Chapter 9 Inside a Poem
Koa
The forest opened up like a secret being revealed, the trees parting to frame a meadow awash in a wildflower patchwork of blue, purple, white, and yellow. I heard Seri’s soft inhale beside me, felt her hand tighten in mine, and knew we’d found something special.
“Oh,” she breathed, kneeling in the floral chaos. Her palm pressed to the earth like she could drink spring through her skin. “This feels like…”
“Like you’re standing inside a poem?” I suggested.
“Like I am the poem.”
Brumous charged ahead, disappearing into the tall grass with only the swish of his tail visible as he bounded along. Cas stepped into the clearing, his usual vigilance momentarily softened by appreciation. Even Zane was quiet for once, taking in the scene with a rare thoughtful expression.
Seri ventured further in and crouched to examine something near her feet.
“Look! May apples!”
I set down the picnic basket and joined her, taking a knee beside a cluster of umbrella-shaped leaves. Underneath, small white flowers nodded like shy creatures hiding from the sun.
“And these,” she moved to another patch a few feet away, “are Dutchman’s breeches.” She gestured to tiny white flowers that did indeed look like miniature pairs of pantaloons hanging on a line.
“You know your wildflowers,” Cas observed, coming to stand behind us.
Seri’s smile was both pleased and wistful. She’d pulled her hair into a loose braid this morning, but tendrils had escaped to frame her face, making my fingers itch to tangle in them.
“Papa taught me. Before everything changed.” She brushed her fingers across a cluster of delicate violet blooms. “These are wild geraniums. And over there,” she pointed to a carpet of tiny white flowers near the edge of the clearing, “are snowdrops.”
She moved through the meadow like she belonged there, naming flowers with quiet confidence: trillium, Jack-in-the-pulpits, and violets.
“This is spring beauty!” She motioned us over to a patch of pink. “Aren’t they lovely?”
I looked down at the small flowers, then back at her face, flushed with excitement, gray eyes sparkling, lips curved. Nothing like the trembling, terrified woman from this morning.
“You’re the real spring beauty,” I murmured.
Her eyes flew to mine, a blush spreading across her cheeks. For a moment I thought I’d embarrassed her, but then she smiled, a shy, pleased thing that made my heart stumble in my chest.
“Smooth, little brother.” Zane appeared at my shoulder. “Did you practice that one in the mirror?”
“Shut up.” I shoved him, but not hard enough to knock him over.
“No, really, I’m taking notes.” He pulled an imaginary notepad from his pocket. “Step one: Compare wife to small woodland flora. Step two: Wait for swooning.”
I should have shoved him hard enough to knock him over.
“You’re just jealous because you didn’t think of it first.”
“Please! When I flirt, I don’t need botanical analogies.” He turned to Seri with an exaggerated waggle of his eyebrows. “Although if we’re talking about things springing up, I could show you—”
“That’s enough,” Cas cut him off.
“I was just going to offer to help her identify more flowers,” Zane protested. “Such a dirty mind, Simmy.”
“You don’t know a trillium from a turnip,” Cas said dryly.
“Brother, I can’t even identify a turnip, but I know other things.” Z’s grin turned wolfish. “Like exactly how to make our wife—”
“Zane!”
“—appreciate the wonders of nature,” he finished, all wide-eyed innocence. “What did you think I was going to say, Cas?”
Seri’s laugh cut through their bickering with a snort at the end that she quickly covered with her hand. We all turned to look at her, then followed her gaze to where Brumous was whacking a tall fern into submission with his tail as he sat staring at us with a lolling tongue.
“I think he’s winning,” I chuckled.
“Definitely,” she agreed, still giggling. “That fern doesn’t stand a chance.”
The sound of her laughter was still new enough, rare enough, that we all paused to savor it.
“We should set up here.” Casimir gestured to a relatively flat area toward the center of the meadow. “We’ll have a good view.”
The “good view” part was his tactical mind speaking; from that vantage point, we could see the entire meadow and the forest entrance we’d come through.
Seri turned to Casimir, her expression suddenly mischievous.
“Come on.” She took his hand in both of hers, and surprise flickered across his face.“Let’s go explore while they unpack.”
“I should help—”
“They’ve got it,” she insisted, trying to tug him along. “I want to show you something.”
“But—”
“Cas. That’s woman-speak for, ‘I want to be alone with you,’ ” Zane decided to help him out when I would have left him floundering. “Go. With. Her.”
The look of helpless confusion on his face as he allowed himself to be led away by our wife was priceless. Z caught my eye, and we both grinned as I unfolded the huge blanket Mrs. Wentzel had provided. It was easily the size of a queen bed, quilted and thick, and he helped me spread it out.
“A C-note says she’s got him rolling in the flowers within five minutes,” he snickered as we unpacked the picnic hamper.
“Cas? Never.” But I wasn’t entirely sure. Seri had a way of softening even his rigid edges.
We laid out the feast Mrs. Wentzel had prepared. The old girl had outdone herself. Thick sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper, containers of pasta salad and fruit, a jar of olives, another of pickles, small cakes that looked homemade, and thermoses indeed filled with mulled cider.
I glanced up to check on Seri and Cas. They were crouched near a clump of flowers, our beloved cupping her hand around his ear while he listened to her whispers with furrowed eyebrows.
“Do you want to get back at Zoodle for the Goblin Moonshine? A little bloodwort in his sandwich will send him running to the bathroom the rest of the afternoon.”
And Cas laughed, a rare, full-bodied sound that we very rarely got to hear.
“Would you look at that?” Zane murmured. “She’s got him wrapped around her little finger.”
“She’s got all of us wrapped around her little finger,” I corrected, then checked, “You are listening to what she’s telling him, right?”
“I am, and if it makes her eyes dance with that much mischief, I’ll deal with a literal shitstorm.”
Chuckling at that, I turned to call them, but Brummy caught my eye first. The pup had spotted something, a butterfly or a field mouse maybe, and launched himself after it with all the grace of an enthusiastic bowling ball. He overshot and skidded face-first into a thorny bush at the meadow’s edge.
“Brummy!” Seri covered her mouth with her hands. “Are you hurt?”
The wolf sneezed, shaking his head and dislodging petals and bits of thorn that had stuck to his muzzle. He was more surprised than injured, his eyes wide with confusion.
“Drama queen,” Zane snorted, but hustled over to the pup and dropped to a knee beside the wolf, fingers dancing through thorns with battlefield efficiency. “You’d think fur this thick— Ah, shit!”
“I’ll help.” Seri reached for the worst tangle, but he blocked her wrist.
“Thorns don’t care how pure your heart is, starshine. Let the butcher work.”
I watched them, Zane with his usual swagger momentarily set aside, Seri with her eyes lit with love and joy, Brumous soaking up attention like a sponge. A few yards away, Cas was examining flowers with the same intensity he usually reserved for tactical maps before a hunt.
Something warm and unexpected filled my chest. This moment of peace and ordinary happiness felt almost foreign after years of missions and violence and royal politics. Yet somehow, it also felt right. Like we’d been moving toward this all along without realizing it.
“Lunch is ready,” I called.
“Coming!” Seri gave Brummy one last scratch behind the ears and rose, brushing grass from her jeans. Z followed, casually draping an arm around her shoulders as they walked back to the blanket.
Cas joined us last, carrying a small bunch of wildflowers that he offered to Seri like a botched drug deal: Hand thrust out, eyes averted, petals trembling.
“For.” He cleared his throat. “For you, my love.”
“Thank you, Simmy.” Seri cradled the blossoms like newborn birds, and her kiss landed just shy of the flush creeping up his collar.
Zane and I exchanged side eyes, barely holding back snickers.
We ate in a comfortable quiet, a concept I’d never fully understood until Seri. Our wife. Our beloved. Still a miracle I couldn’t quite believe.
Then, “You’re hogging all the salami,” Zane accused, reaching across the blanket to snatch the plate from Cas. “I need protein, too, you know.”
“You need manners more,” Cas retorted, but surrendered the charcuterie without further protest, too busy enjoying Seri’s attention as she fed him a blueberry.
“Did you try the brie?” I asked her, breaking off a piece and offering it on a cracker.
Her gray eyes met mine as she leaned forward to take the morsel directly from my fingers, her lips brushing my skin. A current went down my spine, a live wire igniting nerve endings I didn’t know I had.
“Mmm,” she hummed, closing her eyes. “Delicious.”
Zane launched into a story about the time we hunted a wood booger in the Appalachians, complete with dramatic reenactments that had Seri giggling until tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.
My brother had a gift for storytelling; any mundane incident could become an epic adventure filled with villains and heroic triumph.
Most of it was bullshit, but still entertaining.
“And then,” he continued, waving an olive for emphasis, “Cas got fed up and shot it. Damn thing dissolved before Ko could get it into a containment orb.” He tossed the olive high, catching it in his mouth with a satisfied squish.
“Didn’t get paid a penny because we had no proof we killed it. Fang-rotted rip off.”
Still smiling, Seri hesitated, fingers halfway to Casimir’s mouth with another blueberry.