Page 60 of Season Warriors & Wolves

She put something cold in my palm. Gold chain holding an emerald pendant. The same necklace I’d given to the Crafter years ago. My mother’s pendant.

“I tried to find it for years, each time you sent me to Eldmoor, but never had any luck. Mal helped me, we found the Crafter within an hour. He’d not sold it just like I had thought.” She pointed to the back of the pendant, at the swift engraved in the metal. “Myrdur insignia. Rare. More so than the emerald sourced from the Volants. Objects sometimes carry so much power to Crafters. It did to you as well. I know you missed it.”

“Never as much as you.” I unclasped the necklace and put it around her neck. “Whatever the Crafter would have wanted, I would have given it to him. This is yours. Will forever be yours. I was so scared that day, Nia. I thought he’d filled us with hope for nothing when he just asked about the pendant. Back then, I thought he would ask us for diamonds, gold, riches of the same sort. When he pointed to the pendant, I thought we’d been lied to, and we’d searched for so long for the craft metal only to end up disappointed again. It was never about the pendant. I’m so sorry that I let you think it was ever about it, but I didn’t want to scare you then.”

Two stray tears slid down her cheeks and she reached to wrap her arms around my neck, holding me tightly against her.

I had just dragged myself out of the bath and gotten dressed when he knocked on the door and slowly let himself in. He was out of the black leathers, his dark brown hair was drenched, the long strands falling over his eyes. The more I looked at him, the more suffocating the air grew, the more my heart pulsed madly.

Like before, he stood still and silent, watching me from afar, his chest raising and falling fast.

I sat on the edge of our bed, wondering when had we ever been so cautious of one another. “Why won’t you come to me?”

He didn’t say anything, but slowly walked to where I sat and knelt before me. Silver eyes grazing every detail on my face, lingering over my mouth.

“Why won’t you touch me?”

Slowly, he raised a hand to my face, and let out a deep sigh when his skin met mine. I could feel the restraint he held, the way it made his touch tremble. Shiver raised down my spine when his fingers grazed my lips. It ignited something I thought had been taken from me.

I pushed his long hair back from his eyes. “Why won’t you speak to me?”

Never had anyone watched me so gently. “I have so much to say. What should I say first?”

The sound of his voice was the deadliest elixir. Dark and cold and burning like night, it lit me up like fire. “Kiss me.”

His mouth slowly curved to a smile before he leaned forward, crashing his it to mine. Our lips locked for a while, resting softly against each other’s, the overwhelming taste of yearning choked me and left me breathless.

I had barely touched him when he pulled back, took my hand and turned my palm up. His thumbs skimmed the skin there for a moment before he traced his fingers up my arms, stopping to run them over where old scars had rested before. He turned frantic when he traced my back and found nothing there either.

Hurt and anger flashed through his face. “You didn’t want me to see.”

Not now. Don’t know my truths now. “They had to all go.”

“Lies.”

Let me lie. “I had planned to have them all removed long ago.”

“Liar,” he snapped.

Believe me this once. “It was a hassle for the healer.”

“More lies.”

“Darling—”

Shadows around us began growing taller and melting off the walls into a puddle of gurgling tar as he demanded, “What did he do to you?” His hands frantically searched my body all over, stopping to graze places where old scars had once been and finding nothing. “Gods, what did he do to you?”

“Nothing I couldn't handle.”

The colour of the setting sun outside suddenly was no longer burnt and warm, it darkened and dimmed until it quickly turned to night, enshrouding all of us into darkness. The dark covered his grey eyes, too, masking them with obsidian and crawling black veins that spread around them. “Why…why are you lying to me?”

I shivered at the chilling breeze that brushed my neck. “Because.”

“Don’t.”

I didn’t say anything, but I did kiss him. And he did kiss me back. My body pressed to his hard one, his fingers tangling in my hair, holding me still for him to devour. The darkness around us slowly dispersed to leave hues of a young twilight twinkling around the crystal windows.

He groaned against my mouth, the masculine sound pooling down my stomach, settling heavy between my legs. His hand slid down my nape and he buried his face on my neck, inhaling my skin, my hair, hungrily. His touch was demanding, so absolute, restraint finally coming undone. “The conversation was not over.”