Page 126 of Veil of Blood and Bone

It seems no one is sleeping tonight.

A sustained silence unfurls.

“No, you haven't,” Helene replies, stepping further out of the way and not looking at Nicholas.

My little shieldmaiden doesn’t realize it yet, but she will. With these journals, she’ll see. There’s nothing to hide when it comes to her appetites. She’s hungry for multiple men.

Not even when Nicholas grants me the most dramatic eye roll of his life.

“Good, then. I come bearing reading material. Gods willing, it will get us all on the same page.” I glance behind me. “As soon as we’re all here, we can get started.”

Whatever Wren hopes to get from his clandestine meeting, I hope it’s worth it. If he disappoints her, if he does anything to jeopardize this cycle, I’ll tear him apart.

“Get started with what? What kind of reading material did you bring, Forest?” Helene stifles a yawn, her question working its way through my thick skull. “It’s a little late for research.”

She swallows, her brows furrowed and her lips a thin, resolved line.

“Something you may not like. Something you need. Ah, good, the warrior is awake.”

I push a fist to my heart when Audra sidles from the kitchen with a plate of something sweet in her hand.

“Leif Erikson,” she greets.

Helene pinches her nose. “That’s not his name.”

“He was a good man but only a shade of his father. Now he was strong. Capable.” A pinnacle of warriors past, and yet Helene would have put both men to shame at one time.

Norse explorers had no clue of the greatness that came before them.

I’ve seen her kind and empathetic. I’ve seen her determined and full of righteous anger. She bites and claws and smiles in the same breath.

I adore each part of her through the heartbreak and the resignation and the horror of what faces her, a curse even death cannot erase.

Every side of her, I’ve marked and memorized and forgotten.

“If we’re going to do some hardcore studying, then I think another pot of coffee is warranted. How do you take yours, Forest?”

From the opposite side of the room, Nicholas blanches.

“Oh, ah, ale will be fine. Whatever you have,” I reply.

“Half a bottle of cooking wine?” Audra offers.

Helene sighs. “I’ll bring it.”

Tonight, there is something in her eyes, something she tries to bury beneath heavy shields, hidden in chaos. It’s a different kind of armor.

She sets a cold container of white wine on the console table without attempting to draw a joyful smile across her face. Her frown remains when I hold up a journal.

The rich, warm scent of something chocolate lulls my senses.

“What do you have? I love reading,” she says softly, “but those look more like Audra’s speed.”

Helene sinks beside her sister on the couch and the hollow caverns beneath her eyes deepen. She needs sleep.

I’d much rather sprawl on a bed, entwined with Helene with her legs flung over mine and her hand resting on my heart, there to watch the movement behind her closed lids, the rise of her chest, lost in a tangle of limbs and lust.

Instead, we’re here. Her big hazel eyes are calm but her bright smile lacks fire. It’s too mired in exhaustion.