Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
TOVED
Aveline. Her name is as sweet as honey on my tongue.
My soul finds peace when I am at her side. Even before the warlock trapped and cursed us, I never knew such contentment. We have cared for her only one week, but already she is in my blood. She is written on my heart.
I am not sure which has better claim to easing my nightmares and soothing my hurts: our return to our home or Aveline’s reassuring presence and sweet scent.
So much about our homecoming has been jarring, painful, and bittersweet.
We found our rooms and realm exactly as we left them nearly three centuries ago when we ventured through the bridge doorway and fell into the warlock’s web.
Relearning to live as men instead of beasts presents never-ending heartaches and challenges.
It will be a long time, I think, before we can make peace with our long torment. But at least as my brother and I comfort Aveline and see to her healing, we also heal ourselves.
Whatever ordeal she suffered before we met, she is exhausted both body and soul.
After waking only briefly last evening to speak with us and examine her healing injuries, she has slept for another full night.
Dawn is now only minutes away. With it comes the promise of another day in her presence.
The likelihood she will wake soon and bless us with her voice and attention fills me with joy.
“She smiles in her sleep,” I murmur as Vosten braids her hair, his touch as light as a feather. We keep our voices low. “I am glad to see it. I do not want her to dream of the hounds or their keeper.”
He growls. “We must find out who set them on her. That man worked for someone. Who sends a pack of hounds to hunt and slaughter a woman?”
My time as a beast haunts me, but it taught me there are reasons to embrace the part of myself that is vicious. Our people are peaceful…until we are not. Until we are wronged, or see a wrong being done.
Rage threatens to steal my reason. I hold in my snarl and temper my fury because Aveline lies beside me and I do not want to disturb her rest.
“Only a monster would do such a thing,” I say, my voice quiet but harsh. “Such a man does not deserve to live.”
“We will track her scent through the forest when we have the opportunity.” Vosten ties the end of the braid and lays it over the fur that covers our bride.
“We will find her tormentor and see he pays for his crime. Whether our Aveline stays with us or chooses to return to her home, she must never fear this man again.”
My brother—elder by four minutes—is strong.
His voice does not shake, but his jaw tightens when he speaks of the possibility Aveline may not stay.
I avoid saying any such thing aloud for fear I may speak that heartbreak into being.
I do not want to think of how empty this bed would be without Aveline in it.
Neither does Vosten, but he at least can bear to mention it.
“We can only offer our hearts,” Vosten says as if he heard my thoughts. He knows me as well as he knows himself. He divides out the next section of Aveline’s beautiful hair and draws a comb through it. “The choice must be hers.”
Watching him braid mesmerizes me. Since childhood, he has possessed our people’s gift of weaving love and care into our hair, and now he braids his devotion to Aveline into her beautiful tresses along with the golden threads that signify she is a treasure to us.
Her hair is even longer than ours—much longer than any human’s we have ever seen. She could not have known our ways, and yet I believe it is a sign we were meant to meet, to love, to share our lives. My heart would not be so full if it was not so.
But Vosten is right, as always—the choice must be hers. We have no right to call her bride or wife unless she calls us her beloved sulhai or husbands.
“She will be hungry when she wakes,” Vosten says, glancing up from his task. “We must have food ready, and tea.”
“I will see to it.” Very reluctantly, I slip from the bed, careful not to jostle Aveline. She makes a little sound of protest. I freeze.
“Even when she sleeps, she knows we are near,” Vosten says, pausing to touch Aveline’s hand and stroke her fingers to reassure her.
She murmurs and snuggles deeper into the furs.
“In her heart, she knows she is safe with us,” he adds and returns to his task.
“There is no greater compliment than that, brother. And no greater reason for hope.”
Hope sustained us for the long centuries of our cursed existence.
Hope fills me now, holds me up, sends me from the bedroom to the kitchen to ask Liva, our cook, to prepare us a full meal to share with our Aveline.
She is happy to make whatever we want. She has been singing since we brought Aveline home. Joy and hope has filled our household.
But on my way back to our bedroom, I think again of Aveline’s injuries and the shadows that linger in her eyes.
Alone in the stone hall and out of earshot of our sleeping bride, I let out the snarl I held in before.
The growl rolls down the hall and through our mountain dwelling.
Before the curse, I seldom made such a sound.
I seldom had reason to do so. Now I hold rage in my bones—rage that only wanes when I am near our beloved Aveline.
I have only been away from the bed for a few minutes, but I already yearn to hold her again.
This aching need is a new sensation. In all my years, my arms never felt empty until we met our bride.
Now if I am not cradling or touching her I feel bereft, and dark memories of the warlock’s curse threaten to pull me into abyssal depths of pain and despair.
I hurry to rejoin my brother and Aveline and fill my arms again.