Page 125 of Bone Year

“You don’t keep forgetting. You keep bringing it up.”

“Because it’s convenient for you and inconvenient for me, and I find that annoying.”

Something shifts at the corner of his mouth. Dare I say the ghost of a smile.

“You can have one of the pillows,” I say, “and one of the blankets.”

“How generous of you.”

“What can I say? I’m a benevolent human.”

“You’re a tired healer with two pillows.”

“And you’re a vampire with neither, so I’d watch the tone.”

He pushes off the doorframe and steps into the room, which feels smaller with him in it. He takes the pillow I hold out to him without touching my hand. Takes the blanket the same way. He’s being careful, and I notice it but don’t know why.

He pulls his hair out of a bun, kicks off his boots, and drops the pillow and blanket beside the bed. He crouches down to arrange them, and for a second I’m looking at the top of his head and the way his hair falls forward when he bends, and I have to remind myself that Draven is a terrible person and that noticing the way his hair falls is the kind of thing that will end badly for me.

I sit down on the edge of the bed and start unlacing my own boots.

“Rose.”

“What?”

“If you kick me in the face getting out of that bed in the morning, I’m leaving you here.”

“I’ll aim carefully,” I chuckle.

I take off my cloak and arrange it against the windowsill, pressing it into the frame to cover the crack as best I can and keep the cold out. Draven turns out the lantern on the bedside table and lies down.

Once he can no longer see me, I slip under the covers and shimmy out of my leather pants. I can’t sleep in anything restrictive. Luckily I wore layers and have my pink pajama shorts underneath. I keep my sweater on though, because even with the blankets it’s not exactly warm in here, and roll onto my side, facing the wall.

The floorboards creak once beneath him as he shifts.

Then nothing.

I’m still shivering even under the covers, weighing whether I should give up and go make a bed by the hearth.

Then the bed dips.

Fuck. I nearly roll off the mattress as a massive black shape lands beside me. “Uh, Draven.”

“He’ll help keep you warm.” Draven’s voice comes from the floor. “I’m never going to sleep with all the noise you’re making.”

“I’m not making noise.”

“You’re shivering loud enough to wake the dead.”

“That’s not a real thing.”

“It is in this room.”

I lift the edge of the blanket, and the wolf crawls under. He settles against my side, enormous and warm and impossibly soft. I lean into him and try not to think too hard about the fact that he’s connected to Draven, that every place he’s warm is warm because of a bond that runs back to the person currently lying on the floor three feet from me.

“Are you still awake?” I whisper.

“You mean, have I fallen asleep in the ten seconds since you stopped talking?”