Page 5 of Something Worth Keeping
He stopped across the street, his shadows pooling at his feet, even as he was telling himself he should leaveand go home. He definitely should not be standing on a public sidewalk, staring at his fated mate’s apartment like some obsessed fool.
Through the window, Cillian caught movement. Julian had clearly only just arrived home, setting down the cardboard box, removing his coat, and adjusting his glasses as he looked away from the window.
Safe. Alive.Real.
Cillian’s shadows crept across the street, drawn like moths to flame.
He yanked them back with more force than necessary. They coiled around his legs in protest, sulking again.
“We cannot simply claim him,” Cillian whispered to the darkness. “Humans don’t work that way.”
His shadows didn’t care about human customs. They wanted what they wanted and had already decided that Julian Purdy belonged to them.
Tohim.
Cillian watched Julian move through the apartment. He was watering the plant that turned out to be a sad-looking succulent. Once that was done, Julian opened a laptop and sat down.Did you bring work home? Is that why you’re typing so late?
I’m efficient, Julian had said. Cillian carved that memory into his consciousness. So deep in his thoughts, Cillian barely heard a car as it passed behind him, it’s wide headlights cutting lines into the darkness. Cillian pulled deeper into the surrounding shadows - visible one minute and completely unseen in the next, just another patch of darkness in an alley.
Clearly, Cillian needed a plan - humans had weird ideas about courting. But Cillian knew he needed to make Julianwantto be claimed.
Claiming. Yes.Just the thought of it sent heat through Cillian’s form, destabilizing his human shape. He forced it back together with effort.
He’d have to wait until tomorrow. He would determine how to... what? Court him? That felt simultaneously too formal and not nearly formal enough for what Cillian wanted.
He wanted to own and keep his mate. It wouldn’t be enough for Cillian until he could consume every logical thought and blunt observation until Julian’s truth was the only truth that mattered.
In the window, Julian stood and stretched, his glasses catching the light. Cillian’s shadows lunged forward before he could stop them, reaching…
“Tomorrow,” Cillian promised from between gritted teeth as he dragged them back. “We have to plan. That means we wait until tomorrow.”
But he didn’t move from his position across the street. He simply stood in the darkness and watched his beacon through the window, memorizing every movement, every gesture.
Mine, his shadows whispered.
Cillian didn’t argue. He already knew it was true.
Chapter Three
Julian woke to the alarm he’d set the night before, then immediately remembered he had nowhere to go.
Suspended. Probably for at least a week, given Julian’s observations about the way the library was managed. The lack of pay wasn’t an issue - just an annoyance – but everything else...
He stared at the ceiling, cataloging the familiar crack that branched from the light fixture toward the eastern wall. The crack had grown three millimeters since he’d last measured it in September. The building’s foundation was clearly settling unevenly, probably due to the construction project two blocks over.
His phone buzzed with a text from his mother.Hope you’re having a good week, sweetie! Love you!
Julian set the phone face down on the nightstand. He’d tell her about the suspension later. Or never. It’s not like he saw his parents very often, and under the circumstances, never seemed easier.
The apartment felt different somehow. Initially, Julian believed it was because he wasn’t moving around getting ready for work, but as he lay there contemplating the ceiling, he realized that wasn’t it. It was more as if someone else was in the room with him, or a case of his apartment shrinking somehow since the night before - to make room for something else?
Unemployed and fanciful now?
Julian sat up, scanning the room. It didn’t look like anything was out of place. His laptop sat closed on the small dining table. The succulent by the window looked marginally less dead than it had yesterday. Thecardboard box from work remained by the door where he’d put it after he’d emptied it. In other words, everything was exactly where it should be.
Except for the feeling that crawled up his spine, which left him feeling as though someone had draped a weighted blanket across his shoulders.
Am I being watched?
