Chapter 12
L ily woke wrapped in warm arms and feathers a touch too sharp. Plastered against Boreas’s chest, she raised her cheek slowly, hesitant from sleep and not wanting to wake the god in bed with her. She knew she failed when the softest of breezes ruffled her hair and she heard "My flower," whispered from above her head.
Giving up the ghost, she planted her hands in his chest to push herself up and stare down into his impossibly gorgeous face. "Hey," she said, soft and slightly shy. Why she'd be shy now, after what they'd done before, she couldn't quite say, except this somehow felt more intimate.
One wing curled up and scraped against her face. It wasn't an unpleasant sensation, but strange to see a feather and feel the unusual edge of it. The question popped from her mouth before she could swallow it. "Why are your feathers so different?"
He withdrew his wing quickly, pulling into himself, and she halted him, laying a hand on the underside of his wingspan. He practically purred at her touch, and the tension in his body after her question eased a touch. "I'm not saying I don't like it, Boreas. I'm just wondering."
His ice blue eyes roved over her face before he answered. "There is no real reason I can explain, except to say they are as I am."
Lily nodded her head, lost in the thought of gods, and stuffed down the questions she had about godly evolutionary biology. Easy to shrug it off with a whispered "magic." For now.
He chuckled and spun them in the sheets, a soft, warm breeze floating around them. Cocooning them. One claw traced the curve of her cheek, stopping at the dimple at the side of her mouth. "Magic," he repeated, and a soft blow hit her gut, knocking the wind from her.
Because she was who she was, she shook it off and laughed. "Well, this magician needs some water."
Boreas jumped out of the bed in a flash she couldn't track, rustling around in an old-school metal kitchen cabinet beside the fireplace, gloriously naked. He muttered something she didn't get, so she rose from the bed as she wrapped the sheet around her like her own toga and asked "huh?" His head popped up out of the cabinet and he gripped a plastic bottle of water when he asked, "Do you mind room temperature?"
Rubbing her hands up and down her arms, she chuckled. "Room temp ain't all that high right now, so sure."
The god's face fell and he moved, taking only a handful of steps to reach her. He scooped her up, his favorite way to move her about apparently. She snuggled close and spoke into his chest. "It's fine, Boreas." He gave a deep huff in reply before he adjusted her in his leather reading chair and went to the fireplace. In moments, it roared to life. The flaming heat hit her face, warming her. Not as warming as the god's broad chest, but still nice.
She snuggled into the chair, taking the time to look around his little reading area. "Not big on TV?"
"Television is acceptable, even entertaining at times," he said, placing the water bottle he dug up for her on the small table beside the chair. "The cave does not have great reception."
"Ah.” Reaching for the water, her hand halted at what she saw next to it. There, right by an old leather book, sat one of her candles. This year's Christmas candle to be exact. Instead of lifting the water to her mouth, she hefted the candle in the air and waved it at Boreas with a wide grin. "When'd you get this?"
Something like a blush crept over the god's bronze face, but he tamped it down so quick she wasn't sure she saw it. "I ordered it as soon as you put it online."
"I thought there wasn't much service here?" She teased.
He crossed his arms over his chest and with a grumble said, "I have a smartphone, Lily, and I do know how to use it."
Her face closed down at his quip. "Do you now?"
He leaned in front of her in a blink, placing the candle back on the table as he knelt. "Yes, Lily. However, there are reasons I never used it with you directly."
"Oh, really?" She meant to be blasé but a hint of hurt lingered in her tone.
Without looking, he snapped up the leather book at their side and waved it between them. Only then did she notice it was Book of Desires . "When'd you get this from the shop?"
"I didn't. It lay here, by my chair, when I awoke this morning."
"Magic," she said once again.
"Yes, Lily. Yes." He sighed, deep and long, before sitting back on his heels to look her full in the face. "I told you only bits and pieces of the legend of this book. Nothing specific. Nothing of what I did with it.
"Years ago, before I came to this forest, I wandered for centuries, until I found this in an old, crowded bookshop in Istanbul." He rubbed his forehead as if the memory pained him. "I'd wandered a long time, Lily. I grew tired and lonely. Knowing what I found, I did the unthinkable. I used it."
"Why is that unthinkable? Ain't it supposed to be used? It's a spell book after all. Spells are meant to be cast."
"Yes, but magic can be tricky. Spell magic even more so, which is why there are few true witches in the world. The one who made this was trained by Hecate herself, in the English wilderness, long after the fall of the gods. She connected it to godhood specifically. Hecate claimed it was to help with our loneliness, help us find what we needed after our loss of rule, but many feared what it might do, just as they feared what humans might do if they remembered gods walked among them. The vampires, the werewolves, the witches, they stayed apart from but a part of the human world after their bloody fight to be recognized and known. We gods chose to disappear, retreat, fade from memory, after the violence and bloodshed that ensued when humans discovered we were vulnerable in certain regards. We, as a group, thought to stay hidden, rather than bring more violence down on our heads. Because humans are so very good at violence when they are faced with the previously unknown."
Lily thought about werewolves and vampires and the mysteries people believed every day, but she didn't say anything. He had a healthy dose of fear for a very real and very harsh, reason, and she wouldn't push him on it. Instead, she silently encouraged him to continue his story.
He flung open the book and it flipped as if by itself, turning quickly from page to page until it landed on a certain spell. "Here, Lily. This is what I called forth."
Lily leaned closer to read the page but she still couldn't read Latin. She knew some conversational Spanish, a smattering of French, but Latin had never seemed useful for someone not looking to be a doctor or lawyer. More fool her, she supposed.
"I can't read this," she said, leaning back.
"It's a spell to find purpose, Lily. That's what I asked the book for. Not wealth or prosperity or love. Above all else, I wanted a reason to keep on living." The last bit, the important bit, came out in a harsh whisper and smashed Lily right in the face. Tears welled in her eyes.
"I performed the spell, as instructed, and found myself here, in this forest, seven years ago. I wasn't looking for love, but when I met you, I knew who you were. What you were. I knew my purpose. To protect you. Even from myself."
"I don't need protection," she pushed and he held his hands up in surrender.
"I know. I know, Lily. I simply thought..."
"Thought what?"
"You'd be better off if I stayed in the shadows, helped from a distance. It would be enough for me, to watch over you and give you what you needed, when you needed."
"Once we met, what I needed most was you ," Lily said. Maybe a touch too harshly.
He hung his head and clasped her hand. "Please, forgive me, Lily. I thought I knew best. Instead of talking with you, learning from you yourself, I kept us apart, when what we are makes that impossible."
"What are we?"
He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. "Mates," he answered on her skin, his breath a chilly wind causing goosebumps to raise all over her body.
Lily started at the word. She knew it, of course. Little common knowledge about werewolves and vampires existed outside a few hard facts. One of those facts: the lucky ones had fated mates, which were the most precious thing anyone in their culture could find.
"What does it mean for us?"
Boreas pulled back once again, looked down between them, and stretched out a clawed finger to trace something there. Lily felt it in her gut, where the connection tugged at her. Her eyes flared. He could feel it too, somehow touch it.
"It means I am yours, forever. As you are mine. Especially now we have joined our flesh. We are fated to be together in this world, by whatever makes such things happen. Perfectly compatible."
"But you’re so frustrating!" She slapped her hadn't over her mouth in embarrassment, but that didn't mean her statement wasn't true.
Boreas laughed, loud as a crack of lightning in a winter storm. "I am certain I am, my flower." He scooped her up yet again and rearranged them so she sat on his lap in the chair. He turned her so she could look up into his face as he pushed a stray strand of brown hair behind her ear. "I assure you, I will continue to be, on occasion. However, a little back and forth makes for interesting times…." He trailed off, looking back at the bed, and Lily remembered what they felt like together. Explosive. Undeniable. Life-changing.
She harrumphed, as if she'd made some valid point, when she'd not said a word, then smiled his way. "You learned your lesson, then? No more fighting this mate business?"
He countered with his own question. "You do not mind this revelation... amongst so many revelations?"
She took the time to think on his question. A lot of new things had tumbled into her life in a short span of time: gods, magic, mates. However, she didn't mind at all. Maybe because she apparently came made for this, for him. She'd sensed a binding to him since meeting the god and had never questioned it. Lily figured she shouldn't start doing so, once he'd explained it all. "I guess we both are as we are made: to be with one another. So, no, I don't mind. Got it? No more hesitating or badgering me about it, alright?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Huh. Ma'am. Don't know if I like that."
Boreas nuzzled into her neck, causing her breath to catch. "Do you like 'flower'?"
She nodded because she couldn’t speak with the god licking and nipping her neck.
"Good girl," he growled in her ear.
"I like that, too," she managed to choke out.
He grabbed her chin and gave her a long, hard kiss before he ripped his face away, forcing himself to stop. "Water," he said. He'd care for her even at his own expense. As was his purpose.
Lily fake pouted, but she was pretty dang thirsty, so she took the bottle when he handed it to her. He sat there holding her tight until she drank the whole thing down. Lily didn't complain, though. Not when his heat and care wrapped around her like tinsel on a Christmas tree.