83. Overruled
overruled
—ASHáN & SAGE
It starts as an itch, low, between my shoulder blades, in the ruined scar tissue where Runak sealed my skin closed. It deepens into pressure and heat.
“Ash?” Eden’s hands tighten around our waist. “Sage? What’s wrong?”
“Move back,” Sage says. The pressure continues building under our scar.
“Down,” Therael shouts. “Everyone back!”
Something enormous twists beneath my skin. Two shapes, shifting over one another like creatures fighting over the same narrow shell.
A wet crack snaps through the clearing as the scar splits.
I have felt pain in this life. I had these wings sawed from my back twelve times in a single night. I would do it again. I would do it a hundred more times… before I would choose this.
They tear out of the sealed flesh between my shoulders, splitting the skin that he fused shut, forcing through muscle that had already made its peace with being empty.
A groan forces its way from my mouth and my knees hit the snow.
Eden’s hands roam over my skull, but I can’t hear what she’s saying over the roar of my own body coming apart.
They erupt from my back in a spray of black ichor and green sap.
For one horrible second the agony whites out the entire world—and then it’s over. And we can breathe again.
I drag air into lungs that suddenly have room and I lift my head as they settle behind me.
The weight of them pulls at muscles that remember exactly how to hold them.
One translucent green wing unfurls, a black-and-white skeletal wing on the other side.
One of each. No matter whose form we wear.
The seam of us visible and permanent, spread wide across the clearing behind me.
The silence of the clearing is heavy, broken only by the hiss of steam rising where the black ichor and green sap meet the snow. Therael is frozen, his eyes wide.
I try to hold still as Eden reaches up, her palm incredibly warm where it makes contact. She presses her hand flat against the center of our back, right where my wing becomes his.
A low growl vibrates through my chest. Her fingers slide outward, brushing the delicate membranes. On the other side, her fingertips trace the harsh curve of my bone.
“They’re beautiful,” she whispers. “You’re finally whole.”
Our wings flare in response to her words. If I thought they were sensitive before—this is a brand-new kind of torment. Every single nerve ending is raw, newly born, and when Eden’s fingertips trace the veins of it, the sensation is devastating.
Another growl escapes us.
“Eden,” we murmur. “You need to stop. If you keep—”
“Keep what?” she breathes.
The little menace. She knows. She drags a fingertip down the length of our shadow-wing, and my whole spine bows.
“That,” Sage grits through our teeth. “Keep doing that.”
She does it again.
I turn on her and catch her face in both hands.
I take her mouth like I’m starving for it.
I have spent this entire curse being emptied of one memory at a time, and now she is here, she is ním, and she is stroking her hands up the raw nerves of my wings like she wants to graft herself directly into our split seams. She gasps against my lips.
Her fingers fist in my wing and we both groan into her mouth.
“Okay,” someone says distantly.
I don’t stop. I can’t. Eden’s flush against me, one hand knotted in a wing and the other sliding down the front of my chest. I’ve got a fistful of copper hair, the other hand splayed wide over the swell of our daughter.
The kiss has gone frantic and filthy, and I am dimly aware that we are not alone, but I cannot find the inclination to care.
“Yeah,” Damien clears his throat. “We’re—everybody up. Field trip.”
“Babies!” Lumi snickers.
“Walking,” Andrik announces. “We are walking now.”
A blanket sails into my peripheral vision and lands in the snow a few feet away, thrown by someone who clearly thought better of getting closer.
“Poppy sent danishes,” Damon murmurs. “I’ll leave them on the—yes. Somewhere they won’t be… rolled upon. Come along, small king.”
“Told you he would pull through,” Kaeran says. “One part of him specifically… did you see the size of his—”
“Enough,” Caluxe says.
“... You saw it too.” Kaeran chuckles. “There is no way anyone missed it.”
“We saw nothing,” Rasen yells from beyond the treeline.
Therael lingers a moment longer than the rest. “Both of you. Finally.”
The crunch of boots fades one by one, until the world goes quiet around us and there is nothing left in it but her breathing mixed with mine.
Eden pulls back a breath, her lips swollen, copper hair damp from the flurries. Her pupils are blown wide. “Take me up,” she breathes.
Both of us freeze.
“... Up?” Sage manages.
She glances past my shoulder, a wicked smile curling her lips. “You heard me. Take me up, rahnové.”
My hands lock around her hips, lifting her effortlessly. She gasps as her boots leave the snow, her legs wrapping around my waist.
“Hold on, luváel,” Sage murmurs against her hair.
We drive our wings down. The power of the first stroke nearly tears us free of the earth. Snow explodes outward beneath us in a white halo. We burst into the sky, the treetops blurring into a dark smudge of green and white as we break through the canopy.
Eden’s arms cinch tight around my neck, her whole body going taut as the clearing falls away.
“We’ve got you,” we tell her. “We will always have you.”
The moon is so luminous it catches the translucent emerald of our left wing and casts a verdant glow over her face.
I take us up through the last of the falling snow, through the thin ribbons of cloud, until the forest is nothing but a memory.
This exact span of green and shadow was meant to be the last thing she ever saw.
Instead… they’re holding her against my chest. The weapon became the assurance.
“You’re crying.” Eden smiles, catching a blue tear on her thumb.
“I know.”
“Good tears?”
I press my mouth to her frozen fingers. “The best I’ve ever had.”
“I missed you.” She kisses the corner of my mouth. “Two days is entirely too long.”
“Two days,” I echo against her temple. Two mornings she woke without us, two nights she slept with our daughter, an empty space where we should have been.
“Never again,” Sage says.
“Never,” I agree.
Her fingers slide into my hair, legs tightening around my waist. “I was very lonely.”
A low rumble starts deep in our chest.
“Did you hear that, Sage?” I murmur. “Our poor ash’kaela was lonely.”
Her legs squeeze tighter, hips pressing flush against us.
“Terribly lonely,” Sage agrees.
My skelva trace the curve of her thigh.
“Neglected—left all alone with no one to tend to her,” Sage says.
Eden lets out a small, shaky breath, the teasing draining right out of her.
“Well, don’t tell me you’re done with your little games already, Saevúra,” I rasp. “I thought you were lonely?”
Her chin lifts. “Maybe I found other ways to entertain myself.”
“Oh.” Sage tightens my skelva around the small of her back. “Did you hear that, Ashán?”
“I did.” I let our wings carry us into a slow, lazy arc. “She entertained herself.”
“Without us.”
“Terribly rude.”
“After we regrew our wings for you.” Sage clicks our tongue disapprovingly, fangs grazing the shell of her ear. “Perhaps we should simply take her home, then. Since she’s taken care of everything on her own.”
Our wings tilt, angling into a descent we have no intention of finishing.
Her fist knots in our wing, and it takes everything in both of us not to shudder.
“Don’t you dare,” she warns.
“Give us one reason, mí’aevúna.”
Her hands slide from our wings, up the column of our throat, and rest on both sides of my skull.
Is she playing us? Sage rasps inside our head.
Oh, absolutely, I shoot back.
Her thumbs stroke the edge of my jaw, her warmth bleeding into my bone.
“Because,” she whispers. “If you take me down now, you’ll have to share me with the others. And I know how much you hate to share.”
Our wings stutter for a fraction of a second.
Damn it, Sage rumbles.
It’s okay. Watch this.
“You have a point, my little relic.” Our hands slide down, cupping beneath her thighs. “I’ll make you a deal.”
She blinks slowly up at me.
“Show us.”
“What?”
“You heard me, little mortal.” I nip at her earlobe. “Show us how you kept yourself entertained.”
Eden freezes against us, her breath hitching hard against our collarbone.
“I—” She swallows, her fingers tightening in the shadow-hair at the back of our neck. “We are a mile in the air.”
“Ohh, we are much higher than a mile, angel.”
Sage lifts her higher. “Are you getting cold feet, Saevúra?”
“I don’t have cold feet,” she says, glancing down, past my shoulder, at the dizzying expanse of white peaks and dark forest stretching beneath her dangling boots.
“Then show us,” I whisper. My lips drag along the column of her neck. “Or did you lie to us? Were you simply sitting in Andrik’s cabin, weeping for your mates?”
“Did you miss me?” she asks, pressing a kiss to my neck.
What is she doing? Sage asks.
Deflecting, I tell him.
“Did we miss you?” I murmur. “We tore our own flesh apart to get back to you, Saevúra. We rebuilt ourselves from sap and bone just so we could hold you like this.”
“We did not miss you,” Sage rasps. “We starved.”
Eden’s eyes widen, glittering under the moon.
“So,” I whisper, our lips brushing hers. “Are you going to answer the question, or do we have to find a very quiet, very isolated peak to squeeze the truth out of you?”
“W-well,” she stutters. “If you missed me… then how about you show me first?”
“But we’re a mile in the air,” Sage mocks.
“Ohh, we are much higher than a mile, angel,” she mocks back.
Do we tell her? Sage asks.
Absolutely not, I chuckle.
“We are feeling generous tonight,” I murmur.
Our lips seal over hers, and she melts into us with a triumphant little hum. She shifts against us, settling deeper into our hold, hips rolling. Her hum dies mid-note. We keep kissing her, neither of us acknowledges a single thing. Our wings beat slowly.
She pulls back an inch and we chase her mouth.
She plants a hand on our chest. “Wait.”
“Hm?” I blink at her.
Her brow furrows, gaze dropping between us, though she can’t see past her belly.
Here it comes, Sage murmurs.
We watch confusion spread across her face.
“... Ash.”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“When you said—” She pauses. “When you said the things came back one of each—”
“Mm.”
“Was that—” Her fingers curl around one of my ribs. “A recurring theme?”
Sage leans into her ear. “Everything came in pairs, ílyara.”
“As in… both of you?” she squeaks.
Look at her cute little face, Sage chuckles.
“I dared you to show me first! I quoted you!” she shrieks.
“You did.” I catch her chin, tilting her flushed face to ours. “It was adorable.”
“Such a brave girl,” Sage murmurs.
“And now—” I lower my mouth to hers, wings folding us into a slow, weightless drift, “we believe you owe us a demonstration. Unless…” My thumb drags across her bottom lip. “... you’d like to revise your terms.”
“But how?”
“We share one body, Eden,” I whisper, my other hand tilting her hips just enough to emphasize the reality of what she’s resting against. “It would hardly be fair if only one of us got to celebrate our return.”
“I wept,” she blurts out. “You know I was just joking before.”
A roar of laughter escapes us. “Too late, Saevúra.”
She buries her face into my neck. “I paced too. I barely ate. It was terrible.”
“Barely ate?” Sage tuts. “We’ve talked about this.”
“Yes, we have. I think her punishment should last even… longer, now.”
Eden’s head snaps up. “Punishment? We never said anything about punishment?”
“Count one,” Sage begins. “Entertaining herself.”
“Egregious,” I agree solemnly.
“Count two: lying about it.”
“Shameful.”
“You can’t just—”
“Overruled.”
Eden’s mouth drops open. “You’re not even a—”
“Count three.” Sage drags my skelva over the swell of her belly. “Skipping meals and starving our poor little nestling.”
A tiny heel thumps against my palm, right on cue.
“The victim has spoken,” I say gravely.
“She did not—” Eden’s voice cracks. “This is a stretch, and you know it.”
We squint at her, and her shoulders sag.
“Fine,” she sighs. “That one’s fair.”
She pled guilty, Sage marvels.
She always folds on the baby, I muse. Noted for future trials.
“And sentencing?” Sage asks.
Eden’s heartbeat races against our chest.
I lower my mouth to her ear. “For crimes against her mates,” I murmur, “and one very hungry vúsha… the accused is sentenced to a full night of our undivided attention.”
Her breath hitches, and our wings snap tight behind us.
“And if you behave,” Sage murmurs, “which we believe you will, since you’re a very good girl.”
“We may even let you finish your sentence early,” I say.
“That’s not how any of this works. You can’t just—”
“Overruled,” we say together.
Her fists curl into our wings, and even now, cornered, the little menace grips the membrane just hard enough to make our spine shiver.
She’s going to fight us the entire time, Sage says, his voice thick with delight.
Gods, I hope so.