The following day when I still haven't received a response, my thoughts start looping, wondering if he pushed himself too far, if Serrane’s keeping him too close to even risk writing back, or if his arm has gotten worse and he physically can’t.
Then finally, two days later, when I’m about to burst with restlessness, I open the Letter-threader after lunch and the flame flickers gold and a note slides free.
“You have no idea how hard it is to be apart from you. — T x”
Relief hits me so fast I laugh under my breath, already grabbing for my pencil to write back when another note slips out.
“So fucking hard.”
Heat rushes straight to my face, but I don't even try to cool it as I'm already scribbling.“Oh yeah...? Like how hard?”
The note crackles as it burns away and a needy ache starts to build between my legs as I wait but his reply doesn't take long.
“Like rock solid in my hand hard...”
Want coils through me, tightening with every word, and my fingers curl, digging into my thighs as my mind goes straight to the cage, his fire surrounding us, the solid length of him pressed against me. The memory is so strong and it doesn't take much for the ache between my legs to sharpen into something molten and desperate.
I’m alone, Ahria took off after a rabbit outside, and the tension is unbearable, so I slide my hand higher and press against the now throbbing spot, rolling my hips into the pressure as I imagine the rough sound of his groan against my neck.
“Hey, you’re late!” Ezzy bursts into the tent and I jerk my hand back, slamming my elbow into the Letter-threader. “Magda’s been looking for you everywhere.”
“Shit,” I mutter, grabbing the contraption before it falls from the bed. I completely forgot I volunteered for the extra teaching session.
Exhaling hard, I force myself to focus on Ezzy, but she either doesn’t notice or is politely pretending she didn’t just walk in on me halfway to getting myself off thinking about Talen grinding against me. She only shakes her head and heads back out, and after one heavy breath to steady myself, I hurry after her.
The next two days race by after that. I keep checking for more letters between teaching, between patrol shifts, between training with Ezzy and Neeve, anything, but nothing else comes through. And now, with Blood Moon only a day away, the fragile calm that had been holding me together has started to unravel.
I haven’t been able to fly in weeks—I’ve tried to convince the other riders to take me, but apparently only JC is patient enoughto tolerate my freak-outs—and I haven’t had a proper fire session with Dave either, and without the feeling of constantly being pushed, of moving forward, my thoughts have way too much room to spiral.
After I spoke to Ezzy, the guilt I'd been carrying may have lifted, but without it there's nothing left to block out all the grief, the all trauma, I'd buried beneath it.
“Distract me,”I write to Talen before heading off to bread baking.“Please. My mind keeps wandering to places I don’t want it to go, and I can’t afford to let Ahria see how much I’m still trying to hold myself together.
If she realises how broken I am underneath all of it, she’ll run a mile. She’ll never want to bond with me. — L x”
Sitting there alone, I wait, staring at the little flame until my eyes start to burn.
Ezzy and Neeve have already gone ahead to the Food Tent, Ahria too, she’s probably hoping to steal some of the wild boar someone killed yesterday.
Bouncing my leg up and down, the bed creaks beneath me and I’m finally about to give up and follow after them when the fire suddenly swells and a note floats out.
“I have no worries about Blood Moon, and neither should you. As soon as your Threads open up and Ahria sees you the way I see you, she’ll bond with you in a heartbeat. — T x
P.S. But would it help if I told you all the ways I've been dreaming about making you come when I see you next?”
Cold air catches in my throat.
Yeah, that’ll help.
Words run together in a total mess as I scribble my reply, but I don’t care. I finish, fold it, and lean over to feed it into the flame?—
CRACK.
The canvas door bashes hard against its frame so suddenly that I jerk around, heart jumping into my throat, certain for one second one of the girls has returned.
But it’s only the wind.
Thank fuck.
