We sat there, breathless, while Bram stood waiting and Periwinkle grazed on the roadside.
“You definitely called me sweetheart.”
I laughed. “That was on purpose.”
He leaned back, breathing hard, and looked up at me, smiling. “I liked it.”
“I’m glad you do, sweetheart.” I held him for a moment, his warmth a comfort against me. Then, reluctantly, I tucked myself away and shifted him to sit sideways in my lap, kissing the top of his head as I cleaned us with a handkerchief. He collapsed against me, boneless and spent, and I clicked my tongue and Bram began to canter, carrying us both toward our first stop.
Pip was asleep before we reached the town gates, curled up in a little ball. His breathing slowed, his body went heavy in my arms, and his hand, which had been resting on my thigh, slipped down to hang at his side. I held him tightly against me, making sure he didn’t slide, resting my lips against the top of his head and breathing in his comforting scent.
Chapter 22
Pip
Bydaytwo,I’dfound my system: I sat sideways in Aeldryc’s lap, his chest and arm curled around me, leaving my hands free to crochet. Bram’s walk was steady enough that my hands could work the yarn without too much wobble, and Aeldryc’s body was warm and solid and shaped exactly right for leaning on, which I was beginning to suspect was his primary function in the universe.
Behind us, Periwinkle carried luggage contentedly. I was sure he was perfectly happy to be carrying fifty pounds of bags instead of a hundred and fifty of adult human.
“What are you making, sweetheart?” Aeldryc asked.
“A scarf.”
“For whom?”
“Periwinkle.”
He made a weird choking sound, like he was hiding a laugh. “The horse does not need a scarf.”
“Everyone needs a scarf. Don’t worry, I’ll make you a scarf, too.”
He snorted. “I was not worried.”
“Were too. But it’s okay, baby. I know you worry.”
He shuddered in that pleased way he did when I called him baby…or sir. I kept crocheting, working through a skein of lavender yarn from Lyriel’s stash. It was a simple pattern I could do blind, because looking down on a moving horse meant motion sickness.
My arm grazed Aeldryc’s stomach, and his breathing changed. It was subtle—a slight deepening, a tension in the chest behind me—but I was learning to read his body the way I’d learned to read yarn tension.
Four Grey Guard rode ahead of us in a loose formation. Thyren the Darkwater and Oeryth the Blackgale at the front, with Sylavael and Daeryn behind them. They were close today, and gave us no privacy.
“Your human appears to be knitting,” Thyren called as he slowed to ride alongside us.
“Crocheting,” I called back.
Stone-faced, Oeryth the Blackgale turned in his saddle, his gaze traveling over us.
“The human has domesticated you, Commander.”
“Careful, Blackgale.”
“You’re carrying him like a parcel. A scarf-making parcel. And you called him sweetheart.”
Thyren studied the horizon with too much focus, probably trying not to laugh.
“I can have any of you reassigned to the northern border, counting snowflakes,” Aeldryc said.
“Yes, Commander.”
