Chapter Twenty-Two #2
“Sorry, uh,” Neeve mutters, not taking her attention off him. “I’ll catch you both up in five, no make that ten minutes.”
Before I get the chance to tease her, she’s already moving. Ever since she told Darren she wasn’t entering Blood Moon, something between them has eased. Less fighting, and definitely a lot more sex.
I still hear her waking in the middle of the night, though; the dreams must be getting worse now that the ceremony is only six days away. She tries to hide it, but I know she’s suffering, I know she must be in pain.
Darren’s hands settle around her waist the second she reaches him, and he doesn’t waste a minute, turning and pulling her into the tent before letting the canvas flap fall shut behind them.
Jealousy rises hot and fast as I catch myself wishing it was Talen dragging me away instead and I bite down on my bottom lip as I think about his note from this morning, about his hands, those beautiful fucking hands, but the thought is cut short as beside me Ezzy lets out a long sigh.
“He looks so much like Rowan.” Her voice cracks around the name.
Taking her cold hand, I give it a small squeeze.
“I know.” I reply gently.
She squeezes back. “I miss him.”
“Me too.”
After another few breaths she lets go and we continue walking toward the Food Tent.
Moments later, a blur of brown shoots between us followed by a flash of green as Ahria darts after Nex, Darren’s dragon, both of them beelining for the tent only to slam to a stop in front of the canvas flap Magda and I tied shut last night.
The smug, satisfied feeling that flows over me lasts all of five seconds before Ahria opens her mouth and blasts the rope with fire.
It drops to the ground in a smoking heap and both dragons shove their way inside.
For fuck’s sake.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I turn back to Ezzy. Her sparkly hairpin catches the rising sun as she walks with her head down, nudging a small pebble along the ground with the toe of her boot.
Last night I gave her the letter Rowan wrote to me, so she could read it too, the one where he admitted he was a Loomreader, and I still can’t stop wondering if she already knew.
“Did you know?” I murmur cautiously. Over the last few days she’s been talking more and the last thing I want is for her to disappear back into herself again. “Did you know Rowan was a Loomreader?”
For a few more steps she continues knocking the stone, and I start to regret even opening my mouth, but then she lets the stone roll away and looks up.
“No.” She shakes her head slowly. “But looking back now, when I was younger and my magic was less stable, I think he used to test it on me sometimes. It’s hard to be a Loomreader without people noticing eventually.
Reading someone’s Threads like that...” She trails off for a second.
“It doesn’t only exhaust the Loomreader.
The person being read feels it too, especially if their magic is trained. You’d notice something.”
“Probably why I didn’t notice,” I snort. “He read my Threads when I first arrived at the Citadel, back when my magic was still completely feral.” Exhaling through my nose, my breath mists in the icy air. “Honestly, he probably saw my entire future and regretted touching me immediately. Poor guy.”
Beside me, Ezzy’s lip twitches. Not quite a smile, but close enough that despite the cold biting at my cheeks, warmth still spreads through my chest.
Every day it feels like she’s getting a little better, but this morning Finn’s duck was gone. I think she must have hidden it, tired of seeing it beside her bed all the time, tired of the reminder. I can’t blame her.
Stepping over the charred remains of the failed rope, I lift the canvas flap to the Food Tent and turn back to her. “We’ll find him... Finn. I promise.”
She nods once before slipping inside.
That night, when I finally get back to the tent, I grab the pencil and notebook and reply to Talen.
“It’s hard being away from you. I miss those hands. — L x”
After burning the note away, I sit there for a while longer, staring at the dim glow of the Letter-threader, half expecting another reply to come immediately, but nothing does. Makes sense; he’s probably already asleep.
The next morning I check before the birds have even woken but the fire doesn’t return anything.
The following day when I still haven't received a response, my thoughts start looping, wondering if he pushed himself too far, if Serrane’s keeping him too close to even risk writing back, or if his arm has gotten worse and he physically can’t.
Then finally, two days later, when I’m about to burst with restlessness, I open the Letter-threader after lunch and the flame flickers gold and a note slides free.
“You have no idea how hard it is to be apart from you. — T x”
Relief hits me so fast I laugh under my breath, already grabbing for my pencil to write back when another note slips out.
“So fucking hard.”
Heat rushes straight to my face, but I don't even try to cool it as I'm already scribbling. “Oh yeah...? Like how hard?”
The note crackles as it burns away and a needy ache starts to build between my legs as I wait but his reply doesn't take long.
“Like rock solid in my hand hard...”
Want coils through me, tightening with every word, and my fingers curl, digging into my thighs as my mind goes straight to the cage, his fire surrounding us, the solid length of him pressed against me.
The memory is so strong and it doesn't take much for the ache between my legs to sharpen into something molten and desperate.
I’m alone, Ahria took off after a rabbit outside, and the tension is unbearable, so I slide my hand higher and press against the now throbbing spot, rolling my hips into the pressure as I imagine the rough sound of his groan against my neck.
“Hey, you’re late!” Ezzy bursts into the tent and I jerk my hand back, slamming my elbow into the Letter-threader. “Magda’s been looking for you everywhere.”
“Shit,” I mutter, grabbing the contraption before it falls from the bed. I completely forgot I volunteered for the extra teaching session.
Exhaling hard, I force myself to focus on Ezzy, but she either doesn’t notice or is politely pretending she didn’t just walk in on me halfway to getting myself off thinking about Talen grinding against me.
She only shakes her head and heads back out, and after one heavy breath to steady myself, I hurry after her.
The next two days race by after that. I keep checking for more letters between teaching, between patrol shifts, between training with Ezzy and Neeve, anything, but nothing else comes through.
And now, with Blood Moon only a day away, the fragile calm that had been holding me together has started to unravel.
I haven’t been able to fly in weeks—I’ve tried to convince the other riders to take me, but apparently only JC is patient enough to tolerate my freak-outs—and I haven’t had a proper fire session with Dave either, and without the feeling of constantly being pushed, of moving forward, my thoughts have way too much room to spiral.
After I spoke to Ezzy, the guilt I'd been carrying may have lifted, but without it there's nothing left to block out all the grief, the all trauma, I'd buried beneath it.
“Distract me,” I write to Talen before heading off to bread baking. “Please. My mind keeps wandering to places I don’t want it to go, and I can’t afford to let Ahria see how much I’m still trying to hold myself together.
If she realises how broken I am underneath all of it, she’ll run a mile. She’ll never want to bond with me. — L x”
Sitting there alone, I wait, staring at the little flame until my eyes start to burn.
Ezzy and Neeve have already gone ahead to the Food Tent, Ahria too, she’s probably hoping to steal some of the wild boar someone killed yesterday.
Bouncing my leg up and down, the bed creaks beneath me and I’m finally about to give up and follow after them when the fire suddenly swells and a note floats out.
“I have no worries about Blood Moon, and neither should you. As soon as your Threads open up and Ahria sees you the way I see you, she’ll bond with you in a heartbeat. — T x
P.S. But would it help if I told you all the ways I've been dreaming about making you come when I see you next?”
Cold air catches in my throat.
Yeah, that’ll help.
Words run together in a total mess as I scribble my reply, but I don’t care. I finish, fold it, and lean over to feed it into the flame—
CRACK.
The canvas door bashes hard against its frame so suddenly that I jerk around, heart jumping into my throat, certain for one second one of the girls has returned.
But it’s only the wind.
Thank fuck.
Letting out a breath, I spin back—
Too quickly.
My arm catches the Letter-threader.
The contraption tips.
No, no, no—
Time slows as I hurl myself off the bed, every muscle bracing hard enough to hurt as my hand shoots out, reaching for the flash of gold as it tips toward the ground below—