Chapter 163: Family
I was expecting him. Was already sitting in the back yard, on our bench, waiting when he pulled up in the dark on his motorcycle. I hugged my knees to my chest, forcing myself to breathe as the sound of the motor died. Heavy boot falls echoed around the side of the house, thudding over the patio stones.
I sat still and let him settle, leather creaking, the scent of it so delicious, mixed with the smell of him I almost couldn't bear it. As it was, I was unable to resist the small ribbon of my power that escaped and slid close to him, waiting for him to accept me.
For a long moment, my heart stopped beating, my breath frozen in my body. He didn't move, made no effort to reach for me, though I knew he felt my magic waiting there. I had already sworn to myself I would not cry, I would not, but tears threatened anyway, past the tightening in my throat.
A gentle breeze rose up, cooling the heat in my skin and tickling my nose. I drew a breath at last, breaking the spell of fear and despair I'd woven around us.
In that same instant when my heart thudded hard against my ribs, he groaned and leaned toward me in a rush of movement, arms engulfing me as his energy rushed out to meet mine.
I sobbed once against his shoulder, nose pressed against the warm skin of his neck, holding him as tightly as I could while my body shuddered away what was left of my terror. The absolute surety he was leaving me, he didn't love me, that I was to be alone again in the very moment I finally knew what and who I was.
Quaid pulled back, hands in my hair, gripping me tightly, lips descending, devouring my mouth with an intensity I'd never felt from him. I answered with my own, wrapping him up with my magic, all three threads of it, tying him tightly to me even as my hands slid under the hem of his T-shirt as if of their own volition, fingers stroking over his stomach.
He gasped and pulled away, brown eyes burning with power, hands trembling as they held me.
"Syd," he whispered, voice thick, my name vibrating from deep inside him. I felt his body clench as I ran my hands around him and up his bare back. "Oh, Syd."
I kissed him this time, hungry for something I'd never been allowed to have. Not just the physical connection, pure and delicious, but the absolute abandon of connecting to him with all of my power, unhindered and full of need. He groaned again, softly into my mouth before freeing himself from my lips.
"Listen to me." I didn't want to talk. Not when his mouth was so close and his power was filling me up in ways it had never been able to before. But he wasn't giving me a choice. "I've never been so afraid as I was today. For you. For us. I was sure I'd lost you."
"Never," I whispered back, barely able to speak.
"Syd," he leaned back even further while I tried to pull him close, "please, you have to listen."
I dug my fingernails into the skin of his back and nodded. "Tell me."
He drew a ragged breath before speaking again. "I have to go."
No. Not now. Please, not now. "Quaid-"
"You're safe." He pressed his lips to my forehead. "You're whole. That much is done." He looked down into my eyes again, soul naked and raw, for the first time fully exposing who he was to me. I dove into him, into his mind and his heart and felt what he was feeling. Through wavering tears, as I absorbed his terror for me, his great and passionate love, I settled on the one thing he had left to do.
"Your family." I pulled away from him, understanding and yet not.
"I have to find them." He didn't try to touch me again, but his magic stayed with me, that openness still gaping.
"I'm your family." I knew it wasn't enough, felt the heat of my tears as they dripped onto the back of my hands, clenched now in my lap, longing to feel him again.
"Yes," he said. "You are. And you will be, always. But Syd, I have to know."
I nodded, head bobbing on my neck. I looked up at him, heart breaking, and saw at last what he really needed.
Quaid needed me to tell him to go. That it was okay to leave me behind and search for his history. I knew I could convince him. It was so clear in that moment, there in my back yard with the clear sky and sparkling stars watching us, the slumbering Wild Hunt pulsing its quiet power under our feet, the family magic keeping all at peace. I could make him stay. All I had to do was ask him not to go.
I was so tempted, my selfishness surging as I considered how much I'd missed out on, how my life had been one loss after another. Didn't I deserve happiness at last? Didn't he?
But I couldn't do it to him. Not after he let me in, let me see and feel him so completely. I gripped his hand and opened myself as he had done.
And in that heartbeat between love and sorrow, tied to Quaid as I had never been with anyone, I let him go.
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