Reshina
The air changed the moment Arthur walked into the library because he didn’t walk.
He eased. I looked up at the sound of the door opening as I finished my latest annotation.
We’d been sharing a mystery book, told from the point of view of the feline that had witnessed a murder.
Most of our annotations had been plays on words of the feline nature and I was just finishing up my note about how at six-hundred pages, I thought this could be a shorter tail, when I looked up to see the tight lines of his face.
I rose from my chair immediately. “What is it?”
His lips parted to speak, yet nothing came.
I rushed to him, my skirts of a dark emerald trailing behind me. I touched his cheek, brushing my thumb across the fine growth of hairs he hadn’t bothered to shave this morning due to keeping him between my legs. “You’re frightening me,” I rasped in a half laugh. “Tell me what is wrong.”
Taking my hands into his, he closed his eyes, squeezing them shut as he kissed over my knuckles and my ring. “Someone is here.”
“What do you mean here?”
“I mean just outside this door. She has come a long way to find you.”
Morella, I thought, my heart jumping through my chest. My daughter has come to find me.
I didn’t understand his hesitancy and tenderness in that moment, but I didn’t take the time to try either. I left his side, rushing to the doors and opening them wide. There, in the long corridor we’d recently redecorated in shades of dark crimson, was Seraphine DuPont.
She was pacing outside of the door, half drenched in mud, her long golden hair braided down her back, falling out in pieces that draped around her face. Those bright violet eyes darted to me, and she stilled as if stunned.
My pulse raced as I swallowed my biggest fears. “Korven?” I whispered, thinking she’d come to tell me some horrible truth about my son.
She stood straight before me, lifting her trembling chin and giving me a short shake of her head. “It’s Morella,” she trembled. “Your daughter’s life is in danger. You must come and save her.”