Page 107 of Fragile Beings
Her eyes popped open. Elise sat up with a start, but it took her a few confused moments to understand what she was seeing. Fog was everywhere. Even her furniture seemed to have disappeared under the waves of pillowy white that poured in through her open window. Only the faint green glow of the emergency light by the bottom of her bedroom door managed to break through the cloud of condensed moisture. Magic skated over her skin, adding to the otherworldly sense of disorientation.
“Cal?” she whispered, seeking out his form beneath the swirling water vapor. Elise braced her weight on one elbow and squinted into the strange, shifting mass in the darkness of her bedroom. Relief quickly bled into her confusion.
Cool hands framed her face. In the span of a few heartbeats, he melted out of the fog. Elise didn’t think she would ever tire of seeing the miracle of his existence recreated every single time he materialized in front of her.
One moment there was only the sense of him in the mist; the next water and air and magic compressed to make a living, breathing man so beautiful she sometimes wondered if he was truly real.
Cal’s expression, when it appeared, was intense. His brows were drawn tight over his black eyes; his soft lips pressed thin. The hands cupping her face were gentle but firm, unyielding, and the weight of his body settling on top of hers was both comfortable and erotic. Elise would have enjoyed it more if the look on his face didn’t send a dizzying sense of dread through every nerve.
She cupped one of his hands with her own and tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “What’s wrong?”
Was this it? Was he here to tell her he was done with whatever their relationship was?
Gods, let it be anything but that. Elise would have taken almost anything rather than Cal finally deciding to end his experiment in intimacy with her.
His voice was its usual low murmur, but there was a distinct raw edge to it that raised her hackles when he said, “I need to ask you a question.”
Slowly scooting up into a sitting position, she scanned his face for any hint of what was bothering him. Nothing in his expression screamed that he was upset over what happened in the annex, but Cal’s moods were mercurial. She never really knew what was going on just below the surface, and it was something that thrilled her. He was full of surprises.
Elise normally appreciated that about him, but not this time.
Pressing his hand more firmly into her cheek, she answered, “Ask me whatever you want, baby.”
Cal shifted in front of her, though the fog made it hard to see exactly what he was doing. It moved restlessly around the room to swirl in dense eddies. Usually that meant he was agitated, and that knowledge only made Elise’s stomach drop even further.
Please don’t let this be it. Already her eyes had begun to water. The moment he actually said the words, she feared the dam would break completely.
His hands slid down from her cheeks to cup her neck. Goosebumps prickled her skin. Cal ran much cooler than she did, and when he touched her, it felt like the kiss of sweet, fresh water on overheated skin.
Firming his chin into a stubborn angle, he asked, “Are we permanent?”
Bracing herself for the worst, Elise could only blink, stunned. “I… what?”
In the dark, with the fog blocking most of the reflected light of the city, Cal’s eyes were too unbroken pools of black ink. They might have looked menacing, if only she didn’t know exactly how much he gave of himself every single day to every person in their ignorant city — if only she didn’t love him so damn much.
Cal pressed closer, until he was practically straddling her. “Are we permanent?”
Her heartbeat picked up its pace. She wanted to tell him yes, of course they were permanent, but Elise knew that not everything was as it seemed with Cal. His question could come from the desire to make them permanent, or it could just as easily spring from a desire to get as far away from commitment as possible.
Not that I really think Cal’s terrified of commitment, she thought, recalling his visceral fear and anger in the annex, but you never know. Someone like Cal could change their mind in a heartbeat.
He was, after all, weather. One moment he could be as placid as a sunny day, and the next he could be a raging storm. Respecting him, loving him, meant understanding the nature of his being, so Elise knew she had to forgo any assumptions. Like always, she needed to be careful.
“Explain, please,” she said. Reaching out to smooth her hands down his naked chest, she added, “Tell me what you mean by permanent.”
Cal scowled impatiently. “I spoke to Kaz tonight and he told me we are already mates, but if I wanted to be sure that we are mates forever, I needed to ask you. So I’m asking you.”
“Wait— Kaz? Who’s Kaz? Is that your friend?” He’d mentioned having a friend a few times, but Cal had never given her a name before. Something about it sounded familiar, though she couldn’t put her finger on why.
Making an impatient sound in the back of his throat, Cal leaned in until he was nearly nose to nose with her. His breath washed over her face in cool, sweet-scented puffs. “Don’t think about Kaz. Think about me. Are we permanent mates?”
Elise grappled with her answer, but couldn’t come up with anything better than, “Do you want to be?”
Cal reared back, his expression outraged. “Do I want to be? You’re my witch. Of course that’s what I want!”
She stared up at him, lips parted with surprise. No, she couldn’t just take that at face value. Cal didn’t necessarily understand what he was saying, what he was asking for. How could he really know? He’d only been in a relationship for three weeks. She at least had the experience of being with other people around which she could frame her feelings for him. Cal didn’t have that luxury.
When she could find her voice, she rasped, “Cal, I know you think that’s what you want, but you haven’t had enough time—”
