He called me perfect. He called meperfect. My heart is full to bursting, and as I kiss him back, I realize, in half a heartbeat: I am truly, deeply in trouble.
Because how many other women has he said those exact same words to?
“Harrisford,” I whisper. My tone has changed sufficiently that it’senough for him to pull back slightly and give me a quizzical look. “This is just a…onetime thing, isn’t it? Just for tonight.”
He stills for a moment, gazing at me, one hand still twined in my hair. Then he gives the most minuscule of nods. “Sure,” he says, lowering his mouth to my neck. “Just tonight.”
I let out a sigh, relieved. This is just a transient moment; just something to purge him from my system. The kiss at the gala…was just an appetizer. This, what we just did, was a full and satisfying meal. And I should be satisfied—how many times have I imagined him joining me in this very bed? How many times have I come on my own, clenching around my own fingers that I desperately wished were his? Perhaps now, since the real-life Harrisford has given me what is arguably the best orgasm of my life, I can finally put to rest the ridiculous thoughts I’ve been having about him and our nonexistent future.
We have no future, Harrisford and me. In just over a week, he’ll be graduating first at Seamere, and I’ll be nothing but a vet school dropout. And we’ll go our separate ways, and never see each other again, and he can bed as many nurses named Lucy as he wants without having to bear witness to my jealousy.
Perhaps, if I can’t graduate, I can devote my life to figuring out the cause of the surges—and stop them. Harrisford can have his illustrious Ministry career, while I’ll just carry on quietly in the background, trying to save the world.
I’d been so lost in my thoughts that I hadn’t noticed Harrisford had moved, easing himself behind me. Both of his arms are wrapped around my waist, his nose and lips buried in my hair, my backside nestled snugly against the still-present evidence of his arousal. I give my butt an experimental wiggle, and his grip tightens.
“Chan,” he growls warningly, his voice low at my ear. “Go to sleep.”
I stop moving, deep, bone-rending fatigue making my limbs all heavy. I’m sated, I’m spent, and Harrisford’s warmth is surrounding me, enveloping me like a cocoon…Yet somewhere deep in my chest, the tiniest crack appears, all empty and hollow inside.
The tears are back. I close my eyes, my heart fracturing, all too aware that now—post-orgasm—Harrisford and I are no longer on a first-name basis.
When I wake, sunlight is already streaming through the window, and Harrisford is gone…because of course he is. I curl up into a ball, my body going cold, the absence of his touch conspicuous.
Yes, I’ve been trying to convince myself that Harrisford Briggs means nothing to me. That after one night of mind-blowing oral sex, I’d be satisfied enough not to miss him. But I know now: I’ve been fooling myself.
I’m such a fucking loser.
It takes me a long time to roll over and face the empty space in the bed beside me, the rumpled bedsheets that still smell faintly like his cologne. But when I finally do, there’s a slip of parchment neatly folded upon his pillow. Could it be…a note? From Harrisford?
My heart is racing as I unfold it with stiff, shaky fingers. The paper is heavy, almost as thick as cardboard.
It’s not a note. The words on it are printed, not handwritten, except for a messily scrawledXXin the lower right-hand corner. And there’s an address listed for somewhere in London.
I squint at it harder, my bleary, swollen eyes struggling to focus on the words, until finally, finally, my brain registers what I’m seeing.
License for a Familiar, the card reads.
Then, on the next line:For Lord Percival the Second.
37
Harrisford
I didn’t want to leave…I almost couldn’t bring myself to leave. But now I’m here, back at Seamere, and I cannot get her out of my head.
When I’d left, it was well before dawn. I’d stood over Gwendolynne’s sleeping form for a moment, watching the way the slanting moonlight cast shadows across her face. She looked so peaceful, so beautiful, that it was all I could do not to climb back into bed with her, put my face between her legs, and coax out more of those delicious sounds she’d made the night before.
Harrisford, she’d whispered to me in the darkness, and I swear to god this woman is going to be the death of me.
And yet, she’d said it plainly: For her, it was a onetime thing. To her, the kiss we shared at the gala meant nothing. She doesn’t want me in the way that I want her; for Gwendolynne, I was just a means to an end, a satiation of her desires so that she could get some sleep.
“Briggs, are you all right?” Marcus raises an eyebrow at me. “You seem a little…distracted this morning.”
We’re standing in the phoenix shed, assessing a bonded pair who—due to what I can only assume is related to the surges—are catching fire and then regenerating far too frequently. According toNeck’s seminal textbook,Internal Medicine and Surgery of Mythological Beasts, phoenixes usually regenerate once every five hundred years, at most. But this pair are doing it weekly. It’s burning up all their energy reserves and making them unable to channel magic. I’ve donned a pair of fireproof gloves, the type we usually use for dragons, and I’m supposed to be grabbing one of them by the legs so that we can examine the bird more closely.
“I’m fine,” I say, though it’s a lie, for my head is still full of Gwendolynne’s face; my nostrils still seared with her scent; my ears still ringing with how my name had sounded falling from her lips. “Just…had a late night, that’s all.”
Pushing open the gate to the pen, I prowl closer to the phoenix pair. They shuffle back into the far corner, letting out melodious wails, trying to escape me. When I’m close enough, I pounce—but not fast enough, for the phoenixes launch themselves into the air in a flurry of flying feathers before alighting at the opposite end of the pen, looking indignant. I land painfully on one shoulder, the shock so jarring I feel it in my teeth.
