Labyrinth Read Online Free Page B

snatch up my stylus and hold it against the wall with shaking fingers. Shaking fingers? When do my fingers ever shake? I definitely need to get this over with.
    I step through the doorway of the faerie path into Nate’s bedroom. The lamp beside his bed is on, and images flicker soundlessly across the TV in his sitting area. A strip of light is visible from the bathroom, the door held ajar by a running shoe. I can hear an electric toothbrush buzzing like a giant insect.
    I perch on the edge of the couch and wait for Nate. The buzzing stops, water runs, the bathroom door swings open, and Nate walks out. He’s toweling his damp hair and wearing nothing but a pair of boxers.
    Crap. I should have left this for a more appropriately clothed time of day.
    I stand. My eyes are glued to his bare chest, which is absurd considering the large number of bare chests I’ve seen during training. Male faeries seem to like sparring without their shirts on.
    But this is different. Faerie skin is pale, whereas Nate’s is golden brown, as though he spends his spare time in the sun. My eyes brush over the slight ridges of his stomach, the V-shaped indentation that runs from his hips down toward—
    Stop stop STOP! Do not let your mind go there!
    “Vi!” Nate tosses the towel onto his bed and walks toward me. “This is a surprise.”
    “Um, yes.” I press my hands to my burning cheeks and force my eyes down to the floor. I clear my throat and take a step backward. “Yes. We need to talk.”
    “Uh, okay.”
    I swallow uncomfortably as I meet his gaze. “Look, Nate, this isn’t going to—”
    “Wait.” He holds a hand up. “I know what you’re going to say.”
    “I doubt it,” I mutter.
    “I’m not stupid, Vi,” he says. “I was there when your mentor spoke about the laws you’d broken. I remember her saying how serious it was. She told you to bring me back home, but I don’t think continuing to visit me was part of the deal. And you didn’t say a word yesterday when I mentioned meeting your friends.” He steps closer. “I know you’re breaking the rules to come and see me, Vi. And you’re obviously terrified that someone will find out and you’ll be in even worse trouble this time. That’s what you came to say, right? That you can’t see me anymore because it isn’t allowed?”
    I look down at my feet, press my lips together, and nod. Looks like I didn’t have to worry about what I was going to say; Nate said it all for me.
    “Please don’t do that, Vi.” He grips my shoulders. “Please. I know it’s a risk for you, but who am I going to tell? As long as you don’t mention it to anyone, and you’re careful about coming to visit me, how will anyone find out?”
    I look up into his eyes. Warm, pleading, beautiful. I feel my resolve begin to slip. “But . . . being a guardian is all I have, Nate. I can’t lose that. I’ll have nothing left.”
    “That’s not true anymore,” he whispers, leaning forward to touch his forehead to mine. “You have me now.”
    My throat aches. “For how long, Nate? My life is measured in centuries. Yours . . . yours will be over just as I’ve begun to live mine.”
    Nate’s grip on my shoulders tightens. “We still have many years before we have to worry about that.”
    Easy for him to say. I’ve lost my mother, my father, and the three best friends I had when I was younger. I don’t want to go through that kind of pain again. I watch my hands come up to rest against his chest. I close my eyes. His heart pulses beneath my fingertips, and I can’t help feeling that I want to stand here like this forever.
    I snatch my hands away and step out of his embrace. I point at his closet. “I’m not discussing anything more until you put a shirt on.”
    A grin creeps over Nate’s face, but he grabs a T-shirt from a drawer and pulls it over his head. He returns to the sitting area and takes both my hands. “Don’t think about something that will happen far in the