustered beyond reason. “Get the fuck out, I’mnaked!”

River caught the towel with one hand and promptly covered her eyes with the other. “Right—sorry. Sorry. I’ll just—” she waved the towel in the vague direction of the door, backing up with an apologetic grimace. “I’ll just be going then.”

I stood stock still while she closed the door behind her, then flushed an even deeper red when her voice trickled in through the gap. “I’ll make some tea, if you’re up for it.”

“Oh my god, go away!” I chucked a sponge at the door, and the wet thump was followed by faint laughter as she retreated.

I stood staring at the sponge on the floor, burning up for reasons outside of scalding water.

Just like that, she’d broken through my barriers, severing the lingering tension with a badly timed entrance. I’d fallen apart on her kitchen floor, I’d told her the inevitable end I was rushing toward, and I made it clear there was nothing she could do to stop me. And still, she persisted.

She treated me like a person, not a project with a fast-approaching expiration date. And because of that, I could breathe.

27

River

The next day I found myself sitting on Ursula’s sofa, bouncing an incredibly energetic kid up and down on my knee, and staring off into space until the young witch snapped her fingers in front of my nose.

“Ursula to old lady—you having a vision or something?”