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"You still have a family," Siofra said gently, and he startled to find her and Maia watching him. They'd both suffered loss, both knew grief although different kinds. If anyone could understand his pain, it was them.
"Don't worry about me," he replied to Sio, ruffling her hair as he moved past her. "Worrying'smyjob."
Maia raised an eyebrow, but he averted his gaze. She might have a point about him being an overprotective mother hen, but after years of worrying about Evrille, he couldn't switch it off. Plus, he'd been doing whatever he could to take care of the last free beastkind in the city, and ensuring his rebels were safe, foryears.
"What does trade mean, anyway?" Sio asked, flopping onto the floor with her box, the pale green skirt of her dress a poofy cloud around her legs.
"Shopping," Maia answered, sliding off the desk and giving Az a quick glance to make sure he was okay. "Only it’s as dull as ditch water. It's mostly paperwork and underhand deals."
"Underhand?" Sio frowned, looking at her own hand, and Az's heart went all soft and mushy the way it did when he looked at Evrille sometimes.
"It means dodgy as all hell," Maia explained with a grin, sitting cross-legged beside Sio and tentatively tucking her wings in around her.
Az found a spot across from them, not questioning why they were sitting on the floor. If Maia was comfortable here, that's where he'd stay. He pulled the top off the box of ongoing contracts—although the box was so old he doubted they were still ongoing—and removed a stack of papers. There was a vast difference between reading a book and reading dull paperwork, and he knew he'd find no joy in it, but at least it gave him an excuse to keep a close eye on his mate.
"I know you're watching me, Knight," Maia purred, nudging his leg with her foot.
A smirk curved his mouth, but he only shot her a quelling look—and was momentarily stunned by her beauty. Her gold eyes were still full of fire and life even after what those bastards had done to her, and none of the scrapes and cuts on her body and face distracted from her silver-gold beauty, her hair like a stream of moonlight.
"Now you're staring," Siofra pointed out with a laugh. "It's because you're so pretty, Maia."
Maia grinned cockily, but the tips of her ears turned adorably pink. She busied herself with the contents of her box—another fascinating collection of trade deals. Az felt for the ripple of life and emotion of their bond, and sent what he hoped was a rush of affection down it.
It must have worked, because his chest fluttered with a flood of warmth and softness a moment later. He flashed Maia a smile and felt like a schoolboy with a crush. This was his soul mate, and she genuinely wanted him—how the hell did he get this lucky?
"I don't know what this even means," Sio murmured, frowning at the page in her hand and casting it aside for another. Her long, white-blond hair sifted in front of her face as she bowed over the sheet. "Can I make this one into a bird?"
Az snorted. "It might be important."
He hadn't truly relaxed since Maia had been captured. Hell, since long before that. But sitting with her and Sio now, he felt some weight slide off his shoulders. Outside the door, his rebels waited for him to make a plan to take down Ismene once and for all, and a way to spare their beastkind families from more subjugation and prejudice. Outside, everyone looked to him for answers and stability, but here, he could just be Az. He could let his guard down a little.
He blinked as a warm weight snuggled into his side, and smiled in surprise at the sight of Maia cosying up to him.
"Couldn't stay away, sweetheart?"
"You looked so sad and pitiful," she returned quickly. "I never could resist a sad puppy."
"Sad wolf," he corrected without thinking too hard about it.
They both startled a little at the open acknowledgement of the saint who'd made his home within Azrail. The Wolven Lord, saint of royalty and the dead. He'd been silent for days, but Az was acutely aware that the power bleeding out of him belonged to a living myth. Or dead myth—he wasn't sure how or why the saints had made their homes inside Az, his mate, and their family.
It wasn't a coincidence that they'd all found each other, that even Maia's newest mate was the Lady Justice reborn. The saints had guided them, subtly or malevolently. They had an agenda; Az was waiting for them to reveal it.
"If you're going to kiss," Sio said with clear disgust, "I'm leaving."
Sio, who had the power of the Star-Heart, the queen of saints. He'd known the girl had an uncanny knowledge, known she was incredibly special and unbelievably powerful with the saintslight in her blood, and no wonder. There was only one saint more powerful than the Star-Heart: her consort, the Eversky. If Sio mastered her magic, she'd be able to level the whole Saintlands to ash.
But right now she was just a little girl wrinkling her nose at Maia snuggling into Az's side.
"No kissing," Az promised Sio, his voice horribly soft. It was hard to hide it sometimes—how fond he was of her, how badly he wanted to protect her. How much he saw Ev in her, though with arguably less sarcasm.
Maia stuck her tongue out at Sio, grabbing a stack of paper from Az's lap and bending to read it. It was probably the calmest he'd seen her, her emotions settled and her body relaxed.
Quiet settled over them except for the rustle of paper when they exchanged one page for another, and Az realised he'd needed this as badly as Maia had, this settling of his soul. When was the last time he'd just sat and read something, letting his breathing even and his mind still?
"Whose notes are these?" Maia asked, her voice a low murmur as she pointed to words written in tight uppercase in the margins of her page, the ink a darker black than the document.
"My mum's," he replied at the same volume. A pang went through his chest, but he let it move through him instead of fighting it back so he could focus on whatever pressing task needed doing.
