#lewyn junius

Half sprawled over Lewyn's body, Callie breaks into breathless laughter.

"What is it?" He asks, running a hand up and down her side.

"I was just thinking that if anyone had told me when we first met that this would happen, I would've thought they were crazy."

"I would have been insulted."

She shoves him half-heartedly. "Hey."

"You were a child. Of course I wasn't interested in you like that."

"A few months later, I was an adult fully capable of making my own decisions, according to you."

He stirs. Maybe he doesn't like to think about the times he tortured her all those years ago.

Huh. She enjoys the memory of taking her revenge. Keeping him on edge with countless little references to his betrayal was fun.

Making Lewyn squirm has always been satisfying.

"You can technically be an adult," he says, scrambling for an answer that allows him to save face, "but still a child in these matters."

"Yeah, well, you were old."

Lewyn laughs, pushing back a strand of hair that has fallen over her eye. "I am still old."

"Lucky for you, I seem to have developed a thing for crypt keepers."

"I suppose I have developed a, how did you put it, "thing" for rude and insubordinate women."

"Hey, you're not my coven leader. By definition, I can't be insubordinate to you. Rude, okay. But I've never met anyone who deserves rudeness more than you."

"I'm a respectable member of society."

"Who literally tried to kill me and discredit me in front of the covens."

"I have never pretended to be a good man."

She points at him with a gasp. "You have always pretended to be a good man! I just seem to be one of the few people who can see through the act."

"Maybe you've paid very close attention to me."

"I have. My taste in men sucks." She runs a finger down his torso, makes him suck in a breath. "Your taste in women, on the other hand, is impeccable."

"What an unbiased statement."

NO, Callie thought, cutting herself off from what was sure to have been another witty, scathing, deftly crafted (if a little too observant) insult toward one Lewyn Middle Name Junius. She’d come up with several, devastatingly brilliant insults lately, if only in her head.

No, she thought again, silently mouthing the word for good measure, I most certainly do not have feelings for Lewyn.

She shook off the prickle of… whatever that feeling was, churning in her stomach, right as Lewyn turned his music down a fraction and quietly cleared his throat.

Oh, crap. He could probably hear her, lurking outside his office door like a creep. Callie pressed two fingers to her neck, checking her traitorous heartbeat was calm, then firmly grasped the door handle before her brain could catch up to reason and tell her what a bad idea this was.

Lewyn’s face flickered as she pushed open the door, rapping two knuckles on the wood as if in afterthought. Annoyance, at first, in the clench of his jaw and the tightness of his forehead; a flicker of interest in his intelligent eyes; and then, most curiously of all, and so well concealed that she only picked up on it because she was growing so used to reading the minute changes in his facial expressions lately —and wasn’t that concerning in and of itself— warmth. As if he was pleased that it had been Callie who had barged into his office uninvited.

Focusing on the annoyance, because one, her goal had been to irritate him, and two, that other line of thinking felt dangerous, Callie shut the door behind her.

‘The typical custom is to knock first,’ Lewyn said slowly, staring up at Callie beneath dark, well-maintained brows, ‘and wait to be invited in.’

‘Oh?’ A facetious grin tugged at the corner of Callie’s mouth. ‘And here I thought that was a made-up vampire rule.

Lewyn barely kept from rolling his eyes.

‘I brought you something,’ Callie went on.

Face carefully neutral, Lewyn stacked the papers he’d been working on and tucked them into a drawer, folding his hands atop his desk and watching her with a keen intensity.

Ignoring the feelings dancing in her stomach again from having Lewyn’s full attention on her —he was an apex predator! It was normal to be feeling a little… squirmy under his stare. Warm. Ten seconds from a heart attack. Or something— Callie reached into her bag.

She tossed him a twisted chunk of wood. Lewyn caught it on supernatural reflex, unflinching, one eyebrow cocked in question.

‘What is this?’ he asked, turning the wood over and over in his hands. It was a fist-sized chunk of tangled roots, wrapped and twining around each other, a bright, tawny chunk of amber set at its centre. The wood bore an uncanny resemblance to an anatomical heart. A similarity Callie herself had been sure to emphasize — she’d spent long enough in her workshop sanding and polishing the damned thing until the wood felt warm and smooth beneath her hands.

She looked at it in Lewyn’s hands now, his slender fingers pale but strong, his veins a cool blue beneath his skin.

Surreptitiously jabbing a fist into her stomach —enough with the not-butterflies!— she answered, ‘a heart.’

Lewyn’s gaze grew impossibly more focused.

‘Why?’

‘Because you don’t seem to have one.’

She’d found it on a walk through the forest four days ago; a walk she’d taken to get some fresh air and clear her head, or, more specifically, to get her mind off of Lewyn. And of course, the minute she started having some success in clearing her mind to a meditative, non-obsessive calm, she’d found the heart near the Red Beech tree and gone and immediately started thinking about him again.

God, she was meant to be smarter than this!

‘Ah.’ A thread of tension in Lewyn’s shoulders relaxed a fraction. ‘So this is not representative of… you… giving me your heart.’

Callie snorted, half surprised, half panicked. She had no idea what this… thing was between them, but now was sure as hell not the time to be having this conversation.

‘I doubt it,’ she scoffed, aiming for insulted but landing at a mortifying kind of breathless instead. ‘As if I would ever— No!’ she blurted. ‘I just saw it and thought of you.’

Oh, fuck.

A horrible, vulnerable, soft pause hung in the air between them.

‘You… thought of me,’ he repeated softly.

‘I thought, “who is the most uncouth, callous, ruthless, heartless man I know? Lewyn Junius!”’

Lewyn laughed mirthlessly, a short, derisive puff of air though his nose.

‘I’m hardly uncouth.’

He stood, straightening his waistcoat as he came around the desk to stand in front of her, right in her space. Far too close. She should lean in. She should punch him.

‘Lewyn—’

‘This is a gift, then?’

His voice had turned dangerously smooth; that of a wolf with a cornered rabbit. One of his hands drifted up to push back a lock of hair that had sprung free at her temple. Callie steeled her spine. She swallowed.

‘Yes.’

‘It is customary, in some places—’ Lewyn tilted his head ‘—to show one’s appreciation for a gift with a kiss.’

Callie’s tongue darted out automatically to wet her lips. Lewyn’s eyes flashed silver as they followed the small movement.

‘I don’t know,’ Callie said, her voice mercifully steady. She glanced around the tastefully furnished room. ‘I like what you’ve done with the place, but lets be real. Its no Chamber of Laws.’

A small, genuine laugh escaped Lewyn’s throat. ‘You mean to say you only kissed me because of the ambiance?’

‘Obviously. What else would possess me to kiss you?’

A second chuckle. The sound was buttery, smoky; something Callie wanted to bat at, like a cat chasing shadows in sunlight.

Eurgh! Who was she?! She didn’t have feelings for Lewyn!

And her stomach was not having any butterflies whatsoever!

And she wasn’t… disappointed? That he was pulling away? Taking a step back from her, turning, and taking a seat at his desk once more?

Callie drew in a measured, steadying breath, as Lewyn plucked a small ship in a bottle from the top of his desk and sat the polished wood and amber heart in its place.

He inclined his head at her. ‘Thank you, Callie.’ His voice was warm with appreciation.

He held her gaze for a moment longer, before collecting his earlier paperwork from the drawer. Seemingly cool and unbothered, he annotated something in the margins with a confident flick of his pen.

Oh, you bastard, Callie thought. This was just another power play, wasn’t it?! Goddamn calculating, evil, self-important Lewyn freaking Junius!

The door was already halfway open when the words, ‘Lewyn? What is your middle name?’ spilled from her mouth.

His pen paused in its scratching. ‘Hmm. Perhaps that’s something you’d like to research in the Chamber of Laws.’

She could hear the laughter in his voice. Asshole. He spoke up as she turned on her heel and stalked out. ‘Shut the— !’

Callie deliberately left the door open as she walked away.