34. Kye #2
Maren raised a brow, a smile on her mouth.
She crossed the room and placed herself beside me, head lolling onto my shoulder.
My fingers laced hers without my telling them to, a hound searching for a scent.
I couldn’t help myself. If Maren was within reach, I fucking reached.
If I could touch her, I did. Something pulled me to her like a magnet, a compass always leading me north.
Cordaed or not, it was there, a constant tug in her direction, a need to feel her with my hands and blend my breath with hers.
It made me question the authenticity of a corda-cruor, the strength and intensity of it, since it was now gone and I felt the same as I always had.
But I wasn’t Naiad. Maybe I’d never understand what it had been like for her before.
What it was like for her now. Maybe the difference was as wide as a canyon, as deep as Darkness’s house of shadow.
I’d never know. Everything felt as it always had.
Maren was a fall I couldn’t escape. Even now, I looked at her, and I was still falling.
I’d waited, those first few weeks after returning from Perpetuum, to try and understand if anything had changed for her.
I suppose it made me a fucking coward that I couldn’t bring myself to ask outright, too nervous to hear the answer.
To hear her feelings hadn’t changed might have been a balm at first. A salve over an itch that would eventually wear off, leaving behind the prickling question of whether she’d lied to calm my worries.
To hear that her feelings had changed, well. I’m unsure if I could recover from that.
And then, perhaps, there was the other issue, one as fucking fragile as my pride. My mortality.
My mind did what it always did when the thought reared its delicate fucking head. Scramble and stumble to bury it under more present, pressing topics like finding wood for a fire or an apple with which to potentially maim myself when Maren’s hellhound caught a sniff of the fruit within my fingers.
Are you tired? I asked, pulling Maren’s hand into my lap, massaging my thumb into her palm. She exhaled with a heated groan. The sound pulsed down my spinal column like a drug.
Yes, and if you continue that, you might as well forfeit my staying awake for anything that requires more work than snoring.
I tilted my head toward her to find dark eyes fettered with those long lashes, sleepy and hungry at the same time. My thumbs delved into the fleshy mound under hers, the knots in her forearm, watching her body melt into mine with slow satisfaction.
“I have to feed Kolibri,” she murmured as I moved her shoulders, head rolling to the side.
“She’ll be fine. She can eat the stable hand. Probably already has.”
Maren laughed, but she tapped my working hands, lifting away. “It will only take me a few minutes.”
I stood up too. Wrapped an arm behind her waist and tilted her chin up, brushing my lips against hers. “Stay here. I’ll do it. Don’t fall asleep.”
She didn’t argue, and when I reached under her knees and lifted her up, she rooted around for a firm hold onto the collar of my shirt, pulling me in as I laid her over the bed.
My lips found hers again, sweet and warm, and she shivered when I tugged the sheaths of her dress aside and wrapped my hand across her stomach.
I loved the shape of her mouth, loved how it pushed and pulled against mine, soft but firm, plush and smooth and sharp.
I loved breathing her in, her scent rich and thick and warm like island sun.
It was spicy too, like the starflowers that bloomed in creeping vines under the shaded forest north of Laurier Palace.
I loved the hum of her voice, how it almost vibrated within me, stirred within my bones like embers in a fire.
My kisses roamed the corner of her jaw, sinking into her neck. She swallowed against me, turning her face to nip sharply over my wrist. I smiled into her skin before letting my teeth explore the curves and valleys of her throat.
Knuckles tapped against the door in a rapid-fire string of knocks. I’d hardly pulled away to tell whoever it was to fuck off when it opened, betraying us to a flurry of red-gold hair, long green skirts, and a pinched mouth.
“You should really lock this,” Diara said. “Imagine if I had waited only five minutes.” She turned to me, raising a strawberry brow. “Your brother wants you in the stable. He’s trying to feed Maren’s horse and is convinced she’s possessed.”
I leaned against an arm, Maren still tucked below me. “You’re the established horse-breeder, Verrata. Why don’t you help him?”
She waved her hand as if shooing me from a chair that was rightfully hers. “Because that would be less comical than watching him try.”
A heavy sigh left my chest as I pushed to my feet. “You’re not even watching him.”
Diara’s mouth curved. “Yes, but I know he’s down there struggling, which is equally amusing.”
Maren pressed her lips together, hushing a smile. I leaned in, planting a kiss to her temple. Make sure the sadist is gone before I get back.
You’ll be fine, Maren sent back. Just don’t look her in the eyes.
Your 900-pound minnow or Verrata?
She flashed me a dark warning with those onyx eyes, the corners of her mouth stamped tight. We’d been ushered to the guest wing, the bedrooms on either side of a long, bent corridor, and I was still snickering to myself as I closed the door.
Voices around the corner halted in mid-speech, as though a noise had interrupted, and they were now assessing the silence. Pressure in the air flowed from down the hall, like someone had just doused a fire, leaving clouds of smoke to creep and crawl across the floor.
“Don’t. Ask. Again,” Cebrinne’s voice said, low and threatening. Footsteps padded. A door closed. A bolt slid heavily into place.
Hinges of a second door squeaked slowly shut.
I rounded the corner quietly, heated tension still burning across the floor. But the only thing that moved was the flicker of the oil lamplight.