Chapter Fourteen
“THERE’S THAT BIRD again,” teenage Raven exclaimed, pulling Tor away from the profound realization that though she might deny it, current Raven was realizing just how much she had loved him at one time.
There was nothing quite like it other than realizing how much he had loved her too.
Where earlier they had skirted the topic, now it was staring them in the face. An absolute truth that wasn't as easy to dismiss.
“That bird came around a lot.” Raven frowned at her younger self. “We had started looking for it. Expecting it.”
“That can’t be good,” Trinity said.
“It was, though,” Tor said softly, sensing what was coming. Filled with an incredible anticipation he couldn’t explain. Much like he had felt in the tunnel when Raven had melted back against him. When he had caught her scent. Knew she was ready for him. “It turned out to be very, very good.”
“What the,” Raven whispered when the bird landed on her ethereal shoulder, and like something out of a fairytale, she slowly, bit by bit, solidified. “It’s...she’s....”
“Giving you to me,” Tor managed, shocked by how much the moment impacted both his younger and current self. “Bringing you here in the flesh.”
“How?Why?” She frowned at Cian. “Because that’s Mórrígan, isn’t it? Here behind enemy lines?”
“So it seems,” Tor murmured, knowing full well the wizard would not give a direct answer. He eyed the black Vanaheim mist swirling around their younger selves. “This might not be the forest grove, but it's still a piece of Vanaheim. A way for the goddess to clearly access us here on Midgard.”
“Alarming because I know you liked that bird.” Raven wiped away a stray tear, clearly frustrated with her weakness. With how gullible she had to have been. How gullibletheyhad been. But how could she blame herself, given how amazing it had felt for both of them as she grew solid? He knew she remembered it as she watched it happen. Felt something she was shocked she had ever forgotten.
“Ididlike that bird,” Tor agreed. Raven could have shoved his hand away when he slipped it into hers for support, but she just couldn’t seem to do it, and he was grateful. “How could we not, considering everything it gave us?Shegave us?”
Although he sensed Trinity and Vicar were tempted to pull their blades because all signs pointed to TorandRaven being traitors, they didn’t. Why? Because they were the right couple to have along. They understood just how dark things could become. How easily things could be misunderstood.
Assuming, of course, they misunderstood this.
Raven inhaled deeply, then released a choppy breath as he sensed sensation fill her. The tremendous impact of feeling as his teenage hand touched her soft cheek for the first time. How she pulled his scent into her lungs.
“You smell really good,” her younger self said, both nervous and wondrous.
They ignored the bird when it flew off. Who cared about a magical raven when they could finally touch? Feel? Pull each other close?
“You say that like you thought I would smell bad.” Tor’s teenage self fingered her hair, mesmerized. “I didn’t expect it to feel like it looked.”
It had felt like pure silk. The softest thing he had ever touched.
“And I thought you had to stink without deodorant in this day and age,” Raven confessed, her voice wobbly with nerves. She frowned a little. Her brows pinched. “Why didn’t you think my hair would feel like it looked?”
“Because nothing feels as soft as I imagined it.” He offered a small smile. “And you know dragons don’t smell in human form.” His smile grew. “We’re naturally deodorized, as you call it.”
“Yeah, but still....” She struggled to speak when he stepped closer and wrapped his fingers deeper into her hair. “It’s the tenth century, and you battle all the time and never sit still when we’re together, so you must sweat. You must...”
That’s all she got out before he dug his hand deeper still, cupped her other cheek, and closed his lips over hers.
Tor had never been more awe-struck or aroused as the memory faded and, along with it, the effects of Vanaheim on the cave. He remembered the feel of her mouth against his. How tears had leaked from her eyes as the soft, new kiss turned into something more passionate. A first kiss for the ages. A kiss they had both long dreamed about.
“Well, that was interesting,” Trinity finally said when all went quiet.
She didn’t say it aloud, but he felt Raven’s internal struggle. Her overwhelming need for the memory to return. At the same time, the ever-acute feeling of betrayal now that she had proof of how in love they had been before he was with Revna.
“Yes,” Raven managed. “Interesting.” He knew she was tempted to lash out at him, to ask how, seer aside, he could have ever lain with another, but she focused on Cian instead. “I’m not going to whip out my Vanaheim magic again on you because I’ll only be up against myself, but I need to know for certain.Wasthat Mórrígan? Was she truly that involved in Tor and me coming together?”
