noise, studying me instead of the loom. “What else helps your control?”
My cheeks heated as I waited for the hint that some kinds of physical exertion would help tire me out, but he only waited, eyebrows raised. Maybe it had been entirely innocent? Maybe he didn’t mean it suggestively, even though every male witch I’d ever met had leered over the same possibility. I couldn’t read him and it drove me crazy. His aura revealed nothing about him other than an intense interest in me.
I cleared my throat and pushed away the memory of how it felt when he’d kissed my neck and behind my ear. If I weren’t such a coward, I could have felt a hell of a lot more. “Not really anything that I’ve discovered. Not that I’ve…tried a lot of things.”
“Sounds like it’s time to start trying things,” he said.
A laugh escaped before I could swallow it back, and Henry’s head tilted again in that wolf-like curiosity. He waited until I finally said, “It’s not that easy. It’s not like I can just randomly try things and hope that it helps with my control. I don’t know until something pushes me into being out of control. So unless I want to endanger people, there’s no way of learning what helps.”
He frowned faintly, the slightest wrinkling of his forehead, then smoothed his hand over the quilt where it lay on my leg. “I’ve pushed you past control, haven’t I? Can’t you experiment with me?”
I went still. Surely he wasn’t suggesting... “Those were accidents, and I could have killed you.”
“But you didn’t.”
“But I could have,” I said. Panic started to bubble up. He couldn’t possibly mean that he wanted to subject himself to being hexed over and over in some impossible effort to figure out how to increase my control. No one was that noble, or that stupid. “It’s dangerous.”
“You didn’t hurt me,” he said with a shrug. “Seems like a good opportunity to test yourself.”
I shook my head and drew my legs up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. “No. It’s too dangerous. I’d kill you and then…then…”
Henry made one of those grumbly noises and reached out to touch my knee. “Hey, calm down. I’m sorry. It was just a thought, just a suggestion.”
I shivered but couldn’t relax. Just the thought of deliberately letting my magic discharge at him made me shudder at the possible outcomes. Not just death, but him transforming into his animal form, maybe getting stuck there. Maybe driving him insane and forcing his pack to deal with him. There was so much that could go wrong, and he sat there like it was an everyday suggestion...
“Ophelia,” he said quietly, and surprised me into looking at him. He said my name like a secret, something he meant to share only with me, and it threw me off-balance. “You should rest. Can you sleep?”
I waited for a proposition, even though I suspected Henry wasn’t the kind of guy who took advantage like that, but he just looked concerned about me getting some sleep. I cleared my throat and managed to nod, though it felt strange to stretch out and get comfortable with him still there. “You don’t have to stay.”
The moment I said it, I realized I didn’t want him to leave. I should have been uncomfortable with him there, sitting on my bed and watching me breathe, but the possibility of his absence made my insides shrink with dread.
Henry looked sheepish and waited until I’d forced my legs flat under the quilt before he touched my ankles again, almost as if he needed to reassure himself more than me. “The wolf wants to stay and make sure you rest.”
“The wolf?”
He nodded, his clear eyes studying me once more. “He is very concerned about you being rested. If you don’t mind, I’ll just stay here until you fall asleep.”
I yawned before I could follow up with all the questions that crowded my mind about his wolf half and how all of that worked. I should have told him to leave or sit outside the door if he was that concerned, but I liked having his warm bulk at the foot of the bed, the heavy heat of his hand resting on my ankle. “Don’t try anything funny.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He squeezed my calf and leaned to turn off the light.
Call me crazy, but I believed him.
Chapter 18
Henry
It was too much of a struggle to remain calm, but Henry and the wolf alike