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“Cupid,” I mutter, squeezing my eyes shut. “But he bites instead of the arrow deal.”
“He is a bat. But, yes, seems so.”
“He thinks you’re being an idiot.”
He doesn’t argue with that, which tells me plenty.
I lean back far enough to see his face, which isn’t far. “You left.”
His jaw works. “Yes.”
“Right after I broke the curse. When you didn’t need me anymore.” My voice cracks, and my throat tightens, and I hate it. “It’s fine. I’m used to it. You can just say so.”
He goes very still.
“You think I left because I was done with you?”
“Didn’t you?”
He growls. “I left… because I love you.”
I hear his teeth snap together, and we both stare at each other. He draws a deep breath, and a low growl sounds from his chest.
“I love you, and it is not supposed to happen. I am a god of fear, Dolly. I do not fall in love.”
“And you left because you’d rather be away from me than fall in love?”
“Dolly.” He peels me away from his body, but the force tugging us together remains. He takes my face in his hands. “When you fell, you were afraid, and I tasted it.” His thumbs shake against my cheeks. “Nine hundred years of hunger woke up all at once. Your fear aroused me in a way I did not want, and for one breath, I considered it. My hunger took hold. I left because I would rather tear out my own heart than look at you the way I looked at the others. Or hurt you.”
Oh.
Oh, you big dumb goat.
“Did you still want it after that one breath?”
“No.” Instant. “It turned my stomach. But I felt a hatred for myself I’ve never felt before. I thought, what if it happens again and I cannot control myself?”
“Then here’s the thing,” I say. “I’ve been scared exactly twice since you pulled me off that stake. One was the stairs. The other was the last four hours. So, did you still want to…eat me?”
He stares at me.
“Not scared of you, Daddy,” I tell him. “I’m scared of you leaving.”
He makes the same sound he did when I said his name. He folds down right there on the steps and pulls me into his lap, all of me, and holds on like the stairs might try to take me again.
“Daddy will never leave you,” he says into my hair. “Not to protect you. Not for any reason. If I am ever afraid of what I am, I will be afraid of it right here, where I can see you. But I do want to eat you.” He tips his head, and those lips pull back again, only this time, I think it’s a smile. “Better to eat you with. Isn’t that from a human story?”
His tongue laps around his snout, then flicks down to tickle me under the chin before lifting my glasses off my nose.
He reaches up to take them from his tongue, and a tiny stab of insecurity whips through me.
“Hey. What are you—?”
“You put these on to hide.” He folds them, one arm down and then the other, the way he did the first night. “You will not hide from me. I will never look past you, Dolly. There is nothing past you.”
I don’t cry. I don’t.
My face is just very wet for no reason.
