Page 15 of Bad Bunny
Nora
“Happy Easter.” I wave good-bye as Mom and my aunt drive away, my eyes on the car until it turns the corner and disappears.
I slip back into the house, which is far too quiet. When I step into the bedroom, Sorren is awake, lying on his side and staring into space like he’s lost in thought.
“Hey, sleepyhead—” I tease gently but cut off when I see the tremors that roll through his body, the way he struggles to keep his eyes open. I sit on the bed beside him and put the back of my hand to his forehead, another kindergarten teacher trick.
With a hiss, I jerk my hand away. “You’re burning up.”
I rise to get some medicine, although I don’t know the proper dosing on a man-rabbit.
Ifthat’s really what he is.
Sorren grabs my hand, pulls me back. “Don’t go,” he pants.
“You need something. To make you better.”
I come back and sit beside him. The mattress dips under my weight, and I slide back until my spine bumps his shoulder.
He rolls onto his side toward me like it’s instinct. One second he’s flat on his back; the next he’s shifting around until he’s tucked behind me, spooning me. His chest settles against my back. His left knee hooks loosely over my hip. One arm comes around my waist while the other, thick with muscle, drapes across my upper leg.
“I don’t feel good,” he mumbles, his lips brushing the bare skin of my thigh where my shorts don’t cover.
I go completely still, my hands hovering in the air because I don’t know where to put them. He’s heavy and so hot I can feel him through my clothes.
After a minute, I lower one hand to the center of his back and rub gently between his shoulder blades, the way I do with the kids at school when they’ve got a stomachache.
His arm tightens slightly around my waist. He makes a low sound of appreciation that I feel more than hear.
Awareness hits me a second later, sudden and disorienting.
He’s big. Solid. Pressed up against me.
His muscles bunch and release under my hand. Every inhale expands against my back, every slow exhale is a warm breeze on my leg. His thigh shifts slightly behind mine, warm and heavy, and suddenly I’m very aware of how little space there is between us. Aware of how my heart beats a little too fast.
He cries out, the sound forced through gritted teeth like he doesn’t want it to escape, and a bolt of fear shoots through me.
“Sorren?” I twist to see his face.
His eyes are squeezed shut. His jaw locks tight, tendons standing out in his neck. His body goes rigid, every muscle tensing at once.
“Are—are you okay?” I choke out.
No answer.
A second later his body jerks. Small at first—a twitch against my back, the arm around my waist spasming.
Then the movement spreads.
His spine bows, lifting us both off the mattress before dropping back down with a thud. His teeth slam together with a sharp click, and the bed frame rattles against the wall.
“Sorren—”
His fingers clamp down on my thigh hard enough to bruise. His breath comes short and broken, his eyes rolling beneath his lids as a low, fractured sound vibrates through his chest into my back.
“What’s happening?” I twist, trying to rise, but his arm around my waist locks tight. “What’s wrong with you?”
“It was a banishing blade,” he grits out through clenched teeth. “The one my uncle struck me with. It doesn’t just wound the body. It cuts pieces of your soul away until you’re hollow.” His eyes squeeze shut, and he whispers, almost like he’s talking to himself, “I can already feel it. The pieces of myself that are missing.”
