Page 501 of Flirting with Darkness

Because it was Tor.

“See me as I really am,” he said, still holding out his hands.

The handsome blur of his face dropped away. In its place, there a rough-hewn face, with ram’s horns curling down from his temples. The hands he still held toward me were talons. He looked at me with a stony, far-away expression in his eyes, as if he were waiting to be rejected, and my heart twisted in my chest.

I took those last few steps and pressed my hands into his. The music picked up from the forest, high and triumphant. Silvery specks swirled around us, and I wondered if it was magic. Since Tor came into my life, I’d begun to believe in magic.

He looked down at me as if he couldn’t believe I was there.

“I like this face best,” I said. He looked so sad, and I wondered if no one loved him the same way no one loved me. I touched his cheek gently, cradling it, and he looked down at me in surprise. “I love you.”

The seconds hung between us. I wished I could take those words back.

He leaned down and brushed his lips against my forehead in a soft tender kiss. The wind picked up around us, and the silvery specks seemed like a wild blur.

“I love you too,” he whispered. Then he pulled back. “Is that all they say, for the wedding?”

My heart had lifted, then plunged, in the space of seconds.

I cleared my throat. “They would say wedding vows. Like,I promise to be by your side, for richer or for poorer, in sickness or in health…”

“I promise,” he said.

“It’s just pretend.” I said again, trying to convince myself.

A voice called from the house, and my head whipped around, a sudden rise of terror biting into my gut.

“It’s my mother,” I said, yanking my hands from his. “I have to go.”

“Am I still invited in?”

“Of course,” I said impatiently. “Always. You can always come visit me, Tor. But I have to go now.”

I turned and ran for the house.

When I reached the back door, I dared a look back, and he was gone. Disappointment pressed my chest almost as intensely as the fear.

Then I ran inside, taking off my boots in the entryway. My mother appeared before me, her eyes narrow and livid. Her hair was soft and blond, brushing her shoulders, in contrast to the red rising in her cheeks. She wore a monster’s face no one else saw.

* * *

The floor was cold and hard, but it was safer here, where my body was curled up making a small warm spot. She moved away into the kitchen, starting to hum to herself as if nothing was wrong.

Then Tor was there, kneeling. He hadn’t used magic to change his face this time, and my heart lifted when I saw him leaning over me. His hands pressed the bruises and I swallowed the cry of pain so my mother wouldn’t hear. Warmth suffused my skin, and the pain faded.

I curled to sit up, reaching out to touch his face. He caught my wrist. “I can’t keep up the glamour and use much of my magic, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, I like seeing you.”

His lips curled. “You’d be the only one.”

He slid an arm around my waist and lifted me against his chest, the movement effortless. I put my arms around his neck clumsily, feeling unsure of myself. I breathed in the woodsy scent he always carried.

“I’m going to fix all of this,” he whispered into my ear. “And you’re going to sleep.”

“No,” I whispered back as he carried me up the stairs. “What are you going to do, Tor?”

“Something wicked,” he said lightly. “But less wicked than what they do to you.”

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