Page 48 of Lair

The full recognition of his gift hits me. Tears spring to my eyes. My knees go watery. I turn to him, and there he is—mostly recovered from his sacrificial tan, though here and there his skin is still pulled tight or shines raw and pink as a newborn’s beneath the dry, dead patches that are flaking away. But I don’t see that. Because he’s smiling at me with such dazzling happiness that I feel dizzy for a moment, and all my worries are swept away as if a dam has broken.

“How...” I splutter. “Where...”

“We’re in Norway,” he explains. “Somewhere off Tromvik. I had the captain get us here in record time.” I turn to see the Lair floats on ice-cold waters mirroring the eerie green light show in the sky, and beyond this bay snow-capped mountains gleam with a clean white fire. They’re as dazzling as his smile.

When I look into his eyes again, he’s studying me with a look of such pure devotion it makes everything inside me melt. “So, Aurora,” he says, grinning. “What do you think of your namesake?”

“I—I don’t—” I flounder, gesturing. The words don’t come. There are no words for what I’m feeling. He smiles, tiny dimples bracketing the edges of his mouth, and pulls up the fur-fringed hood of my parka—I’ve been shivering, and didn’t even notice. I must look like a muskrat with pneumonia.

“I was hoping they’d be here,” he says. “They’re rare in late summer.” His hands linger on the hood, one thumb brushing my cheek. I spark at his touch.

Then he cranes his head up at the ever-changing veils of light, dark eyes full of uncanny green swirls, and a wistful look passes over his face. “It is beautiful, isn’t it?” he says, and when he says it, I know. I know he means more than just these lights above us. “I’d forgotten how beautiful it could be...” His lips lift just the slightest bit, showing a hint of sharpness, and it comes back to me—the cruel reality that has been nudging at the edge of my thoughts, ready to spring. And I think, Not yet. Let me stay here, in this moment.

He must sense this, for when he turns to me again his face is more melancholic than I’ve ever seen it. “I want you to know,” he begins, and clears his throat. “That what you saw that night... that wasn’t me. The person who gave you this... that’s what I am. Or what I want to be.” He gropes for the words, but they slip through his fingers to the deck. “And ever since I met you...”

I nod, I can do that for him. I reach up and touch his cheek. “I know.”

He quickly holds my hand there and shuts his eyes, and I have to swallow a sudden swelling of emotion in my throat.

“Please,” he says. “Please don’t leave me.”

“I won’t,” I promise, a sob rising in me, and dash a tear from my eye. “I won’t.”

And he holds my hand to his cheek as the world turns and the aurora coruscates overhead like a vampire’s dream of the sun.

TWENTY-SIX

We are shy and chaste with one another as he escorts me back inside the Lair, like teenagers grown bashful after a first kiss. And then the bubbling up of anxiety as we near his suite. What is expected here? Will he hope to—

But I put a stop to this line of worry. I turn before the red double doors and look up into his face. “I’m not ready yet.”

He nods, a grave and gentle amusement there. “I know.”

“I just need time.”

“I’ll wait.” And he does, knowing I need to say more.

At last, I pluck up the courage. “If this is to work—if we’re going to do this—I need to feel safe.”

“And what can I do to make you feel that?”

“I need to feel you trust me. With... what you are.”

“Ah.” His eyes dance. “I thought you’d say that.” And before I can say a word, he takes my hand and lifts it to his lips, the touch raising the fine hairs on my arm. His lips crimp in a smile, and when I turn my hand over, there—as if by magic—is my cell phone returned to me.

My breath stops, I look up with furrowed brows—but he’s gone.

My thoughts linger on him as I shut the double doors and lock them, slip into the cool sheets of his bed. Where is he now? Does he have another lair inside the Lair? Does he even sleep? I think of him standing before the glass expanse of the underwater observation lounge, hands in pockets, waiting for the sun to come up—and for when he’ll see me again.

I turn my phone over in my hands, and when I touch the home button and the screen lights up with Cailee’s flurry of worried texts, I feel the full weight of Adrian’s gesture. The power he’s given me.

Reveal what I am, if you wish. Reveal my secrets.

Another touch of the button, and my thumb hovers over the lock screen. Trembles.

I shove the phone away and shut my eyes.

I wake to a knock on the double doors. For one breathless, infinite moment I think it will be him. But no. It is Mrs. Colding waiting there in the hallway, hands crossed and not batting an eye. “Good morning, Miss Strand,” she sniffs. “Breakfast will be on the aft bridge deck when you’re ready.” The corner of her mouth twitches, as if in obscure approval of something, and she sweeps away down the hall.

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