Chapter 9 #3
“Hmm. Very.” She was quiet for a moment, her body warm against mine, and then she lifted her head and looked at me.
Her eyes were bright and direct. “The twins got a big delivery yesterday. New furniture. Beds, a heavy table, shelves… things two women can’t move alone no matter how determined they are.
” Her fingers found the edge of my sleeve, toying with the fabric.
“They asked if I knew anyone strong enough to help. I told them I might be able to borrow my favorite war hero for a couple of hours this evening. That all right with you?”
I glanced at Gabriella. She was watching us from her spot beside Angelina, her expression curious, a slight furrow between her brows that suggested she was performing calculations I probably didn’t want to know the outcome of.
“Of course,” I said. “Just tell me when.”
Sabrina smiled, satisfied, and stayed pressed against me a little longer than the conversation required, her wing warm against my back, before standing and brushing grass from her dress. “After dinner, then. I’ll let them know.”
The work resumed. Gabriella found three more reasons to brush against me in the next hour.
Angelina’s neutral expression developed a crease between the eyebrows that hadn’t been there at breakfast. Sabrina’s laughter from the orchard carried a note I couldn’t quite place, and every time I turned around someone was watching me.
By midday, the yard felt several degrees warmer than the temperature warranted.
* * *
The late afternoon light turned everything beneath us to gold.
Valen’s wings beat steady, carrying us northeast toward the twins’ island, and Sabrina sat in front of me with her body pressed against my chest, her wings folded neatly behind her, her light blonde hair whipping back in the wind to occasionally brush my face.
Sora had a rest day, and Sabrina wanted to ride on my pegasus.
The islands passed below us in a slow parade of green and shadow.
Small farming islets with their neat rows and stone cottages, the occasional cluster of trees where skybirds nested, the water between them.
It was beautiful in the way that things you’ve seen a hundred times can suddenly become beautiful again when viewed from the right angle, or with the right person pressed against you, or when your brain is desperately searching for distractions from the conversation you know is coming.
It came about ten minutes into the flight. Sabrina turned her head, speaking over her shoulder, her voice carrying back to me on the wind with a directness that left no room for deflection.
“What’s going on between you and Gabriella?”
I could feel the way she scooted closer, the slight tension in her shoulders where they pressed against my chest, and I knew from the tone that this wasn’t Sabrina being playful.
This was Sabrina wanting an answer, and Sabrina in that mood was as easy to deflect as a determined harpy with a grievance.
“Her nightmares were still severe,” I said.
The potion was the safe ground, the truth I could offer without offering everything.
“I found a fairy healer, Lyra, who specializes in emotional trauma, the kind that leaves no visible wound. She brewed a potion that eases painful memories, quiets nightmares. Makes the past feel further away than it really is. Gabriella drank it yesterday. She’s already feeling lighter. ”
I could feel Sabrina processing this, her body still against mine, and then she laughed.
“Okay. The potion. Great, very noble of you.” She adjusted her position.
“Now tell me the part where the potion explains why my sister was looking at you this morning like you’d personally hung the moon and also invented kissing, and why you were looking at her like someone had just handed you a key to a room you’d been trying to break into for years. ”
The accuracy of the description was uncomfortable. I cleared my throat, which was difficult to do with any dignity while mounted on a pegasus flying above the islands.
“We’ve grown closer. That’s all. After everything she went through, the bullying, the nightmares… I’m trying to support her. She needs someone who sees her completely.”
“Mm. And you’re seeing her completely. I noticed. Everyone noticed.” Sabrina was quiet for a moment, the wind carrying the scent of her hair past my face. “Did you sleep with her, Gabriel?”
My hands tightened on the reins, and Valen sensed the tension, his ears flicking back, his wingbeat adjusting. “Sabrina—”
“Just answer. Yes or no. It’s a simple question with a simple answer, unless the answer isn’t simple, in which case we’ve already moved past simple and I’d appreciate you not pretending otherwise.”
I took a breath. The islands rolled beneath us, green and gold and entirely unconcerned with the catastrophe unfolding sixty feet above their canopy. “It’s complicated,” I said.
She turned in the saddle. Not an easy maneuver on a moving pegasus, but Sabrina had been riding with me since before either of us could properly reach the stirrups, and her body knew the geometry of it by instinct.
She moved, pivoting, and then her arms were around my waist, her face pressed against my chest, holding me with a tightness that felt like something beyond the easy affection we’d always shared.
“Tell me the truth,” she said, her voice muffled against my shirt.
“Please. You can trust me. Whatever it is, just… tell me. I’ve spent six years waiting for you to come home, and now you’re here and something’s happening and I’m standing on the outside of it watching you look at Gabriella the way I…
” She stopped. Swallowed. I felt it against my chest, the small movement of her throat.
“The way I used to dream that someone would look at me.”
Her body was warm against mine, her wings pressing into my forearms where they held the reins, and the intimacy of the position was its own kind of torture.
I could feel the curve of her breasts through her dress where they pressed against my ribs, and my brain, which had apparently decided that today was the day to abandon all boundaries entirely, registered the contact with a specificity that made my throat dry.
“The situation is complicated,” I said again, and hated myself for it.
“I’m still figuring it out myself. Gabriella and I…
there are things between us that weren’t there before.
Things that… crossed a line. But it’s not simple, and it’s not something I’m ready to define, and I need you to trust that when I am ready, you’ll be the first person I tell. ”
It was the closest thing to truth I could manage without setting fire to everything, and from the way her body relaxed slightly against mine, she heard the honesty in it even if she didn’t get the specifics she wanted.
She stayed there. Arms around my waist, face against my chest, her breathing steadying gradually. Her hand found mine where it held the reins, and her fingers interlaced with mine. We flew that way for several minutes, her body pressed against mine.
Ginger Isle appeared on the horizon, larger than the farming islets, its eastern edge marked by a cluster of oak trees that I recognized from my previous visit.
Valen banked toward it, his wings tilting for the descent, and the change in angle forced Sabrina to ease back into her proper position in front of me.
She did it slowly, reluctantly, her hand lingering on mine, and when she was settled she didn’t speak.
As we began our descent toward the twins’ grassy landing area, I found myself wishing, with a desperation that surprised me, that I could give her the answer she wanted without destroying the fragile, impossible thing that had begun with Gabriella beside a lake full of crushed wildflowers.
Valen’s hooves struck grass. The landing was smooth. Sabrina dismounted before I could help her, and when she turned to look at me her smile was back, bright and not quite reaching her eyes.
“They’ll be waiting,” she said. “Try to look charming. They’ve been talking about you nonstop since the last time.”
I dismounted, my boots sinking into the soft turf, and followed her toward the cottage where the door opened.
The twins emerged from the cottage, two identical redheads.
Long hair that caught the late afternoon light and held it, emerald eyes bright with the excitement of two young women who had been waiting for something interesting to happen and had just been handed a six-foot-three war hero on a silver platter.
They hit Sabrina first. A collision of wings and laughter, the three of them embracing, and then the energy pivoted to me. Olivia reached me first, her arms around my neck, her body pressed against mine.
“You came back,” she said, her mouth close to my ear, her breath warm against my neck. “I’m so glad to see you again.” She pulled back, her hands on my shoulders, and looked me over with an appreciation that was entirely without subtlety.
Livia approached more slowly, her eyes doing that thing where they noticed everything and commented on precisely none of it. When she hugged me, her embrace was warmer, less performative, her hands lingering on my arms.
“Thank you for coming,” she said quietly. “We’ve been staring at that furniture for two days feeling very outmatched. It’s nice to be outmatched by something other than inanimate objects for once.”
They were beautiful in the way that dangerous things are beautiful.
Identical faces with high cheekbones and full mouths and skin so fair the freckles across their noses stood out like constellations.
Their wings were broad and the same color as their hair, currently half-folded in the way of angels who were too excited to bother with proper wing etiquette.