Still, she seems to debate saying whatever is on her mind. And I always want her to tell me what’s on her mind. I want to know everything about her. I could probably spend my next 333 years just listening to Maeve tell me what she thinks, what she feels, what she fears.
Her gaze hardens in that courageous way I’ve come to expect from her. “It’s like we belong to each other.”
The words make my heart squeeze, and she draws a breath, as if hers just did the same.
“Then you do understand,” I say into the firelit room. “You understand that I’m yours now,furtuna mea.” I clench my teeth for a moment, battling down the emotion trying to rise into my eyes. “Until you no longer want me. I’m yours.”
The hardness in her eyes falls away. She leans forward and captures my lips with hers, and I feel, for the first time in centuries, like maybe I can let someone else take control.
And maybe that someone is Maeve Vandermere.
Chapter 36
Maeve
WHEN I RETURN TO THE castle the following afternoon, I find the dorm room empty. Isis isn’t even around, which means I’m completely alone.
This leaves me to unpack my overnight bag in the quiet. I put it on my bed, open the flap, and start removing the clothes I had on yesterday when I went to the inn. With every folded article of clothing I take from the bag, I remember the evening.
Severin sitting in the armchair, still looking uncertain. Then the feel of his body pinning mine to the mattress, his fangs in my throat. And after, when he looked into my eyes and told me that he’smine.
Thinking about it makes the wound on my neck tingle with heat. I reach up and trail my fingers over the puncture wounds, wincing at the throb of pain. They’re scabbed over, already healing after Severin drew his tongue across the marks, but when I glance at them in the mirror, I see they’re still enflamed, each puncture wound encircled with red.
I don’t mind it, but Severin told me I have to keep them hidden while they heal; he doesn’t want anyone getting curious about who sunk their fangs into me.
After emptying my bag, I go to my vanity and pull a brush through my hair, then grab a thin autumn scarf and wrap it around my neck, hiding the bite marks. By the time I’m done, the girls still haven’t returned to the dorm room, so I decide to go in search of them.
They’re not in the bathhouse or in the dining hall. I catch Poppy’s friend, Beckett, in the main hall, and he tells me he saw her out in the courtyard.
“Thanks,” I say, lifting a hand to him as he rolls away in his wheelchair.
When I step outside, the sun is warm on my face, having chased away yesterday’s storm. It’s uncharacteristically pleasant for a November day, and it seems half the academy is outside right now, trying to soak up the last rays of warmth before winter sweeps in to steal it away.
I find the girls and Raelan near the Maze of Whimsy—the Whim for short—the semisentient hedge maze Poppy loves so much. They’re sprawled out on blankets in the grass, their shoes off, faces tipped to the sun. I step into the sunlight shining over Lyra, casting a shadow across her face, then wait for five seconds, until she scrunches her brow and opens her eyes to look up at me.
“Maeve! You’re back!”
Her voice rouses the others, along with Juniper and Yuki, who’re enjoying the sun also.
“Make room,” I say.
Lyra does, scooting over on her blanket so I can sink down into a cross-legged position next to her. The blanket is soft andwarm, and I immediately pull my boots off and let my bare toes wiggle in the sun.
And they all stare at me—even the rat and the arctic fox.
I arch a brow. “What?”
The girls exchange a look, and Raelan glances away, plucking a dandelion from the grass and blowing its seeds into the wind.
“Are you... okay?” Poppy asks gently. Her glasses catch the light from the sun as she tips her head at me, her lavender hair pale and wispy as spun sugar.
Oh, right.
They want to know about last night.
It’s not a secret that I went to the inn with the intention of spending the night with Severin and letting him feed from me. But until the moment he knocked on the door, I wasn’t sure he was going to come. And until the moment he pressed his fangs into my neck, I wasn’t sure he was going to drink from me.
And now they’re all waiting to know what happened.
