Page 76 of Librarian

And it’s the truth. Somewhere, somehow, this remarkable woman has wormed her way beneath my skin, until the very idea of hurting her is abhorrent. I’d rather cut off my own hands.

Her legs slide closed, and I leave her for a second to fetch her grimoire from her room. Despite her protests, she shouldn’tbe without it. The book is already almost as thick as mine, and I shake my head softly as I place it on the empty bedside table. I’d offer to help her out of her dress, but she’s already dozing, so I draw my own grimoire and flick to a well-used page.

Transmutation magic isn’t my forte, but I know enough to change the stiff boned lace and tartan into fluffy pyjamas.

It’s a shame. I liked that dress.

I think I like her soft and cosy better, though.

My brows furrow at the long strands of brown hair splayed carelessly across my pillow. I love it loose, but if I don’t do something about that, she’ll wake up with it in a knotted mess.

With a sigh, I grab the brush from my dresser, wondering when I got so whipped.

Twenty-One

Lambert

“Hey, man, did you see Leo?” I ask Aaron.

I followed my brother outside, but he’s not with the group smoking by the main door.

The older man puffs out a stream of herbal smoke from beneath his umbrella and jerks his head to the left. “Went that way, looking green around the gills.” He takes another drag from the spliff. “Pah. Back in my day, an Ó Rinn could’ve drunk all of us under the table.”

“Thanks.” I tug my hood up—because the rain is murder on my hair—and head left around the main keep, squinting down the dark, narrow path between the castle and the outer wall. “Leo? You back here?”

Silence.

Did I miss him?

I grab a scrap, summoning a wisplight, only to grimace and flick it away as my pale-ass brother throws up his hands like a vampire hiding from the sun.

“Sorry, dude.”

Leo lowers his hands, but he’s still on his ass in the dirt, leaning against the castle wall despite the damp clinging to the stones from the rain. His posture is so hunched that I’d have to be an idiot to misread how he’s silently screaming at me to go away.

But there are shiny tear tracks under his eyes, and I’m not enough of an asshole that I’m just gonna leave my bro here to cry in a dark, rainy alley.

I’m not sitting in a puddle, though.

“Come on. You don’t want to sit down there.” I offer him my free hand.

He stares at it, a fresh wave of tears falling.

“I was a fecking asshole to you,” he says, like I’ve somehow forgotten.

“Yeah.”

“You told me to stay away.”

“I’ll let you hold my hand for good behaviour,” I quip.

Leo shakes his head, apparently mute, and I sigh, grabbing his arm and pulling him up instead.

“C’mon, dude, the ground is wet.”

“She finished all of them,” he mumbles. “I hurt her,reallyhurt her, and she finished every last one, anyway.”

“Yep.”