His eyes were full of an emotion she couldn’t place, the mask making a whistling sound when he took a breath. “Please don’t go.”
She’d imagined him saying those very words every time she left to go hunt cannibals. The power they held was almost enough to make her stay. But it was too late. Tears welled up in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Alley. I have to.”
She turned her back on him and headed for the door. Just as she was about to grip the handle, something flashed in the corner of her eye, nearly missing her head as it struck the door. She yelped and jumped back, looking around at the floor to see what it was.
“Did you just throw something at—” Her voice snagged in her throat when she saw the metal mask at her feet. She took a step back and slowly turned to face him. Her steady heartbeat became a stutter.
Alistair stood before her barefaced. She stared, ogling him exactly the way he hated from others. She knew it was him and yet she had to focus, collecting his features and putting them together like puzzle pieces. When it all came together and she saw the Alley she remembered, the Alley she’d thought was gone forever, her heart started with a sudden wrench like one of Nigel’s rusted inventions after being oiled.
He looked just as she remembered, as if he’d been kept frozen beneath the mask for the last three years. She dropped her bag and went to him, reached out with tentative fingers, touching his skin, his cheeks, chin, lips. No, he wasn’t exactly the same, she realized. The line of his jaw was more pronounced. He’d lost that soft, childlike skin and replaced it with tougher adult skin. She could feel a hint of stubble. He was a man now.
He’d tried to grow a beard a time or two when he was younger, but it had looked more like molded tufts on a block of cheese. He could wear a proper beard if he wanted to now. She moved away from his whiskers to explore the rest of his face. She touched the lines of his scars, raised silver dots from stitch marks. He smiled, exposing his teeth. His mouth had been her favorite part of him. He had beautiful teeth, with the slightest overlap in the very front that made his lips look fuller.
“Alley!” She touched the scars on his neck, his jawbone, ears. He grabbed her wrists, holding her hands in front of him. She could’ve easily slipped out of his grip, but the way he looked at her, his lips parted, eyes focused, made her want to be exactly where she was. She thought he was trying to speak. Then the most unexpected thing happened.
He kissed her.
She had imagined what kissing Alistair would be like a million times since abandoning the notion that boys were wretched, smelly things. Nothing could’ve prepared her for the truth of it.
His touch on the side of her cheek was all the persuasion needed for her lips to fall apart and let him in. Her eyes melted shut as he twisted his fingers in her hair and the fabric of her dress, tugging and soothing with the violent tenderness of a long-awaited kiss. They took turns stealing the breath from each other and giving it back.
With each touch of his lips, her dead heart was galvanized as though being woken from centuries of black sleep. His kiss was alchemy, for she felt golden, illuminated. When they finally parted, she was left boneless and gasping.
She felt dizzy and half out of her mind. Her body swayed, and yet she wanted more. She wondered how she could ever have mistaken a vampire’s bite for love.
He watched her, expecting something, so she said, “That’s it? That’s all you got?”
His smile was enough to knock her down. She was glad when he pulled her back into his arms, holding her up. She felt a difference in their second kiss, an urgency that hadn’t been there before. She knew she could go too far. She wanted to go too far. But Alistair stopped her. She wasn’t ready for it to be over when he finally pulled away.
She sighed when his eyes steadied on hers, and his lips flattened, becoming somber. She wanted to forget all seriousness and go back to kissing. She wanted to crack the safety barrier between them, claw at his chest, and crawl beneath his skin and wear him like a suit. It was only when they kissed that she could hear his true voice.
When Alistair lifted his right hand, folded his fingers, and put them on his heart, she realized some things were better than kissing.
I love you, his sign said. His hooded eyes, his loopy half smile with lips as soft as a puppy’s tummy, matched the gesture.
“I love you too, Alley.” A tear trickled down her cheek. She swatted at it like she would a fly. “I’ve always loved you.”
She wanted to live in that moment with him for all eternity, away from the Fairfields, away from her memories. For the first time since arriving in the West, she felt like she could finally abandon the past and live for the day and even plan for the future.
Creaking floorboards outside her door roused her from her thoughts.
“Did you hear that?” she said.
Alistair nodded. “I’m sure it was a maid,” he signed.
“All the maids have left.”