Page 11 of Fragile Beings
“Why?”
He answered immediately, without even a hint of teasing. “Because you remind me of a firefly. You’re pretty and small and light up the darkness. I want to cup you in my hands and keep you close. Is that so bad?”
Heat suffused her cheeks. The low buzzing of her wings grew just a touch louder in the confined space. “That’s… not so bad, I guess,” she muttered, trying to hide the smile that wanted to break out across her face.
Gods, but it was nice to talk to someone again. To flirt? It was a godsdamned luxury. Even the conversation of a surly old demon was better than her own circular thoughts. Much better, actually.
“What should I call you, then?” She fiddled with the drawstring of her hoodie, her stomach tightening into a pleasantly anxious little knot the longer she looked at him. “How’s old man sound?”
“I am not old,” he insisted. “I’m only just hitting my prime. Demons live an average of four hundred years.”
“You’re old compared to me. I’m twenty-six.”
The car jerked sharply, nearly going over the line before the tech in the engine realigned it automatically. Charlotte braced herself against the door and sent the demon an outraged look. “Watch the road!”
“You’re only twenty-six?” Dom’s eyes darted between the road and her face. His whole head might have moved, too, if there wasn’t the danger of his antlers catching on the roof.
Charlotte settled back down into her seat — properly this time, so that if he did manage to override the self-correcting controls, the seatbelt might actually help her out.
“Yes,” she answered, sniffing with displeasure. “Something wrong with that?”
Dom shook his head slowly, but the way he blew out a breath and stared hard at the road sent a different message. “No, I just… that’s young. Awfully young.”
A shiver of real anxiety, not the flirtation-induced kind, slid down her spine. In a voice full of forced nonchalance, she asked, “Your mate too young for you now?”
The band of shadow around her ankle gave a sharp, proprietary squeeze. “No.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“It’s not a problem,” he insisted. Dom’s hand found its way back to her knee. The old Charlotte might have raised an eyebrow at his handsiness, but the woman who emerged from a year in captivity relished every little touch. It reminded her that she wasn’t alone anymore.
Besides, she liked it when he touched her.
Stranger or not, a base part of her recognized that Dom was right. He was solid. He was steady.
Dom was grumpy and taciturn, sure, but he also didn’t think twice about promising to drive her across the UTA. He made sure she was comfortable and said over and over again that he only wanted to help her. He even gave her his dish of blueberries at breakfast, no questions asked, when he caught her eyeing them with envy. And sometimes, when he thought she wasn’t looking, Charlotte caught him staring at her like she was the center of his whole world.
The loneliest part of her, born into every Changeling and cultivated in her captivity, craved that sort of focused attention and obvious desire. If it had its way, she would have grabbed him by the antlers and kissed him silly already — just to feel, to hold and be held, to touch.
Too bad for him Charlotte had a lifetime of experience ruthlessly quenching her desire for kinship. Maybe she would see where their relationship would go, but she wasn’t about to make any hasty decisions, no matter what her fey nature and biology demanded.
When the silence stretched dangerously close to awkwardness, Charlotte cleared her throat and admitted, “I was taken the night of my twenty-fifth birthday, you know.”
Dom’s fingers clenched on her knee. He let out a slow breath before he replied, “That’s awful, glowbug.”
“That’s why I was wearing that stupid jumpsuit.” She licked her lips and struggled with the impulse to grab his hand for only a handful of seconds before giving in to the urge. If Dom was surprised by the way she clutched his big, callused hand between both of hers like a damn lifeline, he didn’t show it. He simply curled his big fingers around hers, no questions asked.
“I was going to a bar in the city with some work friends — no one I was really close to, but people to hang out with, you know? Thought we could have a good time, maybe meet some people.” She shrugged. None of them were really friends, but she’d always struggled to make those sorts of connections. Just having people around who didn’t look at her askance was enough. It had to be.
She chuckled wryly. “Thought I might even meet a guy that wouldn’t ask about my wings on the first date.”
“I bet you had no trouble meeting men,” he huffed.
Charlotte was flattered by the assumption, but that didn’t mean he was right. “Not really. I wasn’t all that social, but it was my birthday and I wanted to have fun.” Feeling suddenly trapped, she pushed her hood off and stared at the greenery on the side of the road, desperately trying to remind herself that she was not in locked away in her prison, staring desperately through warped glass. “When I went outside to take a call from a friend who was running late, the feyrunner grabbed me, pulled me into an alley, and that was that.”
She shuddered. That gross, stinky alley was the last view of the outside world she got before the terrarium; before endless, numbing solitude.
Dom untangled their hands just long enough to tentatively settle his palm on the back of her neck. In a low, firm voice, he told her, “You will never be held against your will again, Charlotte.” He gave her nape a light squeeze. “You have my shadow, remember? No matter where you go, no matter what happens, I’ll always be there to help you. You’re not alone anymore.”
