Page 98 of Season Warriors & Wolves

“If it could be that easy.”

“He had found a way.”

He put a white envelope sealed with my father’s crest on the basin table. “It really is not that easy.”

My heart was too loud to allow any thoughts to taunt me at all. “Did you read it?”

“Tempted. Several times. But there is this thing, my love,” he said, continuing to wash my fingers. “When emotion is intense, it tends to bleed into the things near you. Whatever words he put in there, he intended to hurt me with. The malice still lingers around the paper edges. Also, I still have faith that you will one day tell me yourself. If only to liberate you from the burden of remembering alone.” He turned the tap off, taking a towel to pat my hands dry. “The letter is yours. Do with it as you wish.”

“Thank you.”

He sighed, pulling me to his chest to hold me tightly. “What am I going to do with you, hm?” he murmured, kissing the top of my head.

Kilian held me on his lap as he went over documents after documents, checking and double checking on everything before the tip of his pen touched the paper to sign off his permission. He was so serious, gilded, harsh. The lines of his face were so straight and sharp when he was focused. He was different at times. In court. Before danger. Around me. Around my family. Around his own. So many shades of this man.

I had found my favourite new thing to do. And he didn’t seem to mind at all.

The melancholic rain patter on the glass windows of our room and Memphis’ soft purrs were already lulling me to sleep which I was trying hard to refuse because I wanted to spend all the time I had left staring at him.

As if he could read my mind, his mouth pulled into a smile. “Sleep, my heart. You will wear my face off.”

“No.”

He chuckled, lines breaking to form soft curves.

A phantom shadow hand crawled from behind him to turn the page while he held me. It was fascinating how his magic was an extension of him while mine used me as its conduit.

I lifted my hand toward the shadows and let a little skitter of electricity twirl around my fingers. His darkness did not budge but my magic did abate, softly fading at the touch. When I’d returned from Whitebridge after saving Thora and Eren, he’d done the same, his magic had helped tame mine. I don’t know how, but it had worked. Same as it was working now.

“Perfect,” I whispered to myself, playing with his shadows.

He wrapped a hand around my wrist and pulled my arm down to my side. “The more you feed it, the more it will ask for. Once magic becomes dull, it will seek life. It is how it compensates to keep itself powerful.” He kissed each of my fingertips and then my lips. “Death is unpredictable.”

“But you are it. You would not hurt me. You have never hurt me.”

His forehead rested on mine as he said, “No. I would never hurt you.”

“Then contain me. Instead of teaching me to face it, use it to contain me while I draw more of it. Enough to fight another…like me. Enough to fight Aurora if need comes.”

“What if I fail, what if it is not enough?”

“We will stay within bounds—within our limits.”

He studied me intently, measuring the odds and the possibilities that this would and could actually work. “Within our limits.” He sighed and pinched my cheek. “I’ll think about it.”

Memphis’s snout nudged my leg, and I patted my lap for her to rest her head there. “What do you think, M?”

Her mouth opened in a massive yawn in response and so did mine. After shaking her head, she pushed the balcony doors open and shifted into a raven, cawing and launching into the storm.

“She is restless,” I said, crooning my neck to see her disappearing from view entirely. My creature had spent less and less time with me than any time before. Surveying skies, land and seas. She’d become a soldier more than a companion.

“So is her bonded.” He stood with me in his arms despite my protests and threw me over his shoulder as he walked toward the bed. I was too tired to protest being handled like I was a potato sack—a very pretty potato sack if I might say so.

He lowered me on the bed and caged me in under him, kissing me in all the tickling spots. “Sleep.”

“You’re not being very convincing.”

“Hm,” he hummed, licking a trail over my throat and a trickle of warmth slipped down my stomach. “I know you are tired, stop fighting it.”