Page 136 of Bloodstone
“Onlynearlyall? I’m disappointed.”
Bes grins softly from where he leans against the high-arched threshold of the room. The flickering firelight warms his relaxed features: his unruly hair is somewhat tamed and partly tucked behind his ears, allowing the jagged edges of his jaw to emerge. The lighting and the angle I’m at allow the taut lines of muscle beneath his shirt to emerge, forcing my gaze to shift lower.
I yank my attention away from his waist, where it unwittingly drifts to his arms. This shirt is tighter than the ones he wore while we were running from the God Men, and he’s more toned than I realized. Although it could simply be the shadows playing tricks. Whatever it might be, I can’t look away.
He’s dressed no different than he was in the Archives room, but, with no one else around, he’s more relaxed. Confident, almost. It’s terribly attractive.
I force myself to look elsewhere, to regain my composure, even as perilous heat splashes onto my cheeks.
Bes continues, unaware of my internal struggle. “My mother used to read One Thousand and One Nights to me when I was little, the same one her parents brought home for her at my age. Aladdin was obviously a favorite, but I most enjoyed The Vizier and the Sage Duban.”
I breathe out a soft laugh. “That’s one of my favorites too. And a good lesson: even after death, books can inflict the pain intended by their creators.”
“No matter how much pain their pages inflicted upon me, reading was the one thing I had for myself. I spent no less than eight years of my adolescence here, and, except for Cec, the books in this room are the only reason I survived.” Bes’s voice comes out smooth and unhurried, like velvet, softening the blow of his words. “Besides, there’s not much else to do when you’re not allowed outside.”
He recalls his childhood like it’s a story he heard, as if he wasn’t the one who lived through it.I know a little something about that.Bes and I are more alike than I realized.
I concentrate harder than I need to on the shelves—anything to distract me from the shortening distance between us.
I press my fingers against the cracked leather spines, many of which feature titles in other languages. Assuming they’re arranged alphabetically by author, the pair of ancient books directly in my line of sight should beThe IliadandThe Odysseyin the original Greek. The hero’s journey has always been one of my favorites. I wonder if a library like this would have something as recently published asBrave New World.
“That must’ve been difficult,” I finally say, “never being able to go outside, to play with children your own age.”
“I’m used to being alone,” he says after a moment.
I don’t stop myself from looking at him now. Though his words came off as indifferent, a kind of tortured shadow plagues his features, darkening him. I have the overwhelming urge to press my thumb between his brow to smooth out the lines there.
“I am too. I think we sometimes choose to be.” I swallow. “But we don’t have to. Be alone, that is.”
He clenches his jaw and straightens.
“What if I like being alone?”
I smile a little.Oh dear, sweet Bes.I once thought the same way, and then I recognized it was more about disliking the company I was with. I needed to find my people. And Bes… Bes is my people. And I’d like to think I’m his.
“No, you don’t. At least, not all the time. Just likeIdon’t like being alone. Or always being right.”
He closes his eyes for a second and shakes his head, chuckling. The sound sends a pleasant quiver up my spine and along my limbs.
His lips pull up on one side, and his gaze sparks. I’m mesmerized by him, struck again by how Bes is sort of beautiful.More than sort of.
“Come now, Miss Hawkins. Things would be quite a bit different if you were always right.”
He hops down the steps and heads in my direction. Turning away, I focus on the books to hide my warring emotions. Books make sense. They never change, their pages forever inked with the same words and phrases they always have, ones the author chose with purpose. Bes, however, is an unpredictable, ever-changing constant.
Perhaps he’s not the one changing, I consider.Perhaps it’s my perception of him that’s changed.
He’s not the same man who hit a British soldier over the head with the butt of a gun, nor is he the man who shot one of the God Men in the head point-blank. He’s the person who saved me from going overboard at the Port of Messina, who fought with me when we docked near Rome, who took a knife in the chest for me outside the secret club, who brought me dinner in the Archives despite eating none himself, who has risked his life for mine enough for a dozen lifetimes.
Bes is not the villain but neither is he the hero; he’s something else. He iseverythingelse.
Throat unbearably dry now, I measure the distance between us without daring to look his way. I hate what he does to me: all I want is for him to come closer, when I should push him away. Anything that might happen between us, it wouldn’t be sustainable, not with my precarious situation with the order.
Who says it has to be sustainable?a part of me wonders.
But I know in my heart, if Bes and I gave in to this—whatever it is that’s been between us since we first met—I’d fall for him completely, body and soul.
And that frightens me.
