He shifts back to the joy meter and bends down. There’s a click, and he stands and holds out the device that’s been funneling off Christmas’s joy.
I take it from him, limbs stiff, motion automatic.
My gaze stays on his, though, and his shame breaks in a tumult of panic when I don’t react.
“This is why you’re really here?” He nods at the device.
“Yes,” I whisper. “You left a clover behind.”
He winces. He didn’t intend to leave it, then. “I’ll pay you back for every ounce of joy,” he says quickly. “I’ll make it up to you, I swear I’ll—” He stops, eyes teary. “You’re na angry, Kris?”
I fiddle with the device. It’s easier than seeing another choice I’m making, and it might be the wrong choice—itisthe wrong choice—but walking away is a wrong choice, too.
Maybe sometimes, a bad choice can result in goodness.
Because sometimes, a good choice can result in pain.
“I went searching for your joy meter that day I left you at the music festival,” I tell him. “I saw the device on it.Youplanted the device in Christmas. Not Malachy.”
His lips thin.
“You’re na upset?” He sounds, honestly, baffled.
My throat cracks on a helpless laugh. “No. I should be, but—fuck, no. I’m not. I—” I bite my lower lip, heart beating hard. “We’ll figure it out.”
He said he’ll pay us back. That’s all we ultimately need from this, our joy back, so Christmas can pay the other winter Holidays what we owe them. Everything else, blame and repercussions…
He twitches towards me but catches himself again, and my gut knots up at his restraint.
“I need to touch you, Kris,” he begs.
Don’t ask. Don’t ever ask. The answer’s always yes.
My arms spread, and he dives in, face pressing into the bend of my shoulder. He clings to me so tightly, so intently, that every piece of my soul remakes itself to fit the way he holds me. I shouldn’t wantto conform to fit him, but it isn’t like the way I’d get with other people—this isn’t chipping away pieces of myself, it’s like all my pieces bloom even fuller, vines reaching for the sun.
I’m hit with a careening bolt of terror.
It doesn’t happen this fast.
I cannot have fallen for himthis fast.
“Congratulations are in order,” I say into his neck, hoping he misinterprets my racing heart, or thinks it’s his own—his pulse is galloping under my lips. “King Lochlann.”
He goes to iron, his grip on me crushingly tight for a moment before he loosens. I think he might push me away but he untangles my arms from his neck to plant my hands on his hips, one still holding that device. His fingers drape around my wrists and he rests his forehead to mine so when we speak it’s in our own little cave.
“It’ll backfire,” he says. “Malachy will—”
“Malachy won’t do shit. What can he do?”
“I—” His throat contracts. “He has access to some magic as part of the family, so he might na notice right away. But once he does, I do na know what he’ll do.”
“Cut him off completely. See how he likes it.”
Loch huffs. “I canna—I will na be like him.”
Fuck this guy and his sexy honor.
“Could you do me a favor,” I moan, “and be like alittlerepulsive in some area? Just one. I don’t even care what it is. I need you to not be so inhumanly attractive.”
