Chapter 25
Azur
“R aazos’s blood,” came a familiar voice, standing on the precipice of my office. “You look like you got moon fucked.”
I scowled, spearing Rivin a dark look as he sauntered inside, uninvited .
“I thought you would be at the northern border until tomorrow,” I grumbled, turning my attention back down to my desk. I was standing, stretching my wings, rolling my neck out.
“I didn’t want to miss the moon winds tonight,” he told me. “I missed the last one because someone made me act as a witness at his wedding.”
Vaan , had our marriage been nearly a month ago? Already?
“Rivin. I’m not in the mood.”
“I can see that,” my oldest friend commented, grinning as he studied me. He already knew that Gemma was my kyrana . He’d been the first to see me after I’d fed from her that first time, when I’d sped toward the northern borders.
More like fled, I couldn’t help but think. I’d fled to the northern borders after the discovery.
“Looks like you haven’t fed in a while,” he said next, which only sparked more irritation.
“If you saw the look my wife shot me yesterday, your fangs would’ve shriveled in your damn mouth,” I couldn’t help but grumble.
It had been four days since the night she’d come into my office.
Needless to say, Gemma was still pissed after our argument.
Rivin laughed, the sound loud enough to be grating. My head was already pounding from the lore harvest work spread out across my desk and the serious lack of my wife’s blood in my diet.
I was pining. At night, I stood outside the door to her rooms, hoping to catch a tendril of her scent, debating with myself in silent, drawn-out, maddening arguments right in the hallway.
“How’s the border?” I asked, changing the subject. “Any of the Kaazor give you trouble?”
Rivin shrugged. “We had one try to slip beyond our patrol. He had a message on him. In code. I think he was trying to deliver it to someone.”
“To someone at the border?” I asked, my attention sharpening on the words.
Rivin shook his head. “The path he was taking would only lead him to Laras.”
I cursed under my breath. “A spy?”
“There’s bound to be. But what does it matter if there’s a Kaazor in the village? The worst they could do is sabotage the lore harvest, but we already have so many shipments coming in from the other territories that we will be able to make our purchase contracts regardless.”
That wasn’t what I was worried about. The Kaazor were smart. If they thought they could get a spy into Laras undetected, they wouldn’t place them in the village. They’d place them in the keep .
“Have Zaale get me a list of everyone who has access to the keep,” I told Rivin. “I need to review it again. And make adjustments if necessary.”
Rivin sighed. “Azur, I really don’t think there’s a spy here . Zaale vetted everyone himself, and you know how thorough he is.”
“Still, I want that list,” I said. “And having to request anything from him will be punishment enough for you, for disturbing me in the middle of my work.”
“ Vaan ,” Rivin breathed, “what did you do to your wife? And can you undo it so that you won’t be so damn unpleasant all the time?”
I growled.
But hadn’t Kalia said something similar? My sister had come storming in here two days ago, with her lips pressed in displeasure, an expression that reminded me eerily of our mother.
“What did you do to Gemma?” she’d demanded, her wings twitching in agitation. When I hadn’t answered, Kalia had continued with, “She’s upset about something but won’t tell me what. I know you had something to do with it. She’s quiet. It’s strange .”
“What happens between us is none of your business, Kalia,” I’d told her, much to her annoyance, even though my chest had squeezed in discomfort at my sister’s announcement. “Besides, I thought you were going to stay far away from her. Instead, you two spend practically every moment together out on the terrace.”
Even Kalia had detected the jealousy in my voice because I’d watched as she’d gaped at me.
Then a smug look had entered her expression. A look that had made my own lips press together.
“Fix it,” Kalia had ordered me. “I don’t like seeing her upset.”
It should’ve worried me that Kalia was getting attached to Gemma. It should’ve worried me that they were bonding more and more every day. That the whole damn keep was getting attached to her. Even Zaale, who had begun to look at me with shadowed disapproval. No doubt he’d heard the rumors circulating among the keepers that my wife was freezing me out.
Not that I could blame her.
You’ll always look for the worst in me, won’t you?
I gritted my back teeth as Rivin watched me.
“Have you decided what you’re going to do with her yet?” he asked me. “Or how much longer you’re planning to stay married to her? I’m sure Mr. Cross can find her another husband.”
The breath practically squeezed itself out of my lungs. Rivin had said it so casually, perhaps intentionally so.
My wings were already flaring, and the last strength I had from the feeding with Gemma began to burn , my pupils constricting, my muscles contracting, rebuilding themselves.
“Raazos’s blood, Azur,” Rivin said quietly, slowly beginning to back away. “ Don’t . You’ll bring down the whole fucking keep. I only meant it in jest.”
I backed away from my desk, turning my own back on Rivin to get myself under control.
“You’re a bastard, you know that?” I breathed, leaning my forehead on the cool glass. I didn’t know if I was speaking to Rivin or to myself.
“I know,” Rivin replied, his voice still hesitant. “Then again, I don’t have a kyrana . I shouldn’t have said that. Forgive me.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, dragging in a deep breath. I could still taste Gemma in here. The scent of her floated over my tongue with every breath. It didn’t help that I could still smell her arousal on my desk too. Right where I had to sit, every single day. I could barely concentrate.
All I thought about anymore was her.
Frustration, unlike I’d ever felt before, had been riding me for days.
I felt ashamed. I felt guilty. I felt angry.
I felt like I was a trigger away from a full-blown rage, as Rivin had just discovered.
I couldn’t go on like this.
We couldn’t go on like this.
So I either had to continue making both of us miserable…or I’d have to give in to my wife and try to make her happy.
All she’d wanted was to call her family, came that nagging voice in my mind.
If our situations were reversed, I thought I would handle it a whole lot worse than Gemma. The thought of being cut off from my brothers, my sister, my entire life … Frankly, I didn’t know how she did it. How she had even had the strength to come to Krynn. To accept my proposal without knowing what her future would hold. To hold her head as high as she had.
She did it for her family . She would do anything for her family, and you tried to use that against her, I knew.
I slammed my fist against the window, pushing the last of my rage down, before opening my eyes.
Gemma was down on the terrace. With Kalia and Ludayn. I even saw Zaale, hovering nearby, no doubt frowning as he monitored what they were plucking away from the banisters as he swept up the decaying debris. They’d made a lot of progress in the last few days, now working their way down the eastern wall, toward our mother’s old garden.
My gaze lingered on my wife. Her hair was down today, gleaming in the setting sun, and my hands twitched, wanting to thread my fingers into it, to feel the silky strands pass through them like water.
Then I turned my attention skyward. Dark clouds were gathering in the north, drifting toward Laras with the wind. The storm would be here at nightfall, followed by the moon winds.
There was a calm hush in the air outside, as if Laras was readying itself. The weather would turn cold and biting soon, the late evenings turning dark.
“Are you going to fly tonight?” Rivin asked behind me, softly. Quietly. “It might take the edge off. I think you need it.”
Gemma liked it when we flew over the sea, I thought.
Maybe as way of an apology, I could help her experience the moon winds tonight. Surely that would make her happy.
I was rotten at this. I’d had lovers in the past, not relationships. Now I had a wife . A wife who knotted me up with a thousand different threads of ever-changing emotions. Most of the time, I didn’t know whether to punish her for her sharp tongue or kiss her until she was clinging to me, soft and breathless.
“Maybe I will,” I told Rivin.
Something needed to change—and Gemma had already adapted to Krynn.
This time, I knew it would have to be me .