Page 31 of Faun Over Me

“It’s so easy to make you blush,” she answered, smiling so broadly the tiny slit in her upper lip split, her flat teeth on display. Facing Avery, she cupped the back of her neck. “Like a game.” Her gaze heated, eyes dropping to Avery’s mouth. “I like playing.”

“I—” Her skin went from flushed to burning. Thoughts began and frittered away; words wouldn’t form. All she could focus on was the soft brush of Cricket’s thumb along her jaw. How close they stood. Just as close as they had when she—

This is insane.

It was one thing to touch herself to thoughts of the faun but another thing entirely to act on those whims where anyone could have seen them. She was the assistant director, for goodness’ sake. What was she doing messing around with a … a monster.

And just as quickly as that nasty thought formed, her brain and body rejected the idea. Yes, Cricket was a monster. She was inhuman. She was real and warm and kind and she challenged Avery, pushing her beliefs and nudging her in the direction she was too afraid to travel on her own.

And she’d made her feel.

Anger, frustration, worry, arousal.

She flinched back as all of those thoughts pounded that initial bias to a fast, thorough death.

“It’s alright.” Cricket’s hand fell away. She stepped back, putting space between them.

“No, wait, I—”

“You were scared, I get it.” She limped away, hands fisted at her sides. “High emotional state, or whatever. I’m still walking you home.”

Avery followed for a few steps, her mind churning through explanation after explanation. The simplest was best, of course, but did anyone ever believe, “It’s not you, it’s me?” And then she realized she was following the faun to her cabin, not leading, and the horror at her own flinch faded beneath curiosity. “How do you know which cabin is mine?”

“You wake up early.” She shrugged. “I saw you leaving the other day.”

Oh, thank goodness—an opening.

“So you have been spying on me.” She kept her tone light and teasing, wanting to reclaim that soft moment before she flinched for all the wrong reasons. Cricket kept silent, so she tried again. “What were you doing awake?”

“Faun are crepuscular,” she answered, gripping the stair rail to Avery’s cabin.

“That’s the dawn and dusk thing, right?” she asked. Sanoya had mentioned it weeks ago, in one of the rare instances she was in their shared cabin. Avery had been complaining about a student falling asleep in her mid-morning composition class, and the Life Sciences Instructor had rattled off the word.

“You cannot expect a kitsune to stay awake in a class that starts at ten thirty,” Sanoya explained. “They are crepuscular, like my companion. You have never seen a hidebehind out and about in full daylight, have you?”

Avery hadn’t had the heart to tell Sanoya she’d never seen a hidebehind at all, much less knew what one was. Still, the lesson had stuck: crepuscular animals and inhumans were active in the twilight hours.

“No wonder you’re always in a bad mood when I see you,” she teased again. Cricket scrunched her nose, ears twitching in annoyance.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you are cranky and moody, and now I know why,” she hummed, striding up the steps and to the door. Floorboards creaked at her back as she sauntered inside, the faun following close behind. The cabin was empty, Sanoya’s half neat, tidy, and untouched. Avery sat on her bed, sighing as she took the weight off her injured leg. Cricket came to a standstill before her, settling her weight on one leg, lean arms crossed over her front.

Avery tugged off her shoe and peeled the blood-stained sock from her foot, frowning at it before leaning over the edge of the bed to toss it into the trashcan. Cricket watched her do so, her arms slowly dropping to her sides. She glanced around the room, spotting the white crate with a red cross Avery kept on a table near the door. Without being asked, she limped over, grabbed the first aid kit, and set it on the bed next to Avery.

“Thank you.”

“I’m not cranky,” Cricket snapped in reply.

“See? That right there. You go from friendly”—Avery’s belly flipped at the thought of just how friendly—“to off-putting with the flip of a switch. And I only see you at meal times, when you’ve only just woken up or are about to go to sleep. Cranky.”

“You make me sound like a child.”

“You said it, I didn’t.”

Cricket’s ears flicked, bouncing the curls that kept them hidden. She exhaled loudly through her nose, rolled her eyes, and dropped to the floor. Though the motion was smooth, it was startling. One moment, the faun was towering over Avery, and then her knees—or were they ankles?—bent backward, and she collapsed to a long-legged sit on the wooden planks. Bending at the waist, she hauled the first aid kit off the bed and flipped the locks.

“I’m not a child,” she said. “Haven’t been for a long while.” The topmost tray was set on the floor, her ears shook her curls, her nose twitched, and she selected a bottle of saline and a bottle of peroxide, talking as she pulled off her muscle tank and held it under Avery’s calf. “I’ve been in the woods since I was five. I think. Time is different here, but my mom always says I was five summers when we fell through.”

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