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When I came, he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me tightly against him. We stayed like that until night fell. Nothing needed to be said, all lies stripped away between us, our truths resonating silently. He had me again that night, roughly, letting his smacks on my rear and my choking sounds make our room sound like spring.
And when I finally drifted to sleep on his chest, I did so to the sound of Marla’s words.“Only the deepest love was capable of bringing about the deepest pain.”Love and pain. Truth and lies. Light and dark. Fate and choice. None of them were adversaries; none of them could exist without the other.
Together, they were life.
ChapterFifty-Two
Malyr
Present Day, Valtaris
Muscles sluggish from the heat of theaerymelshingles beneath me, I stared up at the clear night sky, a skin of wine in my right hand and my mate in my left arm. “Tired?”
“Yes, but too lazy to shift.” Galantia propped herself onto her elbow, grabbed the skin from my hand, and took a healthy swallow of the sweet red from Lanai. “I wouldn’t mind sleeping out here on the roof.”
The largest one that crowned the temple beneath us. “It is tempting, I know. But I do not recommend it. Nothing quite scares the soul out of you like accidentally rolling off in your sleep, waking during the fall.”
Another swallow of wine, then she handed me the skin back with a shrug. “I’ll shift.”
“And perhaps right in time for your unkindness to hit the ground in an explosion of feathers.” I brought the waterskin to my mouth, letting the sweet red run down my throat and lighten my thoughts. “Trust me,anoaley, you wouldn’t be the first one to wake with a broken bone or two.”
Her head shifted where she’d lowered it back onto my chest, allowing her to grin up at me. “Speaking from experience?”
I smirked at that. “Harlen once fell off this roof when we were young, after he nodded off one fall afternoon. Broke an arm. You should have seen my mother. She was furious enough to smack him but couldn’t bring herself to do it since he was groaning in pain already.”
She chuckled and held me tighter. These were the moments I loved best. The quiet ones, where little was spoken but much was said, like when we braided each other’s hair, enjoyed a good meal together, held each other while we both drifted to sleep. Mundane things. After all, there were more mundane moments in one’s life than special ones, and I was greedy. Greedy to spend them all with that little girl who had gained my heart upon first sight.
“I have something for you,” she said.
“You do?”
“Uh-huh.” Shifting just enough to reach into the satchel attached to the belt on her dress, she pulled out a bracelet—no, a necklace—which she dangled in front of me. “Myanoakeeps bringing me shards ofaerymel, so I made this for you. To replace the amulet you kept for me all these years.”
That warmth from the shingles soaked deeper into me, straight to my core, flooding me with the sensation of feeling loved. I ran my fingers along the shards ofaerymeltied into sockets of… copper, maybe, which dangled from a string of leather.My first courting gift.
That alone made it the most precious thing ever received, but she gifted me something else in that moment that took my breath away: she shoved her naked little toes beneath my calf, and not even the leather of my breeches could keep their damn chill away. And I didn’t want it to.
I took the necklace and let it slip over my head, then pressed my leg down to warm her. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”
She huddled closer against me, the roof warm from a sunny spring day, yes, but the breeze up here was still chilly. Beside us, at the edge of the roof, ouranoashuddled together in the same way, a white female framed by two black males, one to each side. Both preened her gently, letting out soft crooning sounds. Until a large bird moved in the darkness nearby, an owl, probably, making them dissolve and return to us.
Galantia flared her nostrils. “Do you smell that?”
I couldn’t help but grin at that, mostly because that question now came several times a week as she still attuned herself to her amplified senses. “Can’t say I do.”
“Mashed apples with brown sugar,” she said and gazed back toward the keep, even though it was impossible to spot from the distance, no matter how Valtaris once more sparkled, not a single window going unlit by night. “Do you think Marla made mashed apples again?”
“Only one way of finding out,” I said.
She slowly rose and looked down at me, slipping into her shoes. “Are you coming?”
“Shortly,” I said. “I’d like to stay a while longer, if you don’t mind.”
“More mashed apples for me.” She shrugged, her voice lingering between a mix of white and black feathers, then she flew off with Sebian’sanoain tow.
I stared behind her unkindness, the black raven struggling to keep up with five white ones, and grinned at the sky. “I hope you saw that just now. I’m sure she pushed her toes beneath my calf a hundred times already while I was asleep. I’m glad that I was awake for it once, but brother, how did you handle it? Her toes are bitterly cold.”
Sebian didn’t answer.
