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“Man, for you two being so damn smart, you’re really fucking dense,” Calem said as he strolled away.
Ozias gave a small shrug. “Just check on him, will ya?”
“Sure.” I frowned at them as they left, but I was still too overjoyed by my time in the beast realm to care. And more importantly, I had Kost to thank for it. I wanted to run into his arms and kiss him senseless, but after this morning’s incident, I wasn’t sure that would be welcomed. If he didn’t want that, then I’d respect his wishes. But he deserved my thanks nonetheless. I made my way to our temporary home quickly, trying to formulate an apology worthy of everything I’d done. Every tasteless jab, every half-baked assumption. I just feared he’d refuse to accept it, because I couldn’t imagine an existence without him—platonic or romantic.
Pushing open the door, I entered the quiet house to find Ozias and Calem had unpacked their belongings, claiming the separate beds atop the loft area. My untouched bag was still on the small, tufted couch—likely where I’d be sleeping—which meant Kost had marked the single bedroom as his.
I knocked on the door. The sound echoed around me, and the silence that followed was grating. After a minute scraped by, I tried the handle and found it unlocked.
“Kost?” I peeked into his room. No one answered. Pushing the door open, I stepped into the small space dominated by a canopy bed. Twisted tree limbs with nimble branches arched toward each other, and a dusty-pink tulle overlay stretched above it like a cloud. A candle encased in a glass lantern had been lit, at least, and it flickered at me from the nightstand table. Kost’s bag was propped up against its legs, full and unopened. I glanced to the small, poplar armoire. We might not have been staying long, but I highly doubted he wouldn’t have organized the contents of his bag into the appropriate drawers.
A frustrated grunt sounded from somewhere outside, and I leaned against the windowsill to find Kost whirling in practiced patterns with a shadow rapier in hand.
Of course he was training. Still, the neatly packed bag nagged at me. Had he been running drills since the Council meeting? I knew how much I appreciated activity when my mind was restless. A thread of guilt snaked through my gut. No doubt he had a lot to think about. I exited the house and quietly moved around back, lingering in the shadows to watch him without immediately alerting him to my presence. He’d rolled the sleeves of his shirt above his elbows, and I couldn’t help but study the tantalizing, corded muscles of his forearms. The top button of his tunic was undone, but his sable vest was still in place. He summoned glittering, ink-black diamonds that moved wildly without any decipherable pattern, and he swiftly struck each one with his blade.
When he vanquished the last one, he let his arm go lax by his side. The tip of his rapier nicked a single blade of grass. “What can I do for you, Gaige?”
Even with his back turned to me, he’d detected my presence. I stepped away from the sturdy wall of the house and walked toward him. “Ozias and Calem said to join them for dinner.”
“I’ll have to decline.” He summoned more floating diamonds and poised to strike the nearest one. “I’m not hungry.”
“Me neither.” I tracked his precise movements with a mixture of awe and want. Our kiss had keyed me into his body with newfound longing. I’d always desired him, but now it was an ache that’d gone on for too long, and I itched to taste him again. Several times over if he’d allow it.
When I didn’t leave, he let out a tight sigh. “Is there something else I can do for you? I hardly doubt you’re here to practice shadow work.” A single diamond remained, and he jabbed it with a furious rapidness that seemed entirely unnecessary.
“I just returned from the beast realm. Leena found a way for me to visit my beasts again. I won’t be able to stay as long as I usedto or summon them here, but at least I can see them.” I grazed the keys hanging about my neck, unable to keep the smile from my face. “She said it was because of you.”
He stilled at that. “Me?”
I took his question as permission to inch closer. “Yes, you. She said you visited her when all this started.”
“You needed connection.” With a quick sweep of his arm, he fashioned another annoying barrage of diamond targets. “You didn’t seem to be getting it from…anyone here, so I looked for an alternative.”
“Thank you.” Those words hardly seemed like enough to convey the gratitude I was feeling, but he wasn’t exactly making it easy.
“I’m glad it worked.” He speared three targets at once. The distorted wisps fell about him in a mess before disappearing into the night. “Anything else? If not, I’d rather be alone.”
I let out a wordless, frustrated exhale. “Would you just look at me, Kost?” Here I’d just shared with him news that promised to bring me joy and peace, and he hadn’t even deigned me worthy of a glance. He would rather stab stupid, harmless shadows into obliteration than talk. About my newfound ability, about us… And I was fucking over it. Clenching my hands into fists, I focused on the remaining diamonds hanging about us. I thought about all our missed opportunities, our hedged words and restrained desires. It was finally time for both of us to stop circling around each other and speak plainly.
Simultaneously, the diamonds exploded in glittering black stardust. Ink-black particles gracefully descended to the earth, and Kost spun in place to finally,finally, look at me. Shock plastered his expression, but he masked it behind a flinty glare within seconds.
“What do you want?” he asked. I hated that it sounded like a threat instead of a question.
Frustration simmered through my voice. “A ‘Thank the gods you got your beasts back’ would be a nice start.”
His knuckles turned white. “Iamthankful you got your beasts back. I’m so thankful that you can finally focus on training and getting your shadows under control. I’m so thankful that, unlike the rest of us, you’ve now lost nothing. Maybe now I can finally stop blaming myself for your predicament.”
“Lost nothing?” Part of me knew that it was dangerous to approach an undead assassin while he brandished a very deadly weapon, but I didn’t care. “Kost, I still died. I lostme.”
“And so did I!” He chucked his weapon to the side, and it clattered against stone before vanishing in a puff of smoky tendrils.
“This again? I know you died. Everyone at Cruor has died. I’m sorry I’m not like—”
“I lostyou.” His gaze cut into me with the precision of a blade. “I lost you when you died, and I lost you again when you rose because you weren’t the same. And I knew that would be the case, that it would be a struggle every step of the way, and I was more than willing to face every obstacle at your side, but you refused to eventry. You gave up, and it took allthisto make you even willing to try, when all the rest of us were fighting so hard to—” He cut himself off and took a sharp breath before finishing, “You always say that I can’t possibly comprehend what you’ve endured. The feeling is entirely mutual.” His lip curled upward, and he jerked his gaze away.
I didn’t know why it’d taken me so long to realize the depth of Kost’s feelings. Leena was right—I had been stubborn. Thick, really. So wrapped up in myself, I hadn’t picked up on the small pieces of Kost’s past that he had given me. I didn’t have all the details, but I didn’t need them. Not to see his struggles with intimacy, vulnerability. The fear of abandonment. It was all at the root of whateverheartache still plagued him. He may have buried his past, but it changed who he was after death. A tingling current of electricity coursed through me as realization as Leena’s words filled my mind.
He cares, and you know it.
