Page 49 of The Rust in Her Hair

Dammit. Not again.

"I'm sorry," I say, trying like hell to change the subject.

"What for?"

"For everything. For sneaking into the library, then making you bring me here."

"You didn't make me do anything," he says firmly. "I brought you here because I wanted you to be safe."

I let out a hard breath through my nose. That isn't how it happened, and we both know it, but I don't have the fight in me to argue.

"Something happened last night." My voice comes out flat and careful, the words picked up one at a time and set down gently, because if I hold them at arm's length they can't reach me. "At my parents' house. I couldn't stay there. So I ran."

"Lyra." His eyes drop to my wrists and come back up. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine." I plaster an automatic smile on my face, the same bright practiced thing I've worn to a thousand dinners. My mother trained it into me before I was ten. Chin up, pleasant face, nothing showing. "Really. I'm fine."

Owen tilts his head. He doesn't say anything, just looks at me, patient, until my fake smile starts to shake at the edges and I feel the whole practiced mask threaten to slide off my face.

Then, moving very slowly, he steps in and folds both arms around me.

I go stiff for half a second, then I sink into it. He's warm and solid, and he smells like every good thing in this world.

"You're safe now," he whispers into my damp hair. "Do you hear me? Nobody will hurt you here."

I nod against his shirt, letting myself be held.

And it's shameful, but a small shiver moves through me at the feel of it.

Owen has never held me before. A whole year of simple touches, our fingers brushing when he hands me a book, but nothing more than that. But now his arms are all the way around me and his heart beats steadily against my ear.

Something bright flickers under my skin, low and quiet and alive, and after the night I've had, it has no business feeling this good.

But it does.

I make myself step back before I can want more than I'm allowed. "I won't stay long," I say. "I promise. Just until I figure out where to go."

"You can stay as long as you want," he says with zero hesitation. "I mean it."

Warmth pushes up through my exhaustion. I want so badly to believe it's that simple.

"Your husband might have something to say about a stranger in his house," I point out. "You two have a whole life here, and I'll be in the way." He opens his mouth, and I keep going before he can. "And my father will find me eventually. He always does. It's only a matter of when."

His mouth closes. He breathes out slowly through his nose, before he finally nods.

"I'm sorry," he finally says. "I don't know how to fix any of that. I wish I did." He reaches out and tucks a loose strand of damp hair behind my ear, his knuckle grazing my cheek on the way. "But I like having you here, Lyra. I like knowing that you’re safe."

The warm flicker goes through me again, and the guilt comes right behind it. I drop my gaze to the floor, staring at Owen's socked feet and my bare ones beside them.

I like being here too.

The thought pushes up against my teeth, but I swallow it back down where it belongs. He's a married man. It doesn't matter how safe his arms feel or how good this house smells. I don’t belong here.

"Lie down." Owen's voice softens. "I'll get the spare room made up, but in the meantime, nobody's going to bother you in here."

I don't argue. I don't have it in me. I climb onto the big bed, too worn out to feel strange about it, and the door clicks shut behind him.

For a moment I just lie there and let my eyes wander the room. It's such a cozy space, lived-in and warm, nothing in it trying to impress anyone.