Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter 26
H e had to be alive.
After all they had been through, Valor was not going to let it come down to Kelyn dying after he’d finally gotten back the one thing that meant more to him than even her.
Palms pressed to his chest, she couldn’t feel it rise and fall. He lay sprawled across the loamy forest floor. Tree roots cradled him on either side. Matilda circled above. Valor sensed the bird’s nervous energy. Matilda knew something was wrong with her friend. Or was she still Kelyn’s friend? The things Malrick had said about the bird no longer trusting Kelyn were horrible. A simple talisman had bonded the two of them?
Since walking into Faery, Kelyn had betrayed both of their trusts.
Glancing at the wings spread across the ground, Valor couldn’t find excitement for the fact that the darkness had left them. Now violet and silver, they’d returned to their original condition and were no longer tattered. Malrick had done that for Kelyn. The Unseelie king had also been responsible for forcing Kelyn back into this realm.
But to his detriment?
“You are not dead,” she stated as a confirmation to the universe. “I will not allow it! You survived nearly drowning. You can survive this! Come back to me, Kelyn.”
She laid her ear on his chest and listened and...she heard a heartbeat. Faint and slow, yet it seemed to increase by the second. Spreading her fingers over his bare chest, she closed her eyes and focused her vita toward him. Her palms heated over the violet sigils that tickled at her touch and then they grabbed her and held her there as if by force.
It didn’t frighten her. In fact, Valor felt as though Kelyn were drawing on her energy through his sigils. If he could heal himself through her, then more power to him.
Matilda cawed and swooped low, brushing Valor’s hair with a wing tip. It hadn’t been a warning, but rather a touch of reassurance, so she persisted. Kelyn drew from her in increasing intensity. Her vita flowed out in vibrant violet energy gleaming with iridescent sparkles, and it flowed in through Kelyn’s pores, brightening his skin and causing his sigils to glow.
Fingers growing stiff above her lover’s chest, Valor’s breaths segued to gasps. A moan preceded her dropping beside him onto the forest floor.
* * *
Eyes closed, Kelyn came to, knowing that, once again, Valor had brought him back to life. Perhaps this time he wouldn’t have died. He’d been knocked unconscious by the shove through the portal and landing on some particularly hard tree roots.
He’d been shoved. Back to a realm...that he could no longer deny was his home.
He’d acted terribly toward Valor in Faery! Tricking her into running off without him. Sacrificing his bond to Matilda. But it had been the wings. They’d been tainted by the demon’s blood. A Wicked One. And the seductress. She had been another Wicked One according to Malrick.
He’d had the audacity to defy the Unseelie king. And now he felt regret for all of it. He had been out of his mind, acting like someone else. So he’d deserved that shove. And he was thankful for it now.
But could Valor forgive him? And Matilda? Where was the kestrel? And the witch? He’d drawn on Valor’s vita, the rich, warm energy of her being, to surface to consciousness.
Kelyn pushed himself up and away from the tree root. Looking to the side, he found Valor collapsed next to him. He carefully tugged the hair away from her face and bent to press his mouth to her forehead. She was warm and he felt her pulse at her temple. Alive, but weakened by him?
He gently shook her shoulder. “Valor!”
“Huh?”
“Blessed Herne.” He bowed his forehead to hers. “I think I took too much from you. I’m sorry.”
“No problem.” She shook her head, weak, but alive. “You can always take what you need from me. Whew! That did take a lot out of me, though. Might need to sit here a bit and catch my breath.” She looked him over, from his face to his chest to his wrists.
All his sigils glowed brightly, at his chest and about his wrists. His wings even sparkled, and he pulled one forward to stroke it and see that the ichor flowed through his veins circulating through the shimmery fabric.
“They’re good as new,” he offered. “The Unseelie king did this for me. And that would have never happened without you.”
She smiled up at him. “You mean so much to me. I know you wanted to stay in Faery, but so many people need you here in this realm.”
Kelyn nodded and whispered, “I know that, lover.”
“But you were forced back here. You’re not here because you want to be.”
“I’m going to be okay,” he said, hugging her as tightly as she hugged him. “That was the tainted wings talking when we were in Faery. I promise that I want to be here. With you. No one else but you.” He tilted down his head to kiss her forehead. “I’m sorry for how I treated you in Faery, Valor. It was...”
“The wings. They were blackened with evil magic. We both know that. But, uh, what’s up with kissing some Wicked chick?”
“I chanced across her in the Wilds. I didn’t kiss her. I mean, I wanted to. I think she was working some kind of enchantment on me.”
Valor shrugged. “It’s cool.”
“No, it’s not. And I didn’t kiss her. In fact, she tried to rip out my tongue.”
“Probably what I would have done if you had kissed her,” she offered nonchalantly.
“I’ll never kiss another.”
“Really?”
He knelt before her and kissed her, there beneath a beam of perfect moonlight that highlighted them upon the stage of lush moss and loam. Curling his fingers into her hair, Kelyn pulled her closer, wanting to never lose grasp of her again. Or to even think he could survive in a world where she did not exist.
Not only had she helped restore his wings, she had given him back that wild crush for the woman who had fascinated from afar. And now he had her. No woman had ever felt so right in his arms. Or at his mouth. Her soft, lush lips were meant for his. Her breaths bled life into him, and her heartbeat kept his racing.
“Mmm...” She broke the kiss, bowing her forehead to his. “I’d love to continue this, maybe even have sex with you. Right here. Right now.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” he said. “We did have plans, if you remember.”
“I do. But besides feeling like I’ve run a marathon, there’s the thing about me—a witch—being in this forest.”
“Forgot about that.”
“I will never forget.” She glanced aside to the massive tree trunk, which appeared firmly rooted into the ground, but one never knew. “I think I should skedaddle while the skedaddling is good. But where’s Matilda?”
“I...I don’t know. I think I’ve lost her.” Kelyn pressed a hand over his chest where it ached to even consider the friendship he had so callously handed over in a greedy grab for his wings.
“You didn’t know the cipher connected the two of you like that. Did you?”
“I knew it was a bond between us. It was the first thing she ever brought me from Faery. I shouldn’t have been so stupid.”
“You would never have gotten back your wings.”
He bowed his head.
“You’ll have to earn back her trust. Give it time. You are a kind man, Kelyn. Matilda knows that. And I have to believe you had no other choice to get back your wings.”
“Maybe,” he whispered.
He felt Valor shiver mightily and remembered her urgent need to get out of the Darkwood.
“Right. Matilda, I honor you!” he called out. “And I will do everything in my power to win back your trust. Good friend, I thank you for your guidance into Faery. Please feel my love!”
Somewhere, high above, Matilda cawed. And Kelyn smiled. She wasn’t swooping down for a greeting, but she had replied. It was a start.
“We’d better leave,” he said.
“Sure. But you might have to help me walk out of here.”
“Say no more.” Kelyn stood and, still holding her about the waist, flapped his wings. “You ready for this?”
She laughed and hugged him. “Oh, yeah!”
* * *
They soared through the forest and up through a clearing in the leafy canopy. Clutched against Kelyn’s body, Valor couldn’t be afraid of this flight. Instead, she spread out her arms and laughed with joy as they crested the treetops and took to the open air. His wings carried them swiftly through the sky. She’d never once considered flight in anything other than a dreadful airplane.
Why had she waited so long?
“This. Is. Awesome!” she yelled.
Kelyn joined in her joyous laughter and swooped low over the treetops so she could touch the leaves as they passed over. The air brushed her skin and left behind a wondrous shiver, and she left all her worries behind in the Darkwood below.
“Can we do this more often?” she asked as her lover veered toward the big barn in the distance.
“As often as you like. You’re the first woman I’ve ever taken on a flight. You’re the only one I’ve trusted. I love you, Valor.”
“I love you!” she shouted.
Clasping her firmly, he rolled them so Valor felt the leaves brush her hips and shoulders, and then they spun upright again, taking the air like birds. Or faeries.
Matilda whisked by them, teasing with a caw that she was faster, and Kelyn laughed and shouted thanks to his friend.
“I’m going to have to start incorporating flight into my air magic,” Valor said. “This is amazing!”
“Hold on! We’re heading in for a landing.”
Banking to the left, Kelyn descended lower and swept down toward the gravel drive. They landed before Blade’s barn. The brothers, in their human forms, stood waiting to greet them. They were thrilled to see Kelyn had gotten his wings back.
“That didn’t take long at all,” Blade commented as Kelyn tucked down his wings. “Less than an hour.”
“Less than an hour?” Valor shook her head. “It was more like half a day.”
“Faery time,” Kelyn said. “You gotta love it. Hey, do either of you guys know anything about Mom and the Unseelie king?”
Stryke whistled and searched the ground as if something near his boots suddenly fascinated him. Blade crossed his arms high over his chest and shrugged.
“You both know something. That’s crazy.” Kelyn shook his head. “I met him. If he and Mom had a thing...” He didn’t want to think about it now. And besides, that had been before their dad met Rissa. He hoped.
Valor yawned and Kelyn got the hint. Much as he’d love to tell his brothers about the short but wondrous time he’d had in Faery, he could save it for another day.
“We should go,” he said, putting an arm around Valor’s shoulders. “We have things to, uh...”
“No explanation necessary,” Blade said quickly.
“Yep.” Stryke kicked at the stones on the gravel drive. “See you two another day.”
Furling his wings back and tucking them away, Kelyn grabbed Valor’s hand and they strode to the car.