Page 63 of Hercules

He hated how he could conclude it for her with such solid surety. How every synapse in his head and instinct in his cells connected every line of her story to the truth that was too logical. Too inevitable.

Too terrible.

While that verity wrapped around his heart like tenacious nettles, it claimed her shoulders with similar weight. Though her head didn’t succumb, her gaze reached into the darkness behind him for the awful fullness of her memories.

“He knew he didn’t have a lot of time before they came for him,” she finally grated out. “There were only minutes for Mom and me to pack our essentials.” Then, with half of a bittersweet smile, “Which, of course, included half my angsty romances and several beloved mangas. But we were in too much of a rush for Mom to even chastise about there being no classics in my satchel.”

After mentioning her mother, it was obviously a worse struggle to keep her recount together. Herc rearranged his grasp so he could press one hand atop hers, lending his silent endorsement of her perseverance. It was bittersweet to watch it inspire a second version of her longing little smile.

“It was truly terrifying, how much shit I got into that bag without redlining the overpacked meter. But Dad stopped me just before the helicopter got to the roof to take us to the airstrip. He had one more thing to stuff into my mess.” She swallowed hard. As in, landslide-in-the-throat time. “It was another book…filled with blank pages. On the inside, he’d brush-stroked my name in Kanji, which matched the nihonga style painting of a Tsushima leopard on the front cover.”

A smile brimmed on his own lips. “A true wildcat.”

For a moment, a stunned expression eclipsed her encroaching tears. “Have you ever seen one?”

His grin spread, teasing her as he tick-tocked his head. “Once or twice. Very briefly. They’re secretive.”

Her expression was a cute little vacillation, acknowledging his inference from the elusive cats of Tsushima Island to the feline sitting with him, before new shadows crept into her eyes.

“As Dad tucked the journal into my bag, he leaned in and hugged me…for what I knew was going to be the last time in my life. The words he whispered into my ear…they’ll be a part of me forever.”

Though an inquisitive frown pushed his brows toward each other, this wasn’t the time to add words to her revelation. She affirmed the intuition by moving away by a few inches then rubbing away a patch of persistent makeup on the underside of her right arm. As the tattoo concealer slowly ebbed, a set of cursive words were revealed.

Show me all your beautiful words

And here, unbelievably, was yet another first within the last hour.

Shock.

He and the bastard had been well-acquainted many times before, of course—he’d just never gotten to know the sensation’s good side. This was…bizarre but nice. A surprise party of endorphins. A cat cafe filled with Tsushimas that craved cuddles.

The imagery dominated his mind for the better part of a minute until he stammered out, “Well, holy wow.”

An empathetic puff of air erupted from her lips. “Hopefully that clarifies my waterworks?”

He answered by nestling her back against his chest. By wrapping his arms tighter and tighter until his hands cupped her opposite shoulders and every vibration of his heart was aware of her corresponding pulse.

So close…but not close enough.

Knowing so much more of her now…but also not enough.

“It never has to be temporary with me, Erastís.”

Oh yeah he said it, already knowing what his soul would do with it. The backlash, violent and visceral, that would choke and punish for thinking that way about anyone other than Meg.

But his senses remained a glass sea.

His mind was glitchless and free.

And his soul?

It only persisted with the need, pure and powerful, for the female in his arms.

What was happening here? And why did it, too, feel like…not enough?

“I think my dad would’ve really liked you, Hercules. And my mom too.”

At once, shock was back to slamming him with the bad side of its temperament—only he was cut off from trying to wrestle it into submission when a cell phone went off in the other room.