Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
But I smile at this part. Because he was about to say something… big. “Because you…” I roll a hand at Eros, encouraging him to continue. “Like me?”
This makes him smile. Grin, actually. All the way up to his eyes. “Yeah. I like you, and we’re in this together now, ya know? Partners. Friends. Lovers. And… it’s more than that. I…”
“Love me?”
He nods. Slowly. His grin fading. “I feel like I do. And I’m not sure what that means, because I’m not allowed to love. And I’m afraid of this.” He points at me. “I’m afraid for you. Because whatever happens next…”
“OK,” I say, putting up a hand to let him know he can stop struggling. “I get it. And just so we’re clear, you really are my best friend. And I know, coming from me, a person who has no friends, and having known you for a couple of days—”
“Callistina, it’s been months at this point.”
“Not for me. For me it’s been a few weeks of mindless fucking back in Savage Falls and a few days on a hallway road trip. So I understand that ‘best friend’ really doesn’t come with a lot of meaning. But… you’re just the one, Eros. You’re just my one. And if you say we need to go, then we need to go.”
“It’s that simple for you, huh?” He’s still looking into my eyes. Like he can see into my soul.
I shrug up one shoulder. “If you say it’s true, then it is. Because you would not hurt me. And this is what love is really about. It’s not about marriage, or rings, or vows. It’s about trust. And after all we’ve been through, I would be a fool to not trust you.”
He lets go of my hands and places them on my cheeks as he leans forward to kiss me. I close my eyes and sigh as our lips touch and our mouths open, enjoying this moment. Because it’s a long, slow, passionate kiss. And my truth is that he makes me want to climb into his lap and just fall asleep against his chest.
His fear is his truth.
But my truth is, he makes me feel safe.
When we pull back from the kiss we’re once again staring into each other’s eyes. “OK.” He says it low, almost a whisper. “Then let’s do this. I just want to go home now.”
He stands up, but when I try to get up too, he presses a hand at me. “You rest. I know you feel fine, but Callistina, you’ve had a very hard time over the past few months. I’ve got this. Just finish your stew.”
Then he turns and starts messing with some turtle shells that he must’ve been using for cooking. He empties the fermented acetic acid into the shell and then adds the sharptongue and goldberry, using a crude wooden pestle to mash everything together. Then he sets it on the fire.
“We don’t have a bottle,” he says, stirring the mixture with a hand-carved wooden spoon. “But we don’t need a bottle. The veil here is very thin. I can feel the other worlds pressing against us at every turn.”
I don’t know what to say to that, but I don’t think he requires my input. The god of love has a plan in his head and I’m only an accessory to it at this point.
We are going home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - EROS
“What about your wings?”
“What?” I’m stirring the turtle shell of magiceuticals, staring down into the pasty mixture, picturing how I want what comes next to play out. This is my intention. A necessary part of effective magic. And my intentions are two-fold.
“Your wings?” Callistina says again.
“What about them?”
“Will you lose them?”
I look over my shoulder at my new, heavy appendages. They weigh a lot more than the bat wings. When I first realized they were back—though slightly more golden than I remember them being—I felt a mixture of horror and relief.
Horror because I have an aversion to feathers. They really do gross me out. I mean, the whole molting thing you do every year—my gods, it’s so fucking awful. Itchy, and tender, and a little bit painful. It puts a lot of stress on my body. And I’m thinking that’s the reason I feel like shit these days. It’s the wings.
But I also felt relief when I saw them there. Because they are the pinnacle of my power. And if one is planning the death of, for instance, a time-travelling oracle who takes pleasure in cutting off appendages in order to milk out some bloodhorn to make potent magic, then one needs one’s full power in order to do that.
“Well? Will you?”
“I don’t much care if I lose them, Callistina.” And this is the truth. Fuck the wings. Wings are just a pain in the ass. You can’t wear shirts or leather jackets. It’s just all kinds of messed up. “I’ve lived without them for so long, I just don’t much care.”