Page 29 of Bittersweet & Strange

“I want to go home.” I hate how much I want him to say yes when I already know he won’t. I force myself to look at him anyway. “Please?”

His head tilts slightly, but he doesn’t answer the question. He looks at me for several seconds before his hand finally falls away, leaving the skin along my cheek strangely cold where his thumb had been.

“Clean yourself up,” he says. “Get warm.”

He turns toward the door before I can ask again. I watch him cross the room, wanting to call after him but knowing another plea won’t change anything.

“The castle can be a cold place.”

Then he steps into the corridor and pulls the door closed behind him. The lock clicks a few moments later, that small metallic sound making the truth of my situation impossible to ignore. I’m left standing in the middle of a beautiful room, surrounded by more comfort than I’ve had in my entire life, and it still feels far too much like a prison.

10

Rhys

I leave him alone for hours.

In that time, I bathe, read, and sit beside the fire with a bowl of grapes balanced on the arm of my chair, but none of it manages to distract me for long. My eyes move across the pages without absorbing a single word. Snow begins to fall, something I normally enjoy watching. Even the grapes, sweet enough to leave their flavor lingering on my tongue, lose their appeal after only a few bites.

What I want is him.

He’s woven himself into every thought I have, pulling my attention away from the routines that usually bring me a sense of order. The feel of his skin. The softness of his hair. The way tears slid down his cheeks while he stared at me with equal parts fear and defiance.

I want to taste those tears.

My restraint finally snaps.

I set my book aside and push myself out of the chair, already knowing there’s no point in pretending I’ll return to it later. His room is far enough from mine that the distance creates a sense of separation between the two spaces. Under any other circumstances, I might appreciate that.

Tonight, I don’t.

I make my way through the castle, my footsteps echoing softly against the stone as I move through one corridor after another. The storm continues to rattle the windows, and somewhere in the distance, one of the pendulum clocks announces another passing hour.

I unlock his door.

The moment I push it open, Boone leaps to his feet and backs away so quickly that the chair beside the fireplace rocks slightly from the force of his movement.

He’s changed.

The clothes he’d been wearing earlier are draped over the chair near the fire, while the clean clothes I’d left behind fit him far better than I’d expected. At one point, many people lived here, most of whom left their belongings behind when my father threw them out.

His eyes never leave me.

“I did what you told me to do,” he says nervously, gesturing toward the stone bath before returning his attention to me.

I follow the movement automatically.

The bath.

The clothes.

The untouched room.

None of it matters.

I swallow hard.

The need to have him returns with suffocating intensity, tightening around my chest until it becomes difficult to focus on anything else.