Page 40 of A Courage of the Chosen

“We train that, too. I’m done hiding.”

The connection trickles with his hesitation.

“I have enough control now that I won’t lose it. You taught me that.” But his current emotions have nothing to do with my control, and we both know it.

“You once told me not to shy away from my light. It’s time you stopped hiding too, Callahan.”

Chapter 12

Callahan

After breakfast, Elsie decides she’s going to change into something lighter to train in. Everyone else agrees to meet us in the round chamber, and they filter out as I follow Elsie into her closet off the bedroom. She’s halfway out of her shirt when I enter, and I slide my hands around her waist, drawing her against me.

The first time I held her close, I was shaken down to my core at how perfectly she fit there, and how much the thought that I wanted her there for the foreseeable future terrified me. A future that started to materialize the moment my eyes clasped on her, no matter what I told myself otherwise.

She wrestles herself free of the fabric and looks at our reflection in the full-length mirror. My hands move of their own accord to her breasts, cupping them in my palms as she leans into me.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish, Knox.” Her smile is small, and her eyelids flutter as I begin playing with her nipples through the thin layer of her bra.

“You know I’ve got no problem finishing, Aitken.”

My mouth drops to her neck, my tongue tracing a path from behind her ear, down to the purple bruise on her collar bone. It’ll be gone in a few hours, but the sight of it summons a possessive, baser version of me that wants her all to myself, spread open and naked.

There’s only one thing that stops me from doing just that.

Her scent.

The thing about secrets that very few understand, is that hiding something changes someone’s smell. Only very subtly, and you have to be damn observant to notice it.

I’ve always been the type that takes in every detail about a person, able to work them out within a few seconds of meeting them.

What’s wrecking me is the fact that, since I’ve arrived in the city, Elsie carries those undertones. Something acidic that’s largely masked by the delicate scent of a crisp winter dawn that’s uniquely her.

It wasn’t there the night we spent wrapped up in each other in Lassodie. I want to scream at her. Shake her and demand that she tell me what’s going on. I thought it might have been related to the Craobh Beatha, but even after her confession, it’s lingered.

And it’s pissing me the fuck off.

Before, I’d have pushed her in training until it snapped out of her anyway, when she was exhausted and her mental walls were wavering enough that her secrets spilled out. She was volatile in those early days, and I needed to know what was going on with her, what was driving the rage that burned so hot.

Now, I want her to confide in me because she trusts me.

“They’re waiting for us,” Elsie breathes, pliable in my hands, but not fully.

I reach for her down the connection, opening myself completely. She meets me halfway along the invisible bridge, but that thing she’s holding onto is there, sealed behind an impenetrable shield that even I can’t get past.

There’s no denying the change, and I hate that she doesn’t feel like she can share whatever she’s carrying. A part of me doesn’t blame her. It’s hypocritical of me to want Elsie to be so open, when I’ve been closed off and guarded for longer than she’s been alive.

Dhia, that makes me sound like a creep, even if it is true.

I also haven’t shown her that, no matter what happens, I’ve chosen her. The first thing I’ve done for myself in as long as I can remember. I have no right, and I’m not worthy of her, but I’ve done it anyway. If she’ll have me, of course.

She broke through every single one of my barriers, prying out parts of me that I’d long thought had been stripped away by this war. She revived them, breathed light into them, and healed fractures I didn’t know were there.

So, instead of insisting she tell me, I’ll be patient. For her, I’ll do anything.

“Let them wait,” I say instead, kissing her neck. Her jaw. Drawing her mouth toward mine in an attempt to persuade her to allow me another taste.

“We need to go.” Even mind-to-mind, she’s breathless, her resistance to the heat between us crumbling the more I tease.