Chapter 16
The word echoes in my ears with all the jarring solemnity of a gong, and I freeze at the sound of it.
Is he saying he loves me?
No, he can’t be. We’ve only known each other for a matter of days. He’s likely referring to some indeterminate future where we might fall in love.
A puff of breath—the product of a low, rumbling chuckle—feathers along my skin, shaking me from my stupor.
“Now I have frightened you,” Soren says.
“No, I…”
I’m what? Am I frightened? I fight desperately to parse out my feelings as he begins his gentle assault upon my other shoulder, his kisses driving my teeth into my lip. My hand in his hair tightens.
Desire. That’s what I feel, isn’t it? This lightheaded lack of reasoning that seems to thrum through every part of me?
“I…” I try again.
“You what, Princess?” he says, his breath warm and ghosting over my chilled skin like steam, muddling my mind.
Again, desire must be it, and that must be all. You cannot fall in love when you barely know one another.
Can you?
Yet I can’t deny the way my heart leaps when he says my name, or the way it burned with jealousy at the sight of Princess Rosa touching him.
Desire was unexpected enough. To bring love into the mix seems foolhardy when I’ve been taught that neither is meant to be mine.
“I don’t know,” I say in a tone of defeat. I don’t know what I feel.
Or maybe I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.
Soren draws back. Have I hurt him? The thought that I have brings immense pain, and I’m scrambling to find a way to correct this when his hand comes up to turn my face toward him.
“Then I will wait until you do,” he says.
His eyes hold me there, spellbound.
“Why?” I whisper.
Why wait for me when he can have any woman he wants? Why not be like the king my mother and sisters warned me of, the one who marries for advantage and gives his love to a mistress?
“Because,” this king says, hungry gaze falling to my mouth, “you’re mine.”
He brings my lips to his then, his wings winding around me, pulling me closer.
I don’t even think to resist; I don’t think at all.
One hand still in his hair, my other reaches out to brush the wing folded around me.
To my shock, it’s soft and silky as well-worn leather, and as my fingers trace the surface of it, Soren gasps against my mouth.
“I’m sorry,” I say, shrinking away. “I shouldn’t have—”
He grasps my hand and forces it back to his wing.
“Do it again.”
I comply, though with hesitation this time, not because I don’t want to touch him, but because there’s some strange thought that he’s only teasing me, that he’ll burst out laughing at my clumsy attempt to please him.
That fear is put to rest as his eyes fall shut and a deep, thrumming sound I need a moment to recognize rises from his chest.
He’s purring.
Soren cracks an eye open and catches me smiling. “What amuses you, Princess?”
“Only that I just realized why there are so many cats in Tirenth.”
The eye closes again. “Dragons and cats have always shared an affinity with one another.”
I watch his face soften further as my fingers roam along the raised ridge of his wing. “I am a bit relieved they don’t fly,” I say.
“As am I. Tirenth would know no peace.”
His lips return to my neck, making my hand stutter along his wing.
“Your concentration seems to be slipping,” he says, and though his voice is teasing this time, it isn’t unkind.
“You’re distracting me,” I murmur as his mouth grazes the lobe of my ear.
Why does such a simple thing feel so exquisite?
As close as we are, I suddenly wish to be closer, to face him, to kiss him myself. I ease myself up off the sand to twist around, and there, I pause.
Oh no. Not now.
“Are you all right?” Soren asks. I haven’t moved in several seconds.
Think, Serah. Think.
“Ah, yes,” I say, glancing down the side of the dune for some semblance of privacy. “Sorry. I just need to relieve myself.” Maybe I’m wrong.
Freezing air gusts over me as Soren eases his wings open. “Of course,” he says, but as I try to stand, he grabs my wrist.
“Princess?”
I can already feel myself blushing. “Yes?”
His nose lifts. His head tilts.
“I smell blood,” he says.
I barely withhold my groan. Suddenly, my unexpected crying bout makes complete sense. How I never see this coming, I don’t know.
The bane of womankind has struck, and of course, it’s at the most inconvenient time possible.
Well, Mother taught us never to be ashamed of our bodies, and though I may be skirting around some of her lessons, this is one I refuse to.
No matter how mortifying it may be.
Turning about to face him, I draw myself up and say, “I’m afraid my monthly curse has come. We should probably make our way back.”
Soren blinks at me. Then he does so again.
“Curses aren’t real, Serah.”
I’m tempted to tell him this one is. “I know,” I say instead. “Um, perhaps you know it as the menses?”
A blank look is my answer.
“The red flower?”
The red flower, he mouths as if trying to decipher some ancient language.
Oh, for stars’ sake. I don’t know any other euphemisms.
“Soren,” I say, “please pardon my bluntness. I’m bleeding, and I need to return to the tent now.”
I have never seen anyone—or anything, really—move so fast.
In the span of a breath, the fur is thrown over me, I’m in Soren’s arms, and his wings are snapping open.
“Wait, Soren, I didn’t mean—”
The wind snatches the words from my mouth as we shoot into the sky with all the speed of a rock fired from a slingshot. I gasp at the sudden cold, at the sensation of my stomach plummeting to my toes.
“Soren,” I pant, “stop. I’m fine! This is normal!”
“Bleeding is not normal!” he roars, clutching me to him, and I see to my great alarm that I’ve frightened him.
Oh dear.
I try once more, to no avail, and however long it took us to reach our secluded dune, we’re somehow back at The Pit within moments.
We drop from the sky like a meteorite, and I do scream this time as Soren hits the ground with enough force to crater the ground around him and send a tsunami of sand surging over the neighboring tents.
Without a pause, he charges into the tent ahead, throwing a wing over my head to shelter me from the sand still pouring over the entrance.
Still panting and now thoroughly disoriented, I squint against the blaze of lantern light within. My vision clears on an assortment of bottles and bandages, as well as a very alarmed-looking Tilly, and a rather eager-looking Princess Rosa.
Who just so happens to be in her undergarments.