Page 35 of How to Woo the Undead

Then a hand flopped down against the slab, and she remembered what they were doing.Ah, yes…the hand.Austin sat down on a stool and wheeled it closer to the slab before he picked the new appendage back up for inspection.

“Like it?” Austin rotated a meaty hand of dark green skin—cut off cleanly at the wrist—in the good light. After a few twists and turns, appreciating or prodding it, he set it down on the metal table and went to work. Austin picked the knot of thread at his wrist with a small tool. In seconds, the thread gave way and his hand flopped loosely against the table. Austin carefully unthreaded the loops till his arm ended at the wrist.

“How many times have you replaced your hands?” Hyacinth cocked her head to the side.

“Ehh, three? Four times?” Austin shrugged as he slid the other hand toward his exposed wrist. “Mind…giving me a hand?”

Hyacinth faux scowled at him, “Was that sarcasm?”

“No,” Austin snickered, “a pun.”

“Mmm, I liked it,” she teased as she scampered to his side of the table. Holding his new hand to his arm, she watched him thread a massive needle with his other hand and teeth. The thick, ashy-black cord was tightly woven and slid through the skin smoothly. She saw it light up in little runes along its fibers with each stitch. Hyacinth leaned in close till Austin whispered her name. She peeked up at him, he nodded at his wrist, and she realized he was shifting, so she turned the hand with him. “You’re very good at this.”

“I’ve had to replace a few parts,” he sighed.

“Why do you sound sad when you say that?” She furrowed her brows. Austin shrugged lightly, focused solely on the stitching. “Austin?”

“I feel like a burden sometimes,” the soft-spoken giant confessed finally.

“Why would you think that?” She let him take his hand from her, finishing up the stitch on his wrist. Hyacinth stepped closer, studying his face from the side.

“I was made to protect them…and I’ve done nothing but endanger them.” He winced.

She searched his sad expression, unable to stop herself from the next question.You see yourself as a burden? As something going against your design?It didn’t make sense why he felt like a burden when he’d been nothing but endlessly helpful to her. “Is that why you didn’t want me to see you at first? You were worried about being some sort of burden?”

“What?” He blinked rapidly. “No.”

“Then what’s changed?” She stepped back from him to lean against the side of the metal table she was laying on earlier. The table where he saved her lungs, where he and Sebastian created her, where he made her teddy bear. He was so baffling to her because…why would he ever hide himself from her? She might be the only other person in the house who knew what it felt like, and he? What? Didn’t want her to see him? Why? “Austin, what’s changed?”

Chapter Eighteen:

Austin

“Austin,what’schanged?”

Austin opened his mouth, heart aching. He wanted to confess she’d scared him. Made him see all the cracks and flaws that never used to matter…because he’d never met someone he desperately wanted to find him appealing. That was the truth, he realized, he wanted Hyacinth to like him. He was attracted to her, but it wasn’t because she was a pretty vessel. Helikedher, the woman inside the pretty vessel. Liked how literal and subtly funny she was, how excited she was to feed small animals, and how she worried about being liked by others but didn’t try to be fake—Hyacinth was Hyacinth and she desperately wanted that to be enough for people. He liked how she always snuggled up against him and eagerly wanted to stand beside him. Like she fit there, like she was always meant to be in the crook of his arm or up against his side.

The words fell out of him like water off a cliff. “It seems silly to say, but I was afraid you wouldn’t like me. I’m a monster, after all.”

“You’re a…” she trailed off, furrowing her brows as she stared at him in confusion. Austin’s face fell as he watched her put her fist against her chin. Her gaze flitted around the room, searching for something. Hyacinth hummed thoughtfully as she stalked around the slabs. Snuffles stopped to wiggle his nose at her before falling in step with her.

“Hyacinth,” he laughed nervously, following her. “What are you looking for?”

“Hmm.” She grew louder, flipping things over in her hand. The dead woman even stepped up to a slab and looked under it. She quickly moved around the room, inspecting it all, causing him to rush after her. She rummaged through buckets then moved to the trunks. Hyacinth opened a box with her bare toes, investigated it with a grimace, then let the lid fall closed. She stopped to snoop on the gurgling liquid in one of the many regeneration tanks. Austin caught up to her every time only for her to slip out of reach seconds before he could ask again.

She stopped at the medical examination table once more. Finally she turned on her heel and faced him, “That’s odd.”

“What is?” He glanced around, baffled.What was she doing? What was all that?

“I don’t see any.” She pouted, shaking her head.

“Any what?” he blurted out.

“Monsters. In this room. Not. A single. One.” Hyacinth dropped her hands to the space behind her, swishing her hips back and forth happily like a smug little cat. She beamed up at him and Austin’s heart nearly burst from his chest.

“Hyacinth—”

“Austin,” she purred right back and stole the air from his lungs. Dressed in only his shirt, her glittering eyes watching his face, she caused his lungs to clench up. Inch by inch, she crept toward him till her knees knocked against his. His chest filled with angry butterflies again. Hyacinth spared a hand from behind herto the front of his shirt. “A kiss to the forehead is for sweet dreams?”