Page 22 of Dead to Rights
“A choice made out of fear and exhaustion.” Slipping a knuckle under Noah’s chin, he urged his head up, waiting for their eyes to meet before he continued. “When this is over, if you still want to cross, we can talk about it then. Don’t let her scare you into doing something you can’t take back.”
“I’m not scared,” he countered defensively.
Finn smirked. “Liar.”
“I’m not. I’m just…cautious.” Pulling away, Noah turned his head and lowered his gaze. “I’ve seen things much scarier than an obsessed vampire.”
“In that mirror world?” he asked, gently opening the door to the conversation if Noah wanted to talk about it.
Since his return, he hadn’t spoken of the things that had happened to him there, but Finn had learned a little about it, mostly from Keegan. Apparently, there had been a ritual involved, a tethering spell that had backfired and pulled his mate through a mirror portal into some nightmare realm.
“Yes,” Noah whispered, still not looking at him. “I hate mirrors.”
“I know.”
Not just mirrors. Any reflective surface. It had taken him far too long to put the pieces together, but looking back now, it seemed so obvious.
Noah feared the elevators in the Tower because of the glass that lined the back wall. It was why his apartment didn’t havewindows. Why there hadn’t been a mirror in the bathroom. Why all of his fixture and appliances that changed to absorb rather than reflect light.
It was the reason Finn’s quarters had been shifting and changing since Noah had come to stay with him.
Instead of the metallic golds and silvers that filled the rest of the castle, his suite now boasted rich wood stains and dark mattes. The windows remained, but they had been covered with thick curtains that refused to budge.
He couldn’t say for sure, but he suspected it was also why Noah hated the dark.
It didn’t matter that Hades himself had closed the rift and sealed the realm. To Noah, the threat still remained, hiding in every surface that showed his reflection.
“But you survived.”
“Barely.”
“Not the way I hear it,” he argued. “You not only made it out, but you saved a lot of souls in the process.”
“Well, yes.” Noah finally looked him, his hazel eyes brighter, less haunted. “I had help, though.”
“And you have help now.” Reaching out, he took his mate’s hand, giving it a comforting squeeze. “Like you said, you’ve faced things a damn sight scarier than a vampire with a grudge.”
Though his bottom lip wobbled, Noah offered him the sweetest little smile. “I see what you’re trying to do.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just pointing out facts.”
“Liar,” he said, echoing Finn’s earlier taunt. “You’re right, though. If I crossed the river now, it wouldn’t be for the right reasons. I’d just be running away.”
“I don’t know if it’s so dramatic as that.”
Noah chuckled and squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”
Drawing him closer, Finn cradled his cheek and leaned in to brush their lips together. “Any time.” Whether Noah needed someone to talk some sense into him or knock some heads together, he would always be there. “Now, what are we going to do about our sire problem?”
“Well, I mean, technically, that’s ayouproblem.”
“Oh, is that so?” he countered with fake outrage. “I see how it is.”
Damn, he loved that laugh, and the fact that he could elicit it, even in the midst of such uncertainty, made him feel bulletproof.
“I don’t know,” Noah said a few seconds later. “Maybe we could get a witch to curse her to forget we exist.”
Well, that was slightly less extreme than leaving behind everything and crossing the river into the unknown, but not by much. Then again, talking to her hadn’t worked. He had a feeling that woman had never met a boundary she hadn’t crossed.
