The Alpha Hunts the Exiles, So I Let Him Catch Me novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Count It

"Count it," I said, in my own doorway, with my back to the bedroom and his mouth an inch from mine.

Unai stopped.

"You said it to me at the cheese bench. Count it later, shepherd." I took his coat by the lapels. "It's later."

"All of it?" he said, hoarse.

"All night. Every one. And you'll say the number out loud."

He kissed me, then, in my father's house, with the Candlemas bells still ringing down the lane.

I walked him backward into the bedroom, and kicked the door shut, and he laughed against my lips.

On the dresser stood a thick white candle in a brass holder.

My mother had blessed it at the church every Candlemas, and lit it in the window against the dark.

Aritz had kept it for five years, and never burned it.

I took the matches from the drawer and lit it.

The flame stood up straight and gold.

"Take your shirt off," I said. "Then mine."

He stripped it over his head, slowly, and unbuttoned mine with unsteady fingers.

He kissed my collarbone, and the scar, and the shoulder.

I pulled off the rest myself.

I lay face down on the coverlet with my cheek on my arms, and the candle burned beside me.

"You are going to do something for me," I said.

"Anything."

"Pick up the candle."

I heard him breathe in.

I heard the brass scrape, and the small dry sound of the wick.

"Nahia," he said. "Beeswax, from a church candle."

"It runs cool. It will not hurt."

"Where?"

"Anywhere you like," I said. "Except there." I touched my shoulder where the burn began. "Never near that."

"I know."

"Say it."

"I will never put fire near it," Unai said. "I'll put my mouth on it instead."

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