“Does this factor into why Elon is missing? Does it have to do with what happened?” I press, finally able to see the picture more clearly.
“I don’t know,” Rogan answers, dropping his head as though he’s too tired to hold it up any longer. “I’ve asked myself that, but I don’t see how anyone would know or why the other Osteomancers would be missing too. There would be no need for that, which makes me think it has more to do with your grandmother’s vision or some other unrelated motive that we don’t know about yet.”
“What am I supposed to do about the Order? Are they coming for me because of my connection to you?”
Rogan looks up at me and shakes his head. “Right now, what happened to us is information less than a handful of witches know. I don’t see my mother risking the secret getting out to anyone else in order to ask you outright. If you didn’t know but figured it out because of something she said or hinted at...I just don’t see her being that messy about it. It’s possible that something’s changed, that they’re now more desperate for answers. Or it’s possible that whatever the Order wants from you has nothing to do with me or Elon. As annoying as it is, we just have to wait on Marx for answers to that.”
“Would they hurt me?” I question, needing to know what I’m up against when it comes to his mother and just how badly she wants answers from her sons. I mean, obviously bad enough to ruin their lives, but does that vitriol extend to the people around them, to the people who dare to get close?
“I’m not going to let them get near you, Lennox, you have nothing to worry about there.”
“That isn’t exactly an answer to my question,” I point out.
His eyes drop from mine. “I want to say no, but I don’t know. It’s been ten years since she renounced us. The High Council has left us alone for the most part, but I don’t know if their tactics are changing,” he admits, and I nod in understanding, my accompanying sigh filled with anxiety and sudden exhaustion.
“So what now?” I press, needing some kind of plan or way to prepare for what might be coming our way. “Elon is missing, which may or may not have to do with the fact that he’s now magically immortal. The Order wants something from me, which may or may not have to do with my connection to an immortal. I mean, I’m only a couple of days into this whole Osteomancer thing, but I think it’s safe to say that I am killing it,” I declare on a laugh that sounds hollower than I intended.
“Technically, the jury is still out on the whole immortal thing,” Rogan interjects, a teasing gleam in his eye and a smile tempting the corner of his lips.
I stare up at him, confused. And then look around as though I’m searching for a witness that can confirm everything he just told me.
“Ummm...did you not just tell me about the time you and your brother died and came back to life?” I hedge, pointing around me to remind him that it all happened in this very kitchen mere minutes ago.
“Yes. I did tell you about the one time we came back. But we haven’t gone around testing the live forever theory since then. There are other factors at play that could explain what happened. There’s no guarantee that if we die again, we’ll just bounce right back, and we’re not willing to risk it at this point.”
“Soooo you’re not immortal then? You might just be some kind of fluke? Like you used your get out of jail free card and now you’re good to go?”
He snorts out a laugh and rolls his eyes, but his shoulders lift up in a shrug nonetheless.
“Well, that’s anticlimactic as shit,” I observe. “Here I was trying to find the bright side to being tethered to a possible immortal. But really you might be the immortal equivalent of premature ejaculation. That’s disappointing.”
Rogan’s eyes widen with indignation. “You did not just call me that,” he challenges, and I bite back the laugh that wants to bubble out of me at the look on his face.
The oven timer dings, and it pulls my attention away. “My tea is done,” I announce, but Rogan doesn’t move from where he’s pinned me to the counter. I look up at him and notice that his stare has grown intense again.
“It feels weird telling you all of this,” he admits. “I didn’t realize how much I needed to until now. I forgot what hope felt like,” he confesses, and I feel my heart shatter for him.
It dawns on me how hard all of this must have been. Not just the horror of what happened to him and his brother, but what was done to them afterward by people who should have cared more and known better. I can only imagine how lonely it would have all felt, and now to have the one person who truly got it...gone without a trace.
“Thank you, Rogan,” I offer and watch as uncertainty bleeds into his gaze. “Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me the truth. I want you to know that I’ll never speak a word of it.”
Relief seeps into his stare, but still he doesn’t move.
“Also for what it’s worth, I’m sorry that any of this happened to you and to Elon. You didn’t deserve any of it. If I ever meet your mother, I promise to deck her,” I add, hating the ache I still see floating in his eyes.
He chuckles, and the sound makes me smile. The oven dings again, and I swear it sounds irritated. I push away from the counter, rise up on my tip toes, and peck Rogan on the lips before tapping his arm so that he’ll let me out of his cage.
He freezes, and then suddenly I freeze.
What the hell did I just do?
“Oh, shit, I am so sorry,” I stammer, embarrassment crashing through me like an avalanche. “I don’t know why I did that. You were just there”—I gesture at his close proximity—“and it was like some weird reflex,” I defend as he blinks down at me in stupefied astonishment.
“I blame the kitchen!” I declare as though it makes perfect sense and isn’t completely ridiculous. “We just had this deep conversation, and the setting is kind of intimate. You’re all leaning in. It’s like it flipped some relationship switch in my head, and my body reacted accordingly,” I explain, sounding more and more crazy by the moment. “I take it by the look on your face that this has never happened to you, but rest assured, it has happened to me. You don’t need to read anything into it,” I offer. “I mean, I think we’ve already established that I have a tendency to casually kiss and run,” I point out, motioning to the note that Saxon sent, now tossed aside dismissively on the far counter.
My face is on fire with mortification. I just want to get my herbs out of the oven and then find a comfy hole to crawl into and live in for a solid twenty years. That feels like the statute of limitations on embarrassment from accidentally kissing someone and making shit awkward.
I open my mouth to apologize again when Rogan is still just staring at me, not saying a word. But out of nowhere, his body pins mine, his hands are cradling my face, and his lips are pressed against my lips in a searing kiss.
Surprise ricochets through me, but the next thing I know, I’m melting against him, my fingers threading through his hair as his mouth sends me reeling. His lips are soft and gentle at first. I can practically taste his hesitancy as he gives me a moment to decide how I feel about this. In response, I open up to him, and he wastes no time in showing me that there’s nothing accidental about this.