Page 108 of May: Bloom & Bane

Tell her the horse says you are welcome, Ashán rasps. The soreness is temporary. The venya in her blood is not. She will be feeling me for three days.

He is entirely too pleased with himself.

Four, if I’m lucky.

“The horse,” I sigh, “says you’re welcome.”

Her laugh breaks into another wince. And both of us feel the deep ache of everything we have done to her through the bond.

“Let’s go get you some food, Saevúra.”

I gather her against my chest and stand. She squeaks, the movement seating her deeper. Her fingers dig into my sides.

“Sage, you’re still inside me.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not⁠—”

“No.”

No, Ashán agrees, with the finality of a door slamming shut.

“You’re going to carry me through the house like this?”

“You cannot walk, mí’aevúna.” I press a kiss to her wet hair and step out of the shower, Nook helpfully swinging the bathroom door wide before I reach it. “And neither of us is willing to leave you yet. This solves both problems.”

“This solves neither problem⁠—”

She is still talking, Ashán observes. The venya must be wearing off. Feed her before she develops opinions.

The stairs are an adventure. Every step jostles her down onto me, and by the fourth one she has stopped arguing and started making small, ruinous sounds into my chest. By the seventh, Ashán is growling and suggesting we stop for maintenance, and by the landing I have to stop and stand very still with my forehead against the wall while both of us remember why we are walking anywhere at all.

“Food,” I repeat, to everyone in this body.

The kitchen is warm with afternoon light. Droot is on the counter beside a bowl of peaches. At the sight of us, his Sun, naked, impaled and wrapped around me like ivy, he pulses through four colors before settling on a red so bright it borders on emergency lighting.

“Not one word, Droot. Or no more snacks.”

He chitters and scampers into the living room.

I cook one-armed. It is not elegant—eggs, toast, the smoked cheese she likes, sliced peaches—with my mate seated on me the entire time, her cheek against my sternum, fingers tracing idle patterns through the leaves over my ribs while the change comes over our body slowly, my form easing back into itself an inch at a time.

I do not want to give it back, Ashán mutters.

I know, I tell him. But she needs to eat, and you don’t know how to cook.

I know how to cook. I have learned what not to do by watching you burn things for the past eight days.

I feed her by hand. Bites of egg and toast, slices of peach held to her lips, her color returning with every swallow. The gold slowly clears from her eyes until the woman looking up at me is sharp again, smiling like she knows something.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She licks peach juice from my thumb. “You’re just very good at this.”

“At cooking?” I chuckle. “Do you remember the peach cobbler?”

“At taking care of us.”