Asher Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 5 of 7

The brew held. For the first time in weeks Asher felt no fire when the woman moved. He had seven days of calm. But calm only showed him a new failure. He sat across the manor's front room and watched her read in the fuzzy orange chair. He wanted to speak to her. He did not know how. He had never courted anyone. When she looked up and smiled, he flinched and turned away. He stood too fast and left the room. In the cold hall he pressed his back to the stone wall. His hands shook, not from hunger now, but from something worse. He wanted to be near her. His body kept pulling him back, like a dog trained to fear the hand that feeds it. A soft weight landed on his shoulder. He jumped. A black-and-white cat clung there, small dark wings folded against its back. It had appeared at the manor days ago, drawn to the woman, and refused to leave. It pushed its head against his jaw and purred. "Off," Asher said. The cat did not move. It kneaded his shoulder and stared with bright green eyes. It wanted him to hold it. He held it, stiff at first. The cat melted into his arms. Nothing happened. No fear. No harm. He breathed. He carried the cat back to the front room. The woman looked up again. This time he did not flinch. He sat in the chair beside hers instead of across the room. The cat spilled into his lap and rolled belly-up. The woman laughed. She reached over and scratched the cat's chin, and her fingers brushed the back of Asher's hand. He held still. He let her hand rest there. The old instinct told him to pull away. He did not. He turned his hand over, slow, and let her keep scratching the cat against his open palm. She kept talking to the cat, easy, warm, not knowing what she had done. He had crossed something. He could sit beside her. He could let her touch him and not run. The cat had shown him the trick of it. You start with something small and let it stay. But that night, alone in the dead kitchen, Asher counted the days on his fingers. Six left. Then the brew ran dry. He could be near her now, finally. And the closer he got, the more he had to lose when the hunger came roaring back and Roselyn decided whether he lived. Learning to love her was easy compared to keeping her alive. He would need more blossom, and Roselyn owed him nothing.