by Keary Taylor
I had to press my lips together, because I knew the smile on my face would be ridiculous. But Nathaniel did let a little smile form on his own lips. And he just nodded.
My father looked back at me, and even though I knew he didn’t love finding us the way he did, he was pleased that we’d worked things out. “Door open the rest of the night? Might be a good idea?”
I just nodded.
“Sure thing,” Nathaniel said.
My father just shook his head. “Pie in ten minutes.”
He walked out, and Nathaniel looked back at me.
His face was red with embarrassment. I couldn’t help the silent little laugh that shook my chest.
Nathaniel shook his head at me, but didn’t say anything as he crossed the room back to me. He sat on the edge of the bed and leaned forward, brushing the hair out of my face.
“The stories we’re going to have to tell someday,” he said. I loved the low, intimate, confident tone to his voice.
I didn’t say anything. But I raised a hand and cupped his jaw. And I leaned forward, pressing one soft kiss to his lips.
“I want to promise no more drama,” Nathaniel said. “But I can’t see the future. But I swear I’ll just try harder. Talk more. Because I think this is worth it.”
“Me too,” I said, nodding, meaning it with everything in me. “No more judgement.”
Nathaniel nodded. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”
My heart gave a tiny flip before I squashed it. It was overreacting.
“Would you go to the Winter Social Ball with me?”
The smile that split my face was comical. I knew I was overthinking his “question.”
I tossed my head back and laughed at myself. “Yes,” I answered, wrapping my arms around him, shaking my head.
The Winter Social Ball was the school’s one and only social event. It was thrown the weekend before finals. It was the university equivalent of high school prom. Everyone brought dates, and everyone dressed up. There was a big formal dinner and dancing and because it was at a university, a lot of connections were made those nights that carried into everyone’s professional years.
I’d only ever helped set up. Non-college students weren’t allowed.
But I’d seen the magic of the night, and I’d been dying to go since I was twelve.
I leaned back and looked into Nathaniel’s green eyes.
I was glad the fight was over. We needed to be together. I needed to be with him, to fight for him. To learn together.
I leaned in, and I kissed him once more, because I could.
Chapter Sixteen
The following Tuesday morning, I was eating breakfast when there was a tap on the door. I opened it, and instantly, a paper airplane landed in my hands.
With a smile, I unfolded it.
Can I walk you to class this morning?
Yes, I wrote on the paper, and it took off into the air.
Quickly, I finished eating my breakfast before dashing back up the stairs to brush my teeth. I checked myself in the mirror, grateful that I’d woken up a few minutes early today and had taken some time on my hair and makeup. I sported a tight-fitting black turtleneck and a plaid skirt that rode shorter than it should, but made my rear end look pretty fantastic. I topped it all off with black socks that came all the way up to my knees.
I pulled my shoes on, grabbed my coat, and slung my bag over my shoulder, just as there was a definitive knock on the door.
I opened it and I loved every millisecond of Nathaniel’s eyes scanning up and down my entire body.
He stepped over the threshold and wrapped a hand around my waist. He pulled my middle to his and leaned down to kiss me.
“I might just keep you here at the house all for myself today instead,” he growled into my mouth.
“As much as I like that idea, I kind of want to rub us in everyone’s face today,” I said, nipping at his bottom lip. “And I can’t be late for class.”
He smiled against my lips, pressing one last kiss to them. And then we turned and headed out the door, locking it behind us.
The snow was falling softly, sticking to the grass, but not the sidewalks yet. Hand in hand, Nathaniel and I walked back to the University.
Heads turned our way the moment we walked through the door. I clung to Nathaniel like a needy girlfriend, looking up into his handsome face and beaming for all the world to see. As we stepped into the common room, I reached a hand up, placing it on his cheek. He bent down and gave me what I wanted.
He kissed me hard and deep. I felt his grip on my hip tighten, digging into my flesh. It scrunched my skirt up and maybe I was showing more than I should, but I didn’t care.
Nathaniel’s tongue slipped into my mouth and I smiled as I let him kiss me deeper, relishing every electric current raging through my body.
Someone cleared their throat and I remembered where we were.
Half the students in the common area were staring at us. Some eyes immediately darted away as we came up for air, but others just stared in either disgust or jealousy.
And there, leaned up against the far wall, was David Sinclair. He was flanked by Borden and Howard.
David glared at the two of us with a darkness I’d not yet seen on his face. I watched as his fingers curled into a fist.
He leaned over and whispered something to Borden.
I gave him a smirk, leaning into Nathaniel. He leaned down as if he were expecting a whisper.
Instead, I licked his neck and then bit his earlobe.
Nathaniel looked down at me with surprise, but hunger sparked in his eyes, and a thin smile curled in the corners of his mouth.
We stepped forward, heading down the hall to my first class.
Just before we stepped out of sight of the common room, Nathaniel’s hand slid down my waist, to my rear. He gave it a squeeze.
I could feel David’s eyes on us. I knew Nathaniel did it to rile him up.
But it still sent a thrill zipping through my lower belly.
I didn’t have any spare time. Truly, I didn’t. Between classes and our mage studies, I felt like I barely had time to sleep.
But I got everything ready at five in the morning. While in the library, I slipped a note to Nathaniel. Excitement sparked through my entire body when his eyes found me. I just smiled and walked back out.
At nine o’clock, when the library was closing, I slipped back inside. I went to the McCallum room and inserted the key into the back of the bookcase. Glancing over my shoulder that no one was watching, I swung it open and slipped inside, leaving the key for Nathaniel.
I wound my way up the spiral staircase. I stepped out into my mother’s office.
I’d filled the space with golden balloons and streamers. A carefully wrapped present waited on Mom’s desk. I’d stayed awake most of the night before baking the cake. And now I lit the candles, all twenty-two of them.
And with perfect timing, I faintly heard the sound of the lock in the bookcase and then it swinging open. I listened to Nathaniel’s footsteps rising up the spiral staircase as I picked up the cake.
His entire face lit up when he saw me standing there. I started singing the birthday song softly and slowly as I crossed the dark space to him. He watched me the entire time, his eyes shining with appreciation and wonder.
“Happy birthday, dear Nathaniel,” I sang, even though I didn’t have much of a singing voice. “Happy birthday to you.”
Nathaniel smiled and blew out the candles. And then he leaned forward through the smoke, and pressed a long, lingering kiss to my lips.
“Thank you, Margot,” he said, leaning back, his eyes fixed on mine. “I…I haven’t celebrated my birthday in…well,” he shook his head. “I don’t even remember.”
I dipped my finger in the frosting and tapped it to his nose. “You’re very welcome,” I said, watching his smile as he wiped the frosting from the bridge of his nose and ate it. “No promises it will be the best tasting cake, b
ut it’s the thought that counts, right?”
Nathaniel took the cake and set it aside on the desk. His eyes grew intense and deep as he wrapped his hands around my waist, sliding to my lower back. “It counts for everything, Margot,” he said. “You’ve become the most important person in my entire world. I’ve been on my own for so long, been in survival mode for my entire life. I can’t even describe what a saving angel you are to me.”
I looped my arms behind his head and shifted up onto my tip toes so that I could kiss him. His lips were soft and rough, needy and freeing. I took a breath in as we kissed, and I memorized every way he smelled, every way he tasted up against my lips.
His hands slid lower until they gripped my outer thighs. As my need grew more urgent, I climbed right up him and wrapped my legs around his waist. He turned, crossing a few steps over to the chair and sank onto it, me wrapped around him while we tried our very best to devour one another.
His lips trailed from my mouth, to my jaw, down my throat.
I sighed, loving every moment we got together, praying they could continue for the rest of our lives.
But as my eyes slid open, they landed on the package on the desk, and suddenly I couldn’t wait a moment longer.
“Your present,” I said, leaning over and grabbing it. My neck suddenly felt cold with the absence of his lips. But still, I smiled, and held the present between the two of us.
Nathaniel returned my smile before his eyes fell to the package and he took it. Carefully, he opened the wrapping, and I had to wonder how many presents he’d ever opened in his life. From his careful method, I didn’t think it was many.
The object on top was a framed picture of myself. Maybe it was vain, and I found myself instantly blushing as he studied it.
“You don’t have a single picture in the solarium,” I said softly, suddenly wishing I could take it back.
Nathaniel studied it in silence for several long moments.
But I knew I hadn’t made a mistake when he looked up at me, meeting my eyes. I saw wonder and appreciation and longing there.
He reached up a hand, lacing his long fingers into my hair, but he looked back down at the picture again.
“Thank you,” he breathed softly.
I muttered a response, feeling overwhelmed by his reaction and gratitude.
He set the picture in our laps, since I was still sitting wrapped around him. And then he pulled out the next item.
It was a journal. Wrapped in black leather, it had over three hundred pages bound within.
“You’re a historian,” I said. “I think it’s time you start recording your own history.”
He flipped through the pages, and I could already imagine them filled with his elegant handwriting.
“Thank you, Margot,” he said as he looked up at me. He leaned forward, pressing his lips gently to mine.
“You’re welcome,” I muttered against his lips as I got lost in them again.
Chapter Seventeen
Winter came in full effect. In the coming weeks, we received nearly two feet of snow. Students were in full-fledged panic mode. Finals were quickly approaching. We were neck deep in studies. Classes were at their most intense.
I was learning to survive off only five hours of sleep. Because as soon as we were out of classes and Nathaniel wasn’t working at the library, he and I were headed to Asteria House to study. Book after book, we worked. Some things we mastered. Others, we failed at miserably.
It was slow learning. We had to go through endless trial and error. We’d set things on fire. We’d made things transform into something else, only to have them dissolve into dust moments later. We’d made inanimate objects scream like they’d been speared through with a knife.
But we learned how to glamour. We could start a fire in the fireplace in two seconds flat. We were near masters of telekinesis.
And I started learning alchemy.
It was complicated. Exceptionally complicated. It required rocks and a commitment of the spirit and time. I wasn’t sure I fully understood it. Our instructions weren’t great.
Nathaniel couldn’t get it to work at all. And maybe I could because I had some kind of affinity for earth. But even still, I couldn’t get my rocks to stay gold for longer than twenty minutes.
But I was determined. I would do this. I would make this work.
Because I knew my future was shifting. What I thought was my goal no longer was. And I needed to find some way to support us so we could continue our study.
Somehow, I would master alchemy.
When the sun started to drop behind the horizon, Nathaniel and I would leave Asteria House, and walk hand in hand back down the beach. The rest of the day was devoted to our schoolwork. Some nights we studied together. Some we went our separate ways.
The third week in December, we prepared for a different kind of night.
Me and Dad had gone up to Boston the weekend before and went shopping. And tonight, my heart ached for my mother.
She hadn’t been there for either of the proms I’d attended in high school. I’d had to get ready on my own and with the help of my father.
She still wasn’t here when I was University age. And I still hadn’t figured out what had happened to her.
In the bathroom, I wound my hair around the curling iron, being careful not to burn my fingers or my scalp.
“The committee did a really fantastic job this year,” my dad said. He sat on the floor in the hallway, his back propped up against the wall. He was barefoot, even though it was freezing in the house. His ankles were crossed, one on top of the other. He watched me as I got ready. “Your mother would have loved it.”
I looked over at him, hating that we had to miss her like this. I hated that she was gone. And I hated that we still didn’t know why.
“You know it’s not nice to tease,” I said, looking back in the mirror. “Or to spoil surprises.”
“Aren’t both of those things part of my job description as a father?” he asked with a laugh.
“Endless support and undying devotion,” I corrected him.
“Oh, I think I nailed that part when I paid for that dress, Margot,” he said, raising his eyebrows.
I blushed at myself in the mirror. I knew I had things easy. I didn’t have to go get a job. My father reiterated all the time that he was happy to have me live at home, and so long as I helped with the grocery shopping and cooking, he’d front the costs. I had it good and easy. So long as I didn’t mind living with him.
Which I didn’t.
I wasn’t sure when I would ever feel good about moving out and leaving him entirely alone.
“Alright,” I said as I unplugged the iron. I looked myself over one last time. My hair was pretty fantastic if I did say so myself. My makeup was done to the very best of my ability. “I’m going to put my dress on now. Zip me up in a minute?”
My father gave a little smile and nodded.
I stepped out of the bathroom, and carefully stepped over him and closed myself in my bedroom.
My dress was red satin with a V cross neck across my bust. The sleeves slipped off my shoulders. The waist was narrow before billowing out into a full skirt.
I slipped into it, zipping it up as far as I could manage. I turned to the full-length mirror that hung on the back of my door and admired myself.
It made my waist look narrow and my hips full. It accentuated my bust in all the right ways and highlighted my collar bones. I’d curled my hair back and then taken two strips into a twist at the back of my head.
I smiled, just thinking of Nathaniel’s reaction at seeing me.
I opened the door and found Dad waiting.
His eyes got red the second he saw me. He covered his mouth with a hand and just stood back for a second.
“If you can’t handle seeing me in this dress, how are you ever going to handle a white one?” I teased him.
“You trying to tell me something?” he asked. His voice was rough but playful.
<
br /> I shook my head, but the thought made my heart flutter.
I was only nineteen. I couldn’t think about getting married.
Even though I had. On more than a few occasions since I’d met Nathaniel Nightingale.
I turned on the spot and my father zipped me up the rest of the way.
“I will admit,” he said as I turned to face him again. “It was well worth the money.”
I smiled and wrapped my arms around him. “Thank you, again. It’s all that I could have imagined.”
He pressed a kiss to my forehead and just then there was a knock at the door.
“Wait here,” Dad said with a wink. “You never did the grand staircase reveal for any of the other events.”
I just laughed and shook my head at him, but I waited at the top of the stairs while he ran down the stairs to open the door.
I placed my hands over my stomach at the sound of Nathaniel’s voice. It was suddenly full of butterflies. And I couldn’t stop smiling as I imagined him in a tuxedo. Softly, he and my father talked for a minute.
Maybe there was some cue I was supposed to wait for. But we hadn’t discussed it.
So finally, I couldn’t wait anymore. I stepped down the first stair and then the next.
Slowly, one step at a time, my view of Nathaniel grew. First, shiny shoes. Then, well fit trousers. A clean and pressed jacket. A black bowtie.
And then him. His tamed hair, which he’d left long for my benefit. His eyes were wide and sparkled. His mouth was slightly slack.
He looked awe struck.
And I felt the same.
He looked like a ruler. He looked powerful. He looked capable of anything in that tux.
I found myself grinning like a fool, and I didn’t care one bit.
“You okay, Nathaniel?” my dad asked, staring at my boyfriend with real concern.
Nathaniel’s mouth closed, but he only nodded. He stepped forward, meeting me at the bottom of the stairs.
He reached out a hand, wrapping it around my waist and pulling me to meet his lips.