Page 261 of Sorrow & Strangers

Chewing on my lower lip, I twist the ring on my finger. I haven’t taken it off in months, wearing it religiously to keep him at bay. Now, I’m not sure that’s what I want anymore. After another long moment, I take a deep breath and slowly slide it off my finger. I hold it between my forefinger and thumb, looking around the room, waiting with bated breath for something to happen, for him to bust into my room and take me, but nothing happens.

I exhale, letting out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding, and tap on the little Nexus icon. Unknown flashes up on the screen, and I barely breathe as it rings, once, twice, three times. The silence when it stops is louder than any noise I’ve ever experienced.

“Little fae.”

His voice is deeper than I remember, and my body reacts the same way it did the first time I heard it. The same way it has every time I’ve heard it. My breath hitches, and my body tingles. Fuck, I’ve missed him. Whether he deserves it or not, it’s the truth. I’m not sure at what point I went from vowing to spill his blood to missing him so desperately that my chest aches, but here we are. He doesn’t say anything else, and I can practically hear the tension between us.

“Stranger,” I exhale, my voice barely a whisper. Has he missed me?

“Hi,” he says, his voice softer.

I swallow, my stomach fluttering. “Did you do it?” I ask, but I already know the answer. I have known since Alice and I spotted her across the campus.

“You asked me to,” he says simply after a long pause.

“Why?” I ask. He has already answered, but I can’t understand why he would still be working to win my affection when I plainly told him where I stand, especially after I started having semi-regular relations with Max again.

“He matters to you.”

I look down at my finger, at the light mark where the ring used to sit. “I took the ring off.”

“I know,” he says matter-of-factly. He must have felt it. Perhaps his magic was always trying to find a way around it.

“Yet you’re not in my room.”

“It wasn’t an invitation. You and I both know that,” he says. “I felt it the second you slipped it from your finger.”

“What do you think it was, then?”

“A step,” he replies, and I hear a clink as he pours himself a drink. “Just like this call is.”

“I’ve been seeing Max,” I say, the words just surging from between my lips.

There is a long silence. “I know.” His voice tenses, but there is no anger, or if there is, he is masking it well. But that he knows means he is still watching me, and that is strangely comforting. It turns out that despite all that has happened, I have been concerned about him losing interest in me.

I know I need to say something, anything, but words fail me.

“Mira was being held prisoner,” he says after taking a deep drink, and I shiver as I imagine the way his throat bobs as he swallows.

“Why?” I ask.

“I’m not sure, but it wasn’t easy to find her. Or liberate her.”

“You liberated her?”

“I did. She found Avalon mostly on her own. I just left a few breadcrumbs for her to discover that it could be a sanctuary for her.”

“Was it dangerous?”

“Yes,” he says darkly, and the word sends a shock of awareness through me. “Very.”

“Tell me why you did it,” I say, releasing a shaky exhale.

There is another long silence before he replies. “For you.” His words would make me go to my knees if I weren’t sitting down already. I close my eyes and let his words wash through me, soaking them up.

“I missed you,” I whisper, the truth slipping out.

“I missed you too.”