Chapter 26 Axel
Axel
I’m small.
I’m so very, very small.
This body is strange. Everything feels different. Everything looks different.
Including Liz.
Instead of being tiny, so tiny that I have to be careful not to crush her, she’s almost the same size as me.
When she stands up, her wings flaring behind her slightly, and she beckons me with a finger, “Come here. Now,” something inside of my strange body shivers.
My heart beats faster, and I experience a bizarre desire and also an unfamiliar fear of listening to her.
We’re bonded, and I know she would never hurt me, but she sounded almost predatory when she made the trilling sound after ordering me.
I liked it.
I liked it a lot.
I haven’t lamented the supposed loss of being able to shift into this human form, and when she’s spoken of it infrequently, I mostly discounted her words, but now I’m starting to understand how this shape might help our bond deepen.
“You want me to come onto the bed?” My spoken voice is strange—deeper and rougher than Liz’s.
Her eyes widen, and she blinks. “Oh.” She shakes her head. “I’m—you don’t even remember—it’s just.” Her entire face turns a bright red. “Never mind.” She plops back on the bed, her legs crossed, and her wings tucking up behind her.
“Are you alright?” I can’t help peering at her, from her level this time.
It’s nice.
“I’m fine,” she snaps, clearly irritable for no reason I can fathom.
“I’m in the form you wished for, am I not? Or do I look different than I did before?”
Again, her face flushes. “No, I mean, yes, you look exactly the same.” But she’s staring at her hands, and then she clenches her fists.
“She told me you couldn’t shift anymore after I chose to make the earth blessed stronger.
” When she looks up this time, her eyes are flashing. “Your mother—she’s just the worst.”
“I’ve never met her,” I say. “I’m. . .sorry?”
She stands up again, flouncing across the length of the bed, her wings fluffing out and then tucking again as she moves, balancing her easily. She’s gotten much better at using them. “Of course you’re not sorry. It’s between me and Freya.”
“I am—I’m confused,” I say.
She hops down so that she’s standing right in front of me.
“Your mother—it’s like she hit the pause button on us, but we didn’t have to pause.
I think she did it just to mess with me.
She should’ve told me flat out, but she let me flounder around.
” She shakes her head. “That was just. . .it was mean.” She jabs me in the chest, but she leaves her finger there, pressing against me.
Her eyes widen, her nostrils flare, and she inhales sharply.
“I forgot how beautiful your chest was.” She drags her finger down a little, still staring at it.
Beautiful. . .my what? I look down to where her finger’s still pressed against my front. “It’s beautiful?”
Again, with the reddening skin.
“I think your thermal regulation is off,” I say. “It is a warm day, so I’m not sure how much I can help, but—”
She whips her hand back, palm flat out, fingers splayed. Her eyes dart from the spot she was just jabbing back up to my face. “I’m sorry. It’s really strange, when you’ve been longing for something for a very long time, to suddenly have it, but also not to have it.”
“Longing?” I arch one eyebrow. “Define longing.” I’m smiling, now. I may not have any idea what she’s doing, but I find that I like all of it. “This situation’s unique, but I find it entirely pleasurable.”
Liz’s mouth dangles open.
I reach up with one small, human finger, and press underneath her chin until her mouth closes.
The feel of her chin, her human skin, under my finger—it’s nice.
I like it, too. “This is all very. . .interesting. I intend to spend a lot of time in this tiny shape, whenever no villains are threatening, of course.”
“No freaking way.” Coral’s standing in the open doorway, her eyes wider than Liz’s were. “No fair!” Her eyebrows shoot up her face, and she turns, pointing. “I want you to fix Hyperion.”
“He’s not an earth dragon, dummy.” Now Jade’s beside her. “But Gordon is, and Rufus too. Can you fix them for Sammy? He’s making me crazy, asking to play Candy Land and cards.”
Liz looks a little sick, like she wishes no one else knew. “I—” She shakes her head. “I’m not sure. It just happened.” She glares at the door, like she’s wishing it would spontaneously close on its own.
Usually she’s very pleased to see her sisters.
I’m not sure why she’s upset. I expected them to all celebrate together, or with me, perhaps, now that I’m size-appropriate for the leaping around and cheering.
I decide to show her that I’ve been paying attention to their human customs for excitement.
I leap up and down, wiggling my arms and then I yell. “It’s great news, though, right?”
Liz’s eyes widen further than I’ve ever seen and she takes two fumbling steps backward, stepping on the edge of her wing and falling. I reach and grab her hand, yanking her back upright, but I overestimate and pull a little too hard.
She tumbles forward, her hands both flattening against my chest.
My beautiful chest.
I can’t help smiling at her. “Was that authentic human excitement?”
“This is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen,” Jade whispers from the doorway. “We should have been recording it.”
“No kidding,” Coral says. “She’d do anything we asked just to keep anyone from ever seeing her like this. She’s like Bambi, in that scene when he can barely walk on the ice.”
They’re both laughing, clearly delighted, but Liz straightens, her eyes flashing. Faster than I could have imagined in this defective form, Liz dives for the bed, lunges for a pillow, and whips it at the door.
The girls disappear behind a barrage of fluffy pillows aimed at their heads.
“I think they’re gone,” I say.
“You wish.” She shakes her head and straightens. “Vultures. They’re like tiny, doe-eyed vultures.”
“I think they’re just happy,” I say. “As am I.”
She laughs then. “What on earth was that jumping in the air thing?” Her laughter’s beautiful. I may not understand why she thinks my perfectly flat, normal humanoid male chest is beautiful, but any fool could see that her face, suffused with joy as it is, is a thing of unparalleled loveliness.
I could stare at it all day.
“What?” She finally stops laughing and straightens. “What are you looking at?”
“You,” I say. “You look. . .different to me when I’m like this.” I look down at my hands and move them at the same time, wiggling them. “I—I understand more about why you lamented the loss of this shape.”
She stands up, stepping toward me. “Because when you’re like this, when you’re like me, we can connect in a way we can’t when you’re scaly.” She traces a finger down the side of my face and shakes her head. “You’re so heartbreakingly beautiful.” She’s leaking again.
“I hope this is one of the happy-crying times,” I say.
She nods. “It is.” Her finger reaches my chin, and then she takes her finger away.
I hate it, so I inhale, leaning forward a bit.
She presses her finger against my mouth, staring at my lips.
My heart speeds up again.
She steps closer, her mouth near mine. “What do you remember about this?” Her eyes dart up to mine. “Anything?”
I shake my head, but my hands move toward her, my fingers spreading out as they feel her body, tightening on her hips. “Nothing.”
“Would you be opposed to trying something that I really like doing with you?” She looks almost nervous when she looks up at me this time, her eyes. . .vulnerable. Like she’s exposing her throat.
It’s a heady feeling. “No. I’d like it.”
“This,” she whispers, her breath washing over my face, “is called a kiss.” Then she presses her mouth against mine.
My heart had already accelerated, but now it’s beating so fast I can almost hear it behind my ears. Probably another human design flaw, but I find that I like it, too. My hands tighten more on her body, and she makes a sound, a whimpering noise.
I pull back. “Did I hurt you? With these puny hands?”
She’s laughing now, but her face is still close enough that I can feel her laugh against me, her breath soft and warm. “Not at all, unless you call pulling away hurting me, and I think it almost qualifies.”
When I look down at her, my eyes drop lower to her mouth, and she breathes faster again, like a small creature, scared and ready to dart away, and I like it.
I like it, like it.
A lot.
I lower my head to hers again, but this time, I press my mouth against her cheek.
Then her jaw. Then the space between her lip and her nose, and then I finally press my mouth where I wanted to press it all along—against her lips.
The sensation of her mouth against mine is unique, and it’s different, and I fall into it, forgetting almost everything else as I taste her.
Mine.
The claim pulses through me, strengthening and deepening, and I almost pulse with a desire for more. I’m not sure what more I want, but I think Liz will know. I pull her closer, and I kiss her again, her tongue darting inside my mouth, and I groan.
When I do, her arms slide around my waist, her fingers splayed, and they pull me even closer, until our soft, human bodies are touching almost from my chest to her knees.
I tighten my hold on her hip, and she makes the same little sound, and now that I know it’s not from discomfort, it makes me even more excited.
Excited.
That’s the best word yet for how I feel.
Mine—she’s mine, and she’s beside me, and she likes it, too, this connection.
Being with Liz, touching her like this, I finally understand longing.
I hate having to do it, but I need to confirm something.
I pull back just enough to ask, “Not having this.” My voice sounds strange.
Deeper. Rougher. I clear my throat. “Not having your hands on me, your mouth against mine, that’s what you mean when you used the word longing. ” I inhale. “Yes?”
Her eyes look a little glazed at first, but then she nods. “Yes.” She smiles. “Yes, Axel, that’s longing.” And then she leaps on me, her legs wrapping around my waist. “And I’ve been longing for you to figure that out for a very long, very painful time.”
Well, I switch to this method of communication, because I don’t have to pull away from her again. You won’t have to long for me again any time soon. I don’t plan to move away.
Except, in that moment, when Liz looks ready to eat my face, something happens. Something horrible.
Portals make a very distinct sound.
Most blessed probably think they sound the same—mine, Hyperion’s, and my father’s. They probably can’t tell a difference, but I can. In fact, of the hundred or so creatures like me who are capable of making a portal, I can differentiate each one if I’m really paying attention.
But when I’m distracted?
There are maybe only three portalling sounds I’ll always recognize.
My father’s, which sounds like the screaming of a thousand dying blessed. My sister, Gersemi, because hers sounds like the ringing of bells.
And my brother, Thunar, because for most of my childhood, the sound of grinding and crashing at the same moment meant one thing: my life was in terrible danger.
Hyperion couldn’t help me, either, because Thunar could kill us both.
There isn’t another single blessed I would less like to see, and my father would have known that. His sending Thunar is a clear message: deliver results, or get dead.
Liz and I are out of time.
**I hope you enjoyed Embroiled. If you have time to leave me a review wherever you like to read, that would be AMAZING. Reviews help other readers to know that the book is great. The fourth book, Embattled, will be out summer 2025.