Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Maxim
Istop in the kitchen doorway with snow in my hair and take in the room. Wren is at the table with a plate of eggs and toast. Sebastian sits next to her with a T-shirt folded on a nearby stool.
I inhale.
Sebastian’s scent is in her hair, on her skin and the shirt she slept in.
What’s surprising my lack of anger at this situation.
I’d expected to feel something small and ugly, the way humans describe jealousy in their books and movies.
But I feel nothing of the kind. This feels right.
Wren smells like Sebastian and therefore she smells like ours.
All that is lacking is my own scent layered on top of his, so she carries the both of us.
“The road is good and so is the generator,” I tell them as I cross to the hearth, and crouch to build up the fire. “The drifts were to my hip but the gate is clear. The generator will hold if no one touches it.”
“Thank you for doing that,” Wren says.
I grunt in response.
“You should eat breakfast with us. We made enough for you too.”
I glance over at Sebastian to make sure he feels his time is up. He meets my gaze and gives a nod in agreement. So I stand and get some eggs too.
An hour later, Sebastian retreats to his office.
I take the opportunity to invite my female to the library.
“We were here last night to watch a movie, but we didn’t explore the room fully.
” I want to show her the details. The rows of bookcases, floor to the beams. A ladder.
And that there’s also a deep leather couch I’m certain she didn’t notice last night that faces the shelves, not the television
“This is the only room in the house with a rug I chose.”
Mine.
She walks the shelves with one finger out, not touching, reading the spines. Half of them are in Krovenian. “You read all of these?”
“Most.”
“In Krovenian?”
“It is my language, Wren.”
“Right. Sorry.” She shakes her head. “I’ve just never met anyone who owned this many books that weren’t for show. I read a lot too, but I like fiction. In fact, I read romance books all the time. They are my favorite.”
“I don’t read fiction as much, and if I do it’s usually from a few of my favorite Krovenian authors. But I like fiction, not matter if it’s human or Krovenian.”
She sits down on the couch, pulls her feet up under her the way she does. I stay standing, by the shelves, because if I sit beside her, I will not be able to keep my hands to myself.
“Tell me about your family. I know about Sebastian’s family, but I’d love to know more about yours.”
“Well…House Volkov is the oldest noble house in Krovenia. Older than the city. My father is its head. He is a respected noble and deeply honorable, but he has also found it difficult to show any matter of affection towards me. I am his only child and after my mother died when I was nine years old, there wasn’t a parent to provide parental love.
Starting when I was young, books always provided a good release for escape. ”
She doesn’t say she’s sorry. I’m grateful for that.
“At twelve I was sent to the Draven court, to be raised alongside the princes. That is how Sebastian and I became what we are. Two boys who each lost a parent young and never spoke of it and understood each other anyway.”
“He said you became best friends when you both joined the military.”
“Yes, this is true. I joined and then he joined too.”
“And then?”
“And then I could not get rid of him.” It is the closest thing to a joke I have ever made in front of her. She laughs, head back, and I file the sound away with the others. “Tell me more about yourself, Wren.”
She tells me of a life spent with parents who eventually discarded her, little family and no siblings.
I gain respect for my female as I learn more about how she has managed to build a good life for herself with so little support.
She is independent, hardworking and strong.
And yet she has retained a sense of kindness and vulnerability, in the midst of all this strife.
And I am lucky to have a female of her worth in my life.
“So you have been alone?”
“I’ve been fine.”
“That is not what I asked.”
She’s quiet. “…Yes. I’ve been mainly alone, but I do make friends pretty quickly at my jobs. My coworkers have always been pretty wonderful.”
“Well, you’re not alone any longer. You now have both me and Sebastian in your life, if you’ll have us.”
She looks at me for a long moment. “Can I ask you something real?”
“Of course.”
“Why did you really leave Krovenia? Not the formal Council version or Sebastian’s version, but yours. I want to hear from you why you decided to leave.”
I go ahead and tell her the real reason.
“The Elders handed me a list of females from noble houses with proper bloodlines. All the usual suspects, most of whom I’ve known my whole life.
And they managed to pick the females I actively dislike.
” I make myself say the next part. “My father signed it and put his name at the bottom, beneath the Council’s seal, before it was ever brought to me.
He did not talk to me beforehand, or even afterwards.
But he did know that I feel it’s sinful to try and bypass the Blood Calling and that I’d planned on never taking on an arranged marriage the way the royals do.
But he ignored me. I’m tired of my whole life being chosen for me, and never once being asked if that’s what I want. So I left.”
She gets up off the couch, crosses the rug and puts her arms around my waist. Her face against my chest. I wrap my arms around her in return and sigh with happiness, because it is wonderful having her in my arms.
“Maxim.”
“Yes?”
“Is it true you’ve never been kissed?”
I smile. “It’s true.”
“Can I kiss you?”
“I’d love that.”
And then she’s on her tip toes, reaching her arms up and in moments her lips are on mine and it’s the most glorious moment of my life. She has to reach. I bend. She makes a small, urgent sound, kissing me deeper. My fangs come all the way down, and I do not pull back.
I turn her.
Her back against the shelves. I put my hands flat on the shelf on either side of her head, first. Caging. Not touching. “Tell me if it is too much.”
“It’s not enough.”
So I touch her delicious, sexy body. The sweater comes up. Not off. Up. My palms on her ribs, which I can nearly span with two hands. The heat of her skin against the heat of mine. She is shaking.
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
Her breasts in my hands, through navy lace and then not, and I watch her face the entire time. I need to see what each thing does to her. Her eyes go half-closed and she cannot look away from mine, and I do not let her.
She pulls my shirt off over my head—she has to stand on the bottom shelf to do it—and puts her mouth on my chest. I have to put one hand flat on the shelf to stay standing. Then her hand goes down between us and finds my hard, leaking shaft through my jeans.
“God, Maxim.”
“Yes.”
“I want…”
“I know.”
I get my hands under her thighs and lift her, so she’s at my height, her legs around my waist, her back against the books. My mouth on her collarbone. On the top of her breast. I make myself stay away from her throat.
Then her hand goes to the button of my jeans, and I catch her wrist. I am shaking. “Wait.”
She exhales.
“Do you have reservations?” I question “Any? Say them now before we go too far.”
She nods in agreement and thinks. “One. Not about you two, but about me.”
I let her down. “Tell me.”
“I’ve never done anything halfway in my life. And I’m about to do something with two people. I don’t know how to be half of anyone’s…”
“You will not be.” I say it before she can finish, because it needs saying. “That is the point of two of us. You are not divided, Wren. You are doubled.”
She goes quiet against my chest. “Sebastian told me a tentative schedule,” she says, after a while. “Mornings, evenings, nights. He said it wasn’t written in stone.”
“It is not. It is a place to start. We will change it the first week.”
“And you two really don’t—there’s no keeping score?”
“Wren.” I put my hand on the back of her head. “I have shared a house with him for a year and a barracks for ten. We have never once kept score about anything. We are not going to begin with the only thing that matters.”
She breathes out.
“There is something else you should know,” I tell her. “The work takes us away. Sometimes both of us and possibly for weeks at a time. There will be nights you are alone in this house, with a wall and a gate and no one inside with you. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” she smiles. “I lived alone above a bar for three months in a town where I didn’t know a single person. I can do a wall and a gate.”
“It is not the same.”
“No. It’s easier.” She tips her head back to look at me. “You’ll come back. And also, this will finally give me the ability to get a dog or two like I’ve always wanted. Can you handle having dogs?”
I kiss the top of her head. “I’ve always wanted a dog too, but we were both gone too much. Both of us would like this idea.”
“And when it’s only one of you gone?”
“Then it is one of us. And the other is with you.”
“And that’s okay. With both of you?”
“It is what we are.”
“Maxim?”
“Yes?”
Small, into my chest. “Will I be enough? For two of you?”
“You have been enough for two of us since the first night,” I tell her. “We have been the ones waiting to be enough for you.”
She puts her hand flat over my heart, and I cover it with mine.