Chapter 11

Alistair

A light tap sounded at my door, which was odd, because I knew from her scent that it was Lilith and we were well beyond the ‘polite knocking' stage. So it was with an uneasy feeling that I opened the door.

She stood on the other side, holding my favorite little Ice Princess pothos, which I'd gifted to her so she could rehome the low-fae that had taken up residence in her house. Patrick the frog sat nestled under one of the leaves with his ever-placid expression betrayed by the rapid flickering of his tiny throat pouch as he hyperventilated. The toadstool-fae— nympha mordens —were doing their very best to appear as real mushrooms, nervously tilting their tiny faces downward to be less visible. They despised being transported.

"Is something wrong?" I asked, discomfort spiking as we made eye contact and I found that hers were troubled. Did she not want my plant any longer? Perhaps she wanted her tree back in exchange. I would happily give it back, but the pothos had been a gift. We didn't need to make an exchange. Or maybe Patrick had stopped eating the grubs I'd recommended for his feeding, and carrying the little pot was preferable to touching the frog. That I could understand—being opposed to the feeling of the mucus-like secretions myself—but I would have come down to her apartment to observe him if she'd asked.

I took a moment to drink in her features, noting the disquiet written across them. Her perfect, delectable lips were turned down at the corners. Her adorable, expressive eyebrows were currently pinched above the freckles that scattered across her pert, elvish nose. Her silken chestnut hair that just brushed her delicate jawline, clenched with tension. The radiant-looking skin that was paler than usual. Her beautifully rounded cheeks and soft figure that felt so perfect wrapped in my arms. I wanted to pull her into my arms right now, but she was holding herself strangely distant.

Her voice was emotionless when she finally spoke. "My uncle says the new nursery is doing well enough that he could trust someone else to run it now, and he has my place at the old store waiting for me if I want it."

She was leaving.

I'd known this was coming. She'd talked about her old city regularly for as long as I'd known her. She'd made it clear that she wasn't staying here long term. I'd known it, but I hadn't believed it. I'd hoped I'd have longer to woo her, had been in denial that this day would ever actually come. Hearing her speak the words felt like a blow to the chest.

"Oh," I said, my voice cracking despite my attempt to control my emotions. "Well, that's… that's great. Right?" I made myself say the words, easily hearing the lie in them anyway. "That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

I forced a smile even though it felt terrible. I didn't feel like smiling. I felt like my heart was splintering into a million pieces. My sternum must have been splitting in two. My chest cavity was breaking open, ready to spill my internal contents all over the floor at her feet. I had been happily going about my life with it revolving around my work and my research, my beloved apple trees easily existing as the center of my universe. Solandis would occasionally drag me out for a night with our mutual friends or I'd spend a day with her daughter, whom I adored. Sometimes I played cards with Sidney's vampire husband and his nocturnal co-workers. My life was fine. Until Lilith plunged into it with her alluring scent and her bright smiles, more illuminating than any lamplight. How would I attend our yoga classes without her sunny laughter as she fumbled a pose and collapsed on her mat? How would I come home in the morning and not have her comforting scent drifting up through the registers? How would I go on without her compassion and her stories, her intelligence and her wit? Without her whimpers and moans as she took me inside her body?

I couldn't.

My life stretched out before me, dim and drab and lonely and entirely unappealing. But I forced a smile, because it's what she wanted.

My alarm spiked higher as her face crumpled distressingly and she burst into tears, clutching her plant pot to her chest more tightly in my doorway.

"I don't think it is," she cried, and my heart hammered in my chest.

"What? What—what?" I stammered. My eyes were wide as I reached for her automatically, pulling her into my apartment and shutting the door behind her, taking her pot in one hand and guiding her to my couch with another. I sat down with the little pot on my lap and pulled her into the seat next to me, wrapping several arms around her and holding her against my side. "Talk to me," I soothed, my mind racing.

"I don't want to go home," she sobbed, her tears leaking into my mane. I should have been disturbed, but I wasn't. Her bodily fluids never bothered me the way everything else did.

"What's wrong?" I asked. This was what she wanted. I knew it was.

"I hated this town. Hated it here. But I didn't know anyone! Nothing was the same, and I felt so alone. All I could think about was biding my time until I could go back to my old life. But I don't want to leave you."

I nodded and held her closer. I didn't want her to leave me either, but I couldn't make this harder for her. Letting her talk through her feelings was the best thing I could do right now.

"I don't want to leave this," she sniffled, scrubbing under her eyes. "What do you want?" she asked, her gaze sharpening on mine.

I swallowed thickly, trying to decide how to answer. "I want you to be happy," I said slowly, willing it to be true. I did want her to be happy, but not really, not if it meant her leaving.

"Do you want me to move home?" she asked bluntly.

"No." My answer was automatic, the tiny word out in the open before my brain could even process that I'd spoken. But once it was, the floodgates were broken. "No. I want you to stay here and move in with me. I don't ever want to be without you. I don't want you to move home. I… I want this to be your home."

Silence reigned as she took in my answer. She chewed on her lip for long enough that I feared she might damage it, and I reached up to tug it gently from her teeth. Lilith blew out a heavy breath and then nodded. "I need you to take care of my plant."

I stared at her, unable to piece together what she was saying.

"While I go home and get my condo ready to sell," she clarified. "Will you be capable of feeding those grubs to Patrick? I know you hate bugs," she said with a hiccup from too many tears.

I carefully set the pot on the floor and then tackled Lilith onto the couch, pinning her beneath me as I kissed her over and over again. I would feed Patrick a thousand horrible bugs for this woman. She was going to live with me.