Not turning, she whispered, "It is hard to be so close to the edge."
He took a step forward, leaving the safety of the railing that dug into his back. As he reached for her, he felt what she did—loneliness, hopelessness, and yearning all wrapped in delicate threads. He didn’t want her to feel that way.
"Do you remember," Graves started, "that day, when we spoke on the balcony of your room?"
Her small hands gripped her elbows, the base of her wings twitching. She didn’t respond for a few moments, and he found himself holding his breath. Had she forgotten? Graves never had. He visited that memory often, remembering the feel of her in his arms as he held her on the balcony, how she had leaned back into him, so trusting, as he spoke low in her ear.
Graves let his eyelids drift shut. "You used to imagine you were a bird."
"I did," she said softly, "but that was… foolish of me."
"Why?" He felt like he might die if he did not know every one of her secrets, crack open her mind, and peek inside.
Gods, he was so envious of the vampire, but Bastian was trying to win her back, so he didn’t even allow himself to look. If Graves could search inside her mind, he wondered if he’d ever even leave, or if he would build a home inside her head and let himself drift through the halls of her thoughts, forevermore.
Luella finally turned, wobbling as the wind blew around them, so loud it drowned out the sound of her voice—but not from him, never from him. "Because now Icanf-fly, and I’m still trapped. Having wings does not equate to freedom." A sob echoed her words.
She had no idea.
Graves held out a hand for her, palm upturned and awaiting. "Let me show you that you can still fly."
The tip of her nose was red from the chill; though, the air warmed as they neared the Isles. Soon, even he would be shrugging off his thick cloaks in lieu of the breezy garb they all wore.
Luella took a hesitant step closer to him, and his hands closed around hers, feeling her delicate bones thread through his fingers as he held her dearly. The ship rocked, and she stumbled into him with a soft sound of protest.
It was all Graves needed to take her fully into his embrace. "There, now we’re both at the edge," he said.
Her hands fisted in the folds of his cloak, and for one moment, he wished he did not wear it, so as to feel her body pressed up against his entirely. But his cloaks were a second skin to him. He had spent so long shrouding himself in shadows and secrecy, he wondered if he would ever truly be able to rid himself of it.
The wind ripped through their hair and clothes, stinging against his face as he held her. Slowly, he walked backward, keeping her in his arms as he felt his back brush against the railing. He looked over his shoulder, seeing the churning, dark sea.
"When I held you on the balcony, I showed you what it might be like to fly. Do you want to try again?"
Her chin brushed his chest as she stared up at him, blue eyes wide, like the sea in the summertime—not at all like the thick, pressing wintry night they faced.
"Yes," she breathed.
Graves gently turned her in his arms, facing them both out at the sea. She grew tense, but he held her carefully. Between them, her wings brushed his chest, and it took everything inside of him not to lean down and let himself skim his lips over the soft uppercurve of them, blow sweet breaths over the feathers, and make her shiver from his touches. He knew how sensitive they were.
Facing the sea, her hands gripped the railing, knuckles white. Her fear flowed thickly down their bond. Tharen and Vale were overseeing the ship this night. He could not see him from where they were, but he hoped they would not come, feeling her fear—the other two were below deck, sleeping, supposedly. But he wasn’t sure how long that would last if she kept sending her terror to them all like a cry for help.
"Sweetheart," he grumbled against the top of her head. "You need to relax. I’m holding you, and I’m not going to let you go. It’s just like that day on the balcony. You were the one to tell me that day, that it felt as though you were flying. Let me show you how to fly now."
"It’s so different now. Because I am able to fly." Her backside pressed into his front as she spoke, and he bit back a groan at the soft feel of her. "Though, I cannot. And I wonder if I could, would I want to?"
"You would. Trust me. Once you have a taste of the air and freedom, you will never want to relinquish it." Graves spoke more freely when it was just the two of them. He often felt like no one would ever know him as well as himself, but with her, it was different. He was saying too much, revealing too much.
He knew, soon, it would all be in the open, but gods, he wanted to havethisfor a while longer.
Luella’s innocent trust was as consuming as the wind.
His hands moved from holding her shoulders to brushing against her waist. Under her flowing shirt, he felt the harsh ridges of her bandages around her midsection. He rubbed over it delicately. "How do you feel?"
She inhaled sharply at his touch. "T-Tharen said my bandages can come off soon. I’m healing well. I don’t feel anypain at all, unless I move too suddenly or put too much pressure on my back."
He hummed. That was to be expected. "As soon as your bandages are off, I will show you, then."
"Show me what?"
