Page 37 of Legendary

He was so tall, I had to look up at him from where I stood, my head at his bicep. We were toe to toe, the tips of our high-top sneakers touching. I reached up and yanked his arm away from his neck. “The bathroom floor isn’t comfortable I presume?”

Nicholas gave me an awkward chuckle. “I guess not.”

“You want to explain to me why you were really on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night?”

“I already said why.”

“We all know that was a lie.”

He sighed. “It wasn’t.” His words said one thing, but his eyes said something different. They were almost a little sad—sad and tired. What the hell happened between the time I left him to right now? He and I were on the same wavelength, wanting the other to figure something out that we weren’t willing to say up front. At least when it came to me, it would be as simple as him just not being so logical and overthinking everything. What I wanted didn’t require thought and Nicholas could outthink the best of them. He was the one keeping his emotions close to his chest on this one.

I hummed as I settled with letting him keep whatever was going on to himself for now. “Fine, fine I’ll leave it.” We both knew I would find a way to bring it up later. I looked at his neck again, remembering the way he was really trying to dig his fingers into his neck muscles. “Seems like you could use a neck massage.”

“Are you offering?” he asked, smirking.

Oh, there he was. Confident little shit. The sadness in his eyes was still there, but they shined a little with his not-so-subtle flirting.

“Mmm...no. You haven’t earned that. But when you figure out what I want then maybe I’ll massage more than just your neck. Deal?” I traced my finger along his chin and turned on my heels away from him.

I was an action kind of girl and Nicholas coming here with me, fighting next to me, made my stomach flip but what I really wanted was for him to tell me I wasenough. That I was accepted and that his prior words were stupid, and he took them all back. I wanted him to tell me that I could be whatever kind of hybrid, halfling, whatever the fuck and he would still see me just the same. A simple I’m sorry was way too broad. I wanted him to tell methosewords.

And if that meant I had to bring him to his knees for him to say it, so be it.

NICK

Beetee made sure we were all fed before we headed out to wherever her friends were located. I readjusted my sword behind my back as we all waited for the pink-haired demon to come back to the lounge area. Most of the patrons I saw earlier in the day had left or had headed back to their rooms. I’d been told that the hostel was pretty quiet around this time and not much happened unless it was early morning or late at night. I didn’t let it be known that I hadn’t heard anything last night since I had another episode that nearly took me out…again. And I’d had to save face with everyone when Reese decided to word-vomit unnecessary details about what happened.

I recovered as best I could, but I knew Dani was starting to get suspicious of my mood so I would have to fix that. I wanted to take her into another room and explain everything to her, just let someone else in on my thoughts and how dark my mind could really get, but I couldn’t do it. After the fight, after I saw that familiar look on her face, I couldn’t bring her down with myown baggage.

Beetee skipped towards us, her ankle boot covered feet making small thuds on the wood floor. “Are we ready?”

We all started to head towards the front door, but she shook her head. She looked over her shoulder. “Follow me, please.” She motioned for us to follow her as she turned around and started heading in the other direction. She led us towards the back of the hostel as we passed rooms we had seen before, but eventually I saw a door that had a small window near the top. The odd lighting from the sky outside shined through.

Beetee placed her hand on the door and pushed it open, the humid air immediately hitting my skin. Purgatory in the daytime, if you could even call it that, was much different than whatever time we had gotten here yesterday. It wasn’t the kind of humidity that was suffocating, but there was no breeze to help it out as I stepped outside. The sky was actually kind of beautiful once you really looked at it. There were reds and oranges that ran together in a blended haze.

It had been so dark when we got here that I couldn’t get a good look at anything. The trees were tall, but the branches were bent and every few moments it sounded like one was cracking and falling to the ground. The leaves weren’t as lush and vibrantly green as they were in Heaven’s Gate. They were a dark brown or dark yellow color, almost as if this place was in a perpetual state of autumn. The forest we were looking at wasn’t quite as ominous as it was before the fight, but there was something that crawled up my spine when I looked at it straight on. It wasn’t scary really, just that there was more than what you were initially looking at.

“You want us to trek through the woods? That didn’t bode well last time.” Reese pointed out, tilting his head left and right to try and get a view into the depths of the woods.

“You don’t have to come, Blondie. You can just stay here and wait for the two sharp teeth twins to come back.” Elise smirked.

“No, I’m just saying we could just fly,” Reese said as if that was the obvious answer.

Beetee giggled. “Oh of course, two angels flying high in the sky. I thought you didn’t like all the demon attention.” She put her hands on her hips. “I already have—”

Reese pinched the bridge of his nose and cut her off. “Fine, another idea. How about they fly and carry us, you know payback for when we had to do it.”

I immediately gave him my answer to that. “I don’t like the idea of being cradled in the sky by them, or by anyone, so no.” Reese raised both his hands up in disgruntled defeat. I ran a finger over my healed cheek and watched asDani seemed to be distracted. She was looking around as if something had caught her eye, or she’d heard something that alarmed her. “What’s wrong?”

She ignored me and started going around to the side of the hostel. I looked over at Reese who had his eyebrows raised as he waited. Dani returned a moment later empty handed and shrugged. “I thought I heard something, but I guess not.” She still looked skeptical as if there was no way she could have been wrong.

“What did you think you heard?” I asked.

“Panting.”

“Panting?” Elise mimicked, her voice sounding as if that was the weirdest answer she’d ever heard.

I was about to say something when Reese cut me off. “Well, that’s fucking weird—” A rustle from nearby caught his attention. “The fuck.” He turned around looking towards where the sound had come from.

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