Twenty-Two
Avirin
It’s easier for Avirin to leave her room with no one else around.
She carries her candle into the darkened hallway, stopping in front of a large window to watch the summer wind sweep across the hillside.
There is something magical about the ivy dancing from the eaves while moonlight reflects off a pond in the distance.
She cracks open the window to inhale the smell of honeysuckle, grass, and fading sun, and she resolves to at least step outside tomorrow.
Behind her is a wall of doors that stretches the length of the cottage.
Some of the doors are open, but it is the closed ones that draw Avirin’s curiosity.
When she tilts her head, her loose hair falls over her chemise.
Pye did say she was welcome in any room of this house, and she really must get a lay of the land.
After a long moment, she chooses a closed door near the far end of the hall and eases it open.
Familiarity swarms her. It’s a small library, its walls covered in rows of books that match the standing shelves in the middle. She eases the door shut behind her, running her fingers along the spines and reveling in the smell of leather —
Something moves beside her. She whirls to see Pye rounding one of the middle shelves, licking their finger to flip through the pages of a large tome. They stop short when she comes into view. “My lady.”
The sight of them makes her mind crackle.
There are no words in her head. She has never seen them — seen anyone — like this.
Here, in this house they share, Pye wears nothing but the inexpressibles that cling to his thighs.
His chest is bare, covered in black tattoos she’s only caught glimpses of.
In the center is the largest one of all, a death’s-head hawkmoth spreading its wings mid-flight.
She has touched him there. Even if she’s never seen these markings in such detail, her hands were pressed to his chest a week ago in the garden, when he tugged off her gloves and pulled her to him.
Her fingers flex at the memory. She grips the shelf behind her, distracted by the light glinting off Pye’s round spectacles.
Only then does she realize that he is looking at her the same way, dragging his eyes over places he’s never seen before.
No matter what else they’ve done, something about this is different. Private. Intimate.
Pye finds their voice before she does. “I’ve been hoping to see you outside of your room. I’m happy to have the pleasure.”
For a moment, she’d forgotten the changes to her face.
She’d forgotten the weight of the horns, the sensitivity of her eyes, but they come flooding back now.
The reminder makes her want to sprint back down the hallway, but has she not run from them enough already?
She can’t stay in that room forever. Still, she holds the candle down by her side to keep her face in shadow.
The light glints off Pye’s left hand, reflecting off the silver band that rests there. Small pearls surround the central jewel nestled against his fourth finger.
Avirin can’t keep the surprise from her tone. “You’re wearing a ring.”
Pye twirls it around his finger. “We are married, are we not?” His impish look confirms what they both know. Rarely does a husband wear a wedding band, but everything about Pye is rare and uncommon.
We are wondrous. More than they could ever imagine.
Avirin has to look away for fear of how her heart trips. Her gaze clings to the book in his hand. “It’s rather late for a bedtime story.”
A smile twitches on Pye’s lips. “I’m researching some things I hoped to show you.
” He moves to the table beside her, and she realizes it’s covered in open books.
The pages hold few pictures, but the word succubus stands out among the text.
Pye sets their latest book in a vacant place.
“Unfortunately, these have provided little help. Either they have no information, or they include pages of misleading speculation. There’s not even a consensus on why the change occurs. ”
Avirin’s eye catches on a drawing of a horrific creature. Scales coat its back, saliva dripping from its hungry mouth beneath the black depths of its eyes. Her stomach churns.
Pye shuts that book and adds it to a growing stack at the end of the table.
“I am quickly learning that Lord Kyrven did not have an interest in modern science.” Pye turns back to the shelves, speaking over his shoulder.
“Would you like to take some books for your own reading? Aside from the encyclopedias, the rest of the collection is rather impressive. There’s philosophy, adventure, poetry… ”
She follows behind him, setting aside her candle and scanning the authors until she pulls out a familiar name.
Pye gasps coyly. “My lady Avirin, a student of John Donne? I could nary have imagined it.”
Her cheeks heat at their teasing, but it’s the same pleasant warmth as alcohol, leaving her slightly outside of herself. “Some people recite his works to scandalize their party guests, but I’ve always felt his poems include more than just ribaldry.”
Pye leans a hip into the shelf. “Is that so? Enlighten me.” They speak softly, like anything louder would wake the whole house. Like he wants to remain just the two of them.
Avirin swallows. It’s a familiar feeling to be put on the spot this way, yet with Pye, there’s something different.
Maybe it’s the way the candlelight embraces their smile, or the way they don’t seem intent to misunderstand her.
Being under the beam of Pye’s attention feels like a rousing test that has one outcome — she will pass.
No matter how ineloquently she speaks, no matter how she stumbles, Pye will be thrilled with her.
She turns the pages of the book until she lands on a familiar poem and sets it open on the desk.
The Flea has long been one of her favorites, but it seems silly now.
All her previous interpretations drain from her mind.
How could a blood-sucking insect represent the depths of romance? Why would she even consider that?
Pye sidles closer to read the title and makes an appreciative noise. “A fantastic choice. Do go on.”
She clears her throat, fingering the pages like she might slam it shut. “Perhaps I don’t understand it as well as I thought.”
Pye tilts their head toward the book with gentle encouragement. “Tell me.”
Something inside Avirin wants to obey. “It’s about desire.” She digs her fingernails into her palms and keeps her eyes on the page. “Yearning so desperately for something — for someone — that you’ll take anything you can have of them.”
Her mouth is dry. What had once felt like a conceptual, distant understanding of the poem is now achingly poignant. She recognizes these feelings. She tries to keep her voice level.
“If you can’t touch each other, then something else must be enough. You have to be satisfied by a drop of your blood mingling with theirs in a tiny insect. You have to be content occupying a room where only their scent lingers.”
Even holding her breath, the smell of Pye comes to her, a vexing combination of flowers and fruit and musk. She shuts her eyes to try and think past it.
“When you can have nothing else, those little moments become as meaningful as a marriage bed.”
After a moment, her eyes flutter open. Pye stands so close that they breathe the same air. His fingers press against the book, an inch away from tangling with hers atop the pages. But there is something halting in his eyes, an old wound disturbed by her words.
“Avirin…” He looks at her mouth for a long moment before he takes a reluctant step back.
“I have not had a chance to say this to you, but I must. I do not wish to force you to relive it, but not to acknowledge it would be wrong.” Their bare chest moves when they inhale.
“I am sorry for the position you were forced into. The marriage your mother arranged for you. These changes to your body. This union we formed. Even if you’ve made the best of what you’ve been given, I am sorry that this is the hand you’ve been dealt. You’ve had little choice in any of it.”
She shakes her head to deflect the painful truth. “You had no real choice in this, either.” Not when she kissed him in the garden. When she couldn’t stop herself. When she pressed too far, and he was forced to save her from the consequences.
Pye lowers their face to meet her gaze. “Do not spare any worry for me, Avirin. Nothing about this arrangement torments me, save my concern for you.”
Her jaw clicks. Since that night in the garden, there has been a constant ache in her head. Everything is tight and hardened: the grit of her teeth, the knit of her brow, the skin stretched to make space for her horns.
“Marriage should be joyous,” Pye says. “It is not something you should be forced into. It should not involve you backed into a corner. That is why it’s very important to me, before we — progress in any other fashion, that you are happy.”
She blinks. Until this moment, she’d forgotten the word existed. Happy. She can’t remember the last time she felt that without anxiety nipping at her heels. Even during their lessons, there was a veil of sadness overhead, a ticking clock counting toward its end.
“Tell me truthfully,” Pye asks, “are you happy?”
She searches inside herself. Any happiness is a flicker inside the gloom, the same way this brief moment with Pye is only a reprieve from her worries.
She has not stopped thinking of the ton, of what they are saying, of how she looks.
She continues to hole up in her room and hide under the covers, as if this is a nightmare that she can wake up from.
Maybe if she refuses this long enough, she can will her horns and eyes away.
Maybe she can bury this reality and go on pretending that she is not what she is.
But that isn’t true, is it?
She takes a shuddering breath. “I…am not.”
Guilt sinks into her, but Pye doesn’t look disappointed; he looks like he understands.
“I want to be,” she croaks. “You’ve done so much for me. I don’t mean to be ungrateful —”
“You’re not,” he murmurs. “You’re being honest, and there is nothing I want more in the world.
” Pye lifts their hand and strokes their thumb over her cheek.
“Our marriage is our own. It need not be like any marriage you have seen or been taught to expect.” He looks deep in her eyes, and for once, it quiets the constant chatter in her mind.
“If you have no desire for children, then there will be none. If you wish to take other lovers, then the world is open to you. If you desire no intimacy with me, then there will be space between us.”
Their words sound impossible, unlike any marriage she has known. All she has heard of matrimony is its difficulty, its practical purpose, its necessity in securing a woman’s future. How can anything else be true?
She speaks into the space between them. “And if I do desire intimacy with you?”
Candlelight flickers in Pye’s eyes. “Then you will have it. But first, we must turn our focus elsewhere. Let us find your happiness before anything else transpires.”
Her lips turn down in a frown. “Must we?” Though she has resisted getting close to Pye since her horns appeared, intimacy could prove a compelling distraction – if she could get past her own discouragement.
Digging her way out of this hole sounds exhausting, requiring her to face things she doesn’t want to look at, pressing her to admit things that she’d much rather avoid.
Pye cups her jaw. “You accepted my proposal under duress.” Their touch is reassuring, but their gaze swims with something dark and luscious. “Let that be the last thing you take from me without ardent ecstasy.”
Heat sears through her. Damn everything he said. Damn her happiness. Damn his concern. Let her taste his mouth again with no one to stop them. Let her reclaim the final lesson he swore he could not give to her.
But as much as she hates to admit it, he is right.
She does not want to chase her desire in a moment of despair.
She does not want her mind to be pulled away by lingering doubts.
She wants to be here for it. She wants to take her time.
She wants to be immersed, holding every second on her tongue until she memorizes their taste.
Her mouth waters. “Fine. If you insist.”
She turns her head to brush Pye’s thumb with her lips.
It’s a soft touch, barely there, but she doesn’t look away.
She forces her eyes to remain on his, refusing to be unnerved by the horns in her periphery.
If Pye wants to “focus” on other things, then it’s only fair she reminds him that he will suffer right along with her.
His lashes flutter in surprise, a reaction so delicious she wants to bring it out of him again and again. If Pye didn’t expect her to rise to their challenge, they underestimated her. Perhaps she’s been underestimating herself.
She presses a lingering kiss to the pad of their thumb, and then, she steps away. “Sleep well…my lord.”