Chapter 13
ZIVREN
June is thrashing against the grip of the orange idiots. Tears stain her cheeks as she spits in the left one’s face, hurling insults at them and Lord Forchan.
How did this happen? Why are they back? Why have they come to take her away?
I have no answers to these questions, and that fills me with anger. The anger is subdued; however, by the acrid taste of fear. I’m drowning in it.
“This can’t be!” I protest, trying to reach her. “Release my mate!”
Lord Forchan laughs, the sound brittle and scratchy to my ears. “She is getting what she deserves. A life ended for a life taken.” He leans toward June and pinches her cheek. “I’m going to enjoy watching you die.”
I wake up with a gasp, my chest heaving at the nightmare.
It felt so real. I hold my head in my hands as I wait for my breathing to return to its steady rhythm.
I half expect June to put her hand on my arm and ask me what’s wrong, and when that doesn’t happen, I turn toward her side of the bed, finding it empty.
The linens are cold to the touch, and my pulse speeds back up.
There’s no way they could’ve taken her in the night. I would’ve awoken to the sound of Lord Forchan and the orange idiots entering my house, the sound of June trying to get away.
She has to be here somewhere.
I leap out of bed and check the washroom, then Akkal’s room. Nothing. I’m out of breath, my hands shaking when I race into the living room and find it empty. My nightmare starts to feel like reality as I step outside, scanning the beach.
“Ziv?” a quiet voice calls out from the other side of the tree next to the house.
“June,” I reply, my voice a choked sob as I practically collapse at her side. “What are you doing out here? I thought…” I trail off as a shudder rips through me at the sight of her being taken away. But it wasn’t real. She’s here. She’s safe.
“I had a nightmare.”
She sniffles, and I move closer to her until my side is pressed against hers. “I couldn’t sleep.” She shakes her head as she looks out at the red sea. “I’m worried about the test. About failing it.” I watch as she chews on the inside of her cheek. “I don’t want to go back there.”
I grip her hips and arms and haul her into my lap until she’s straddling me. One hand cradles the back of her head and the rest hold her against my body as I rock us back and forth. “We won’t fail,” I say, trying to reassure her as much as myself.
Her body trembles as she pressed her cheek against my neck. “How can you be sure?”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “Because the alternative is unthinkable. Because I’m not letting you go.”
I continue to rock us for what feels like an eternity when she replies, “Okay,” softly, tightening her grip on me.
My breathing returns to normal as I hold her, my heart rate following, and I realize how easy it is to exist in her embrace. When she touches me, my body relaxes, the tension evaporates, and everything feels…right.
Her light chuckle tickles my ear. “Four-armed hugs really are the best. You’ve ruined me for two-armed hugs forever you know.”
I pull back to look at her, kissing a stray tear from her cheek. “I’m honored.”
She lets me carry her back inside, and she remains tucked safely in my four arms until the sun rises.
The second part of the test is coming soon. Chancellor Uzellarin stopped by yesterday to confirm it will take place two weeks from today. June and I are actively avoiding talking about it.
“There’s no point,” she told me last night as we lay in bed. “We still don’t know what it is, so there’s no way to prepare for it, and if we’re not preparing, we’re overthinking, and I don’t need to do more of that than I do on a daily basis.”
She’s right, but I still despise having it looming over us. It feels like the final hurdle standing between us and a future together, if she’ll have me.
I think things are going well. Sex has become part of our nightly routine, and occasionally part of the morning routine as well.
Now that I know what it’s like, I’m not sure how I went so long without it.
Though I doubt it would feel like this with anyone other than June.
She could take me into her warm, welcoming body several times a day and it still wouldn’t be enough.
I need her like I need a heart that beats.
We walk hand in hand down the shore to a neighbor’s house where Akkal is having what June calls a “playdate.” The girl is around his age, and June thought it would be good for him to start making friends.
Kids on the island don’t attend school until age nine, so I was fine with keeping him home until then, but I trust June’s judgement.
She treats him as if she carried him inside her belly, and I know she only has his best interests at heart.
When we knock on the front door, I can hear crying from inside the house. The door is thrown open and Akkal comes racing out, launching himself at June as tears stain his cheeks. She cups the back of his head, rocking him gently from side to side. “What’s the matter, bud?”
The mother, who June met in the park, wears an expression that’s half sympathy, half amusement as she explains Akkal and her daughter, Fidis, started fighting over Soppo, Akkal’s warrior figurine.
Soppo’s arm popped out of the socket amidst the melee, and Akkal was so distraught he hadn’t stopped crying since, even though Fidis’s mother popped the arm right back in.
“Oh, it’s okay,” June assures him in a gentle voice. “He’s all better now.”
Akkal pulls back to look at her, using his tiny fist to wipe away his tears. “He can’t fight without his arms, Tetra. He can’t.”
I freeze. June does too.
Fidis is standing in the doorway with her mother, both of them seemingly confused by the way June and I are looking at each other.
“Well, I’m sorry about this, but thank you for watching him,” I offer quickly. “See you again soon.”
June lifts Akkal into her arms and carries him home. We say nothing until his tears dry and he’s settled in his rocking chair listening to music. The two of us huddle over the kitchen counter, keeping our voices low.
“He called me tetra.”
I let out a sigh. “He called you tetra.”
She musses the short hairs that cover her forehead––a habit I’ve noticed when she’s nervous. “We should talk to him about it, right? Let him know it’s a bad idea to call me that?”
This is not the direction I expected this conversation to take. I was hoping she was happy about it. That upon hearing it, she realized it felt right. “A bad idea?”
“I mean, what happens if we fail the test? What then?”
Ficq. I’ve been so focused on how happy we’d be together once the test was over that I hadn’t considered the aftermath of us failing.
“They’re going to take me back to Etirinu, and Akkal loses the only tetra he’s ever known?” She’s pacing now, chewing on her bottom lip. “I can’t put him through that.”
Of course she’s thinking of Akkal in this moment, setting aside the part where, if Akkal loses his tetra, it’s because Lord Forchan has taken her back to Etirinu to die.
If I had any doubts about the kind of partner and mother June would be, this moment wipes them all away.
“I know what that’s like, Ziv.” Her eyes are shining, giant tears ready to spill over onto her pink cheeks. “He can’t know that feeling.”
Abandonment. I, too, know it well. Long before I was officially banished, I existed without a family.
We might have been in the same castle, the same wing, same room, even, but to them, I blended into the background, much like a maid or piece of furniture.
And the feeling of being left behind by the very people charged with accepting you is a form of torture I don’t wish on anyone.
As much as I want June to remain in our lives, and I want it more than anything, is it what’s best for Akkal, given his clear attachment, if there’s a chance she can be taken away from us? How can I possibly reassemble the tattered pieces of his heart knowing mine would never heal?