Gabriel and the romance novel

A/N: This is a commissioned short with the MC of Lyra

“What are you doing?”

I shrieked at the sudden sound of Gabriel’s voice. So near after an afternoon of silence. I hadn't heard the way the door had clicked. Or the telling sound of his boots across the floor. Nor had I heard him take his sword off to hang on the wall. All ritualistic moments he did religiously upon getting home. My cheeks flamed red with the knowledge that I had been so absorbed in my own story that I hadn’t even noticed his return.

I shoved the book I was clutching under me, grabbing one of the pillows to pull over my lap. It was the added security in case any of the pages of the book somehow escaped the binding and burst all over my lap like some sort of forensic evidence.

“Hi,” I said, my voice unnaturally chipper. “You’re home early.”

He stared at me, only a few feet away. “I’m not.”

I glanced at the dial above the front door. The small hand was tipped towards a dimming lantern, meaning it was well past dinner time. Had I really been reading that long?

“Oh, uh… I just meant early for you.”

He nodded a bit, coming further into the room. That seemed to satisfy him. Sometimes, Gabriel was not home until the middle of the night. It all depended on who he arrested and how long processing took.

He took his time, obviously tired as he went about his evening routine. I didn’t dare move. How could I without revealing what I had been reading. The very thing that had distracted me from anything else in the world all day. When he sat down on the sofa, his shoulder brushing against my own, I shifted, trying to push the novel under my thigh. Gabriel frowned.

“Are you sitting on a board?”

I stared at him. “That’s what your first instinct told you? That I was sitting on a board?” Sometimes I didn’t understand how he was Warden of an entire market.

“It does feel like a small piece of wood, yes.”

At that, I knew that the ruse was up. Mostly because I couldn’t understand how he was getting a board and a small book confused. “If you most know,” I tried primly. “I was reading.”

His eyes traveled down to where the book was concealed. And to the way that my fists were clenched around the pillow. “Are you reading banned material?” he asked.

“We have no book bans in the Night Market,” I told him. “The Book Baron has threatened to kill anyone who tries to even ban a book.”

Gabriel’s jaw tightened. “Despite the bold proclamations, we do have banned literature. They are books of magic origin that can curse a reader with a demonic possession upon opening.” He leaned closer to get a better look at my face. “Lyra, are you possessed at the moment?”

I leaned forward, brushing my nose with his and opening my eyes wide. “I don’t think the Night Market can get possessed,” I reasoned.

“I do not wish to take the chance.”

With a defeated sigh, I pulled the novel from beneath me. On the cover was a shirtless man, the veins of his arms prominent against his dark skin. In his arms, he held a small woman, her dark hair cascading down her back in perfect curls. Her dark eyes stared up at the man in complete rapture.

Gabriel stared at the book for a very long moment. “Is that an inaccurate portrayal of you and I?”

I bit my bottom lip. “Maybe.”

“I will need a bit more explanation than that.”

I unfurled my legs from beneath me, handing him the book so he could flip through it. The novel wasn’t a long one. Maybe four hundred pages or so. I was on the last thirty by now and was eager to get back to it all.

“There’s a new service in the market. It’s an alley of writers. You can go to them and give descriptions of the characters you would like to see within the novel. They then create a story around that.”

“And you put in a description of us?”

“I didn’t mean to,” I protested. I was almost certain that my skin was flaming red now. “I really didn’t. I just gave a description of who I wanted to see and when I picked it up today I… Are you mad?” I looked up at him from beneath my lashes.

He flipped the book back and forth, coming back to stare at the large man on the cover that was far too reminiscent of himself. “I am unbalanced with my thoughts. Is this what you’ve been doing all day?”

“Yes?”

“And I’ve interrupted that?”

My hands fluttered around him, scooting closer to his side. “No. You didn’t interrupt anything I– honestly, I was just embarrassed. I mean, wow do they look like us.”

He frowned. “That man looks nothing like me.”

“Gabriel, they have an entire Warden series about you. They are used to drawing you.”

Gabriel looked as if he was ready to go and grab his sword. While demonic magic tomes were the only books that were currently banned, I had a suspicion it was about to be a lot more. I grabbed at his hand, climbing into his lap. The second I did, his arms came around to support me. It was far too reminiscent of the cover of the novel.

“This is strange,” he told me.

I buried my head in his shoulder. “But it’s really, really good,” I managed.

With a sigh, he leaned his head back against the sofa, closing his eyes. “I will start dinner in a moment. Please continue your highly odd novel for now.”

I squeaked in excitement as I grabbed the book back, this time, curling onto his lap to finish my story. As the heroine in the novel was whisked up into her mans rippling arms, I myself, lay within my own man's embrace. This was how I wanted to read novels from here on out.