The Serpents Hold | Ominis Gaunt

Chapter Twenty

Nova felt Ominis' voice brush against the edge of her consciousness.

She grumbled a passive hum and burrowed deeper into the blanket's warmth. After tirelessly juggling night shifts to support the understaffed hospital, she seemed doomed to face tonight's on tattered scraps of sleep—courtesy of her impromptu guest.

She reluctantly cracked open a weary eye. An amber glow had begun filtering through the curtains. Inhabitants of the bird nest outside the window stirred awake, their shadowy silhouettes dancing across the ruffled hair obscuring Ominis' face.

"The sun is rising," Nova informed him, her words smothered by a groan as she forced life into her exhausted limbs. "Don't you ever sleep? What's wrong now?"

"This scar," Ominis repeated, trailing the pad of his thumb across a blemish on her lips. "You didn't have it last I saw you."

"Seventh year. Tavern. End of N.E.W.T.S," Nova flung an arm over her eyes, each word requiring her full effort to articulate. "I bet Imelda couldn't fly us back to the castle blindfolded. I won."

Ominis' ensuing murmur lacked any sympathy. He continued to trace each uncharted detail of her features until his fingertips reunited with a familiar groove, snaking from ear to eyebrow.

"You still have it?"

Despite her efforts to purge all memories of that winter, even the proficiency of St. Mungo's couldn't erase the souvenir carved into her skin.

"Mm-hmm. The acromantula thought I needed a permanent reminder of the catacombs."

"The night you got that scar was the night I kissed you for the first time."

"I should have known it was a bad omen."

Her laughter bubbled into a squeal as his fingers dug into her ribs. "You have no right to throw a tantrum; you ran away afterwards", she managed to gasp out, holding him at arm's length. "Your signature move."

"I returned, did I not?" Ominis brushed aside her attempts to keep him at bay and drew her up to straddle his hips. "I consistently do so. Perhaps that's my signature move."

"Mm, getting you to open up was more of a challenge back then, though." She shivered as he swept the blanket off her shoulders, allowing it to pool around her thighs while his exploration persisted over the rest of her body. "How the tables have turned."

"Are you suggesting that finding my way into your bed was a challenge?"

"Excuse me?" She snatched the stuffed badger wedged behind her pillow and swung it at his smug grin. "What exactly are you implying?"

She couldn't deny that his painfully accurate comment irked her far less than it would have a day prior. Their sleepless night had devolved from sharp words into soft apologies, and kisses that had stopped being battles.

"I'm implying your feelings for me never faltered, just as mine remained constant for you."

"Stop trying to romanticise calling me a whore," she grumbled. Her feigned outrage contrasted with the kiss she planted on a lone beauty mark on the centre of his throat. "It might have been a challenge had you not cornered me in your bedroom."

"I would've dissolved those wards in a heartbeat had you asked," he said, tilting her chin to claim her lips in a kiss that was agonisingly slow and sinful. "You know that, but it didn't even cross your mind, did it?"

She opened her mouth to feign an objection, and her toes curled when he took the opportunity to swipe his tongue against hers.

"Admit it, darling. It drove you wild."