Chapter 147 - Shadows, Be Gone

'In the end, why not both?' I thought and swung by the cafeteria on my way back to my temporary room. The kitchen staff was happy to make me something. They weren't witches and didn't even pay notice to JJ's presence, but they paid a lot of notice to me. Apparently, the rumours about my and Ghost's help in Eternalroot had spread far and wide by now, and while some were mixed, the cooks decided I was a hero in this story with Ghost acting as my sidekick.

"It wasn't like this at all. More like the other way around," I told JJ on our way to my room. The tray I held wobbled dangerously in my hand when I snatched a piece of sausage from it with another. Before I could drop the sausage and the entire breakfast, JJ caught it and took it from my hands. "Oh, oops! Thank you."

He chuckled and shifted the tray out of my reach before I could steal more sausage. "If you are so hungry you can't wait until your room, maybe you should've eaten in cafeteria, ma chèrie."

I remembered all the people in there with their looks and gossip—not many, but enough now that the day was officially up and running, even for those of us who had gone to sleep way too late last night, and shook my head furiously. "No way. Let's just walk faster."

As soon as the tray was on the table, I gobbled the entire plate in record time while JJ watched with a mix of amusement and fondness in his smile. Yesterday took a lot of energy from me, and my body—my stomach especially—screamed at me to give it more fuel. Only when I filled it with fats and carbs did it calm down. A drowsiness born from a full meal hit me then, adding to the heavy head I had from the pure lack of sleep.

I wished coffee wasn't so awful in its taste and smell so I could drink some and energise. Instead, I cradled my strong black tea and tried to focus my mind on something that would wake me up.

My eyes settled on JJ, as they often did in his presence. I studied him as the events of last night returned to my mind. I was afraid he would be grieving still, hung up on a memory of Christina now that she wasn't alive to crush a fantasy with her harpy claws, but his eyes were focused purely on me, at least now.

"I'm so glad you are alright, JJ," I blurted out. "When Captain used this sunlight spell, I was really afraid… and when Christina caught you with her claws. I knew you would win, but still…"

"But even the best warriors can fall due to a simple misfortune," JJ finished for me. He reached out and took my hand in his, absentmindedly rubbed his fingers over mine. The touch sent shivers down my spine and lifted one of the many layers of fog from my mind. "You stopped your comrades from attacking me, even though it might end up with your kin turning against you. Not all, but some."

"So what?" I scoffed, put my other palm on top of his, and clasped my fingers tight over his cold ones. "You are more important, JJ. I can count the people I really care for here on the fingers of one hand."

"Thank you."

At some point I didn't notice, we leaned closer to each other over the small tea table, and now his face was so close to mine that I could see every shade of green in his eyes, and the way his pupils dilated as he looked at me.

There was only me and him in this moment, and the intensity of it, so unlike the relaxed way we slipped into a relationship before, took my breath away. I took it back, a deep one, to feel my lungs with relief, as I realised that my days of eyeing every shadow in fear of an attack were over. The shadow over my, and over his—over our—life was gone. I hoped that not even wisps of it would return, not to me and not to JJ. I had a feeling he had enough to haunt him even without that.

Yet, even with Christina gone, other horrors waited for me to close my eyes. Crooked limbs, tearful eyes, fear and despair. People clinging for me, pleading for me… too many people overall.

So I kept my eyes wide open as we both leaned even closer until our lips met. It started gentle, slow and lazy, but even though the fog in my head, the passion burned bright. But it wasn't the only reason my heart beat fast when we stood up from the table in unison and, without exchanging more than a single look, moved to the love-seat.

The guest rooms in the Nightingale's headquarters were really top-notch on all accounts.

"I feared for you, too, Diana," JJ spoke in my neck as we sat down, with me in his lap, with our hands exploring each other's bodies. "When your car crashed into that lamppost… If my heart still beat, it would've stopped there for a moment. But then I heard you moving, and talking, and I knew you were alright."

"I was. I am." My breath hitched when JJ's clever tongue, now busy with lapping my skin instead of forming words, found a particularly sensitive point. "I will be, and you will." It wasn't just about Christina anymore, but about everything that happened during that long, long yesterday.

He raised his head up, and I met his eyes again. Red, entirely scarlet red, gleaming at me with lust but also with something tender under it. And he must've read something in mine as he smiled at me with the same tenderness. "We will."

And then he swept me into a deep kiss just as his wicked fingers brushed over my nipples, taking all my fears, worries, and terrors away.