Page 115 of Level Up for Love

Chapter

Thirty-Three

We don’t play Blood of the Tyrant again until the end of January.

Arthur plans a long anniversary trip with Hana on a whim, and when Shay’s invited to visit her new campus for the first time, Mona insists on going, too. For the hell of it, Colin takes an extended vacation to visit his girlfriend, leaving Wesley and me to focus on finalizing our games before NEWT.

In those fragile first few weeks of the year, we take things slow.

Wesley and I tentatively dance around each other, exploring just what this new phase means for us. When I work on the game at his apartment, I make sure to at least stay for coffee the next morning. When we go out for a drink after work, instead of folding my hands between my thighs, I trace his knuckles where his hand lies flat on the table before lacing my fingers with his. I bring him to restaurants we’ve never been to before, introduce him to my old friends from home, and lean into his side when he winds his arm around my waist.

As for our NEWT games, we haven’t shared them with each other again, not yet. There’s an unspoken understanding between us. We know we need this last month to ourselves to determine what exactly we want our games to be. What are our individual visions for them—and where do we want to take them next?

On the day of our last D&D session, Wesley is at my apartment helping me gather everything together. He’s wearing the deep red sweater that Mona knitted for him as a belated Christmas present.

I love the way he looks in a sweater.

“Are you sure about this?” he asks for the dozenth time.

“Yes. It’s fine.” My body is halfway lodged in my bookcase when I answer him. Where the fuck did I put my notes? “Did you order the pizza?”

“Over an hour ago.”

As if summoned, a demanding knock sounds on the door.

Wesley asks, “Want me to—”

I stand and brush myself off. “No, no. It’s fine.” As I pass him, I rise onto my toes to plant a peck on his cheek as an extra assurance, then I unlock my door and swing it open.

Colin shoulders his way in first, followed by Arthur, Shay, and a grinning Mona. She wraps me in an unexpectedly tight hug as the others set their things down in the front room, where yesterday Mona and Wesley helped me dust off my Wyrmwood table and prepare it for today’s session. All night—well, not all night, I think, tugging up my turtleneck—I’d followed Wesley’s careful directions as we remade the battle map he’d originally created at Game Knight.

Wesley flashes me a smile as he takes the pizza from the slightly stunned delivery person.

“Well,” I say, clipping my hands to my hips. “What do we think?”

Shay and Arthur are admiring the rest of my home while Colin runs his hand along the gleaming wood of the table. “I think you’ve been holding the fuck out on us, Reagan.”

When he’d told us that we couldn’t use the Dungeon Room anymore—our game was never meant to go past the holidays, and Game Knight had already filled our slot—hosting at my apartment suddenly seemed like the most obvious thing in the world.

I didn’t even need to think it over before I invited them all to come.

As we settle in, I catch a few glances at the way Wesley presses a kiss to my temple—Arthur’s eyes crease at the corners, and Mona’s have literally turned into heart emojis. Shay even meets my eye for long enough to give me a pleased nod of approval, and I melt a little to see genuine joy in her small smile as she looks between me and Wes. But after that, we draw out our character sheets and notebooks and ease into our usual routine.

It feels like home.

From the head of the table—a spot I’d been only too happy to relinquish for today—Wesley knocks on the playmat to get our attention. “Depending on how this battle goes,” he says, “this could be our last game, folks. Thank you for trusting me with this story and with your characters. It’s been a damn good ride.”

I can’t help but laugh, and the others join in with enthusiasm.

“The best,” I agree.

Mortimer spends most of the night using his spellcraft to unearth the extent of Vadrien’s pact with Nosferoth, and come morning, he lays out the facts for the rest of the party. They gather again in the armory, where Vadrien watches them from where he’s bound on the ground, red eyes slitted with bitterness.

“As I theorized,” Mortimer says, “the terms of this pact were bound in the infernal runes that mark both the metal of the crown and the ink on our dear prince’s head. Had he indeed been coronated last night, along with the ritual he had planned for every guest, it would have increased his power and Nosferoth’s immeasurably.”

As soon as the party secured the silver crown, something in the castle had shifted. The skeletons and undead had frozen in place, pausing halfway through their tasks as if awaiting their next orders. Antoni had been quick to appoint some undercover rebels from Garren’s chapel to help shepherd the guests out of the castle, with instructions to board their homes and let no one in—not until this was finished.

“The coronation ritual was dark, powerful magic that would require every guest to prick their finger and offer a drop of blood to the new king,” Mortimer continues. “The crown’s ruby would then be dipped into the offering and returned to the crown, which would be placed upon his head to seal the pact. Just those single drops would have granted Nosferoth—and, by extension, Vadrien—power over them. It would have been enough for them to control the population for years to come.”