Lydia rushed forward to hug me as I walked back in. I had left my projector on, and she had watched the whole rescue live on TV.
She hugged me and kissed me and hit me with a healing spell I didn’t need. Then she dragged me to the shower and ripped my clothes off, smearing Charlie’s blood all over both of us before the water could wash it off.
For a guy who had just decided to cut back on sex with Lydia, it sure seemed to be happening a lot. We took it to the bedroom, and I laid there, in her arms, completely at peace, while she played with my hair.
“Lydia, did I just fuck up my whole life?”
“Perhaps. Do you care?”
I said, “No. Do you care?”
“It’s a terrible risk. If you were still bound to my old Master, I would have tried to stop you, but we are both unbound, and none of the old rules apply anymore. Still, I am terribly afraid for you. Afraid of losing you if the authorities recognize your power, and afraid of being taken from you, if this new attention causes them to notice me.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Mages were so rare in the past, all I really had to worry about was angels. But now, with heroes and freaks on every corner, in a city where wizards are as common as street vendors, I have to be very careful where I go, and with how much of myself I leave connected to you.”
Lydia turned me around and took my face in her hands. “But Timothy, look at me, and tell me the truth. The man on the bridge, is that who you want to be?”
“All my life.”
“Then you have to do it. Whatever the cost. Even if we lose each other, I think you have to do it. The way Lawrence loved sailing. The way Anson and Stefan loved war. The way Tobias loved healing, I think you love this, and I don’t think you can be happy without it.”
“I would stop you if I could,” she admitted. “If it was up to me, I’d have you make a living casting protective runes, spending your days safe and warm in a mansion by the sea. If it was up to me, I would turn your life into a permanent vacation, and let you spend the next fifty years showing me your world, but you’d never be happy with that. That’s not who you are. Your heart wants to burn and suffer and pull men out of trucks, so that’s what you must do.”
And then I kissed her again and spent the rest of the night in bed with her, waiting for my phone to ring.