Chapter 46 Fire and Kisses
Fire and Kisses
The quiet does not last. The sound tears through the room without warning, high and relentless, and I wake with a ragged breath.
The girl is screaming, not fussing, not crying, but screaming with a force that feels too large for something so small, her entire body rigid with it, her face flushed, her mouth open as the sound pours out of her without pause.
"I have her," I manage, already reaching, pulling her closer and shifting her against me the way I had with the boy.
It does not work. The sound only rises.
I move to sit up and pain tears through me immediately, low and deep, pulling me back before I make it halfway, one hand pressing instinctively to my abdomen.
Colsar is already there.
"Give her to me."
"I have to—"
"You are losing color." His voice is tight, controlled but edged. "Give her to me."
Another wave moves through me and the room shifts at the edges and I do not argue.
I pass her over and he takes her carefully, though there is nothing easy about the way she thrashes in his arms, her small body stiff, her cries unrelenting.
He tries to settle her, adjusts his hold, walks with her, and there is an uncertainty in the way he moves that I have never seen from him before.
Nothing changes. She screams harder.
His jaw tightens. "Perhaps she does not like me."
Despite everything a breath of sound escapes me. "She is hungry."
The boy stirs then and begins to cry as well, not the same sound but insistent, as though answering her, protesting on her behalf.
We move at the same time, he passes her back and takes the boy, settling him against his chest with more ease now, one hand supporting his head, and I try again with her, adjusting her, guiding her.
"Come on," I murmur, my voice thinner than I want it to be.
She resists. Turns her head. Searches. Fails. The crying builds again, frustrated and angry, and Saurin moves beside us before I have to ask, already awake, already there, kneeling beside me with her hands gentle but certain as she adjusts the baby's position.
"Perhaps she cannot latch," she says, her voice low and even despite everything she has been through. "I will hold her head."
She supports the child, angling her with more precision than I can manage on my own.
We try again and the baby turns and finds and the pain hits immediately, sharp enough that a sound breaks from me before I can stop it.
My hand grips the bedding as the child latches hard and does not loosen.
I try to shift but she will not release. Then the crying stops completely.
Her body relaxes all at once.
I go still. Colsar does not move. Saurin looks between us.
"What?" she asks.
I look down at the child and then up at Colsar and the understanding comes before either of us speaks it.
"She is a feeder."
The words sit between us and Colsar studies her and then me.
"That explains it," he says quietly.
"Explains what?"
"Why you are not dead." He pauses. "The bite. You should not have survived it, not like that. Feeders are mostly immune. Their bodies do not take infection the same way." His eyes drop briefly to the child. "You were still carrying her when you were bitten. Her blood was moving through yours."
I understand before he finishes. "Protecting me."
"Yes."
I look down at her again, at the calm that replaced the screaming so completely, at this small person who did not know what she was doing and did it anyway.
"She saved me."
"She did," he says.
But even as the words fade something pulls again, my breath shortening, the room pulling slightly out of focus, and Colsar sees it immediately.
"Give her to me."
"I have to—"
"I am her father," he says. "My blood should work just as well."
I cannot argue. I nod, and we try to pull her away and she refuses immediately, her grip tightening, her small body rigid with protest, a sharp frustrated sound building in her throat.
Colsar goes still for a moment and then something in him changes, the air shifting around him, and his hand moves with a certainty that was not there before.
The hold breaks and she screams the moment she is free and he does not hesitate, biting into his wrist and bringing it to her before the sound can fully form.
She latches immediately. The screaming stops. Her body softens and a small pleased sound replaces everything that came before it.
I exhale slowly as my body eases. "I thought feeders did not need blood. That they only wanted it."
"When I was a boy," Colsar says, watching her, "Sevrin would sometimes refuse his meals entirely and would not stop until he was given blood instead. I think it gives them a kind of euphoria."
“So she is simply being spoiled,” I murmur. “Refusing my milk because she prefers blood.”
A quiet laugh leaves him. "Likely, yes."
I watch her, calm now, content in a way that feels almost unsettling in its completeness. "I wonder if your blood tastes like fire."
"I hope not," he says, though he sounds more amused than concerned. "But she seems to like it."
When he pulls his wrist away he wipes the blood gently from her mouth and she opens her eyes, bright and unhurried, and looks at him. Then she purses her lips, a small and entirely intentional motion.
He laughs softly. "Are you giving your father kisses, little one?"
"Fire and kisses," I murmur.
He looks down at her with something in his expression that he is not trying to contain. "Fiorakis," he says. "That is what we should name her."
The name feels right the moment it lands. "I like it."
"Fiorakis Floravar Rathmor." He presses a kiss to her cheek, soft and careful, and she responds with a sound low in her throat, satisfied. “We will call her Kiss, for short, since that is what she likes.”
Then our son stirs. His lips move, trying the same motion, and a quiet laugh escapes me before I can stop it.
"Oh no. You will not be outdone."
Colsar looks between them and I look at my son, really look at him, at the particular quality of his stillness, the way he simply waited while his sister made her demands known to the entire room, calm and certain in a way that feels less like patience and more like someone who has already decided he does not need to compete.
"There is something about you," I murmur. "You are calm. As though nothing could move you once you decide."
The name comes before I finish the thought.
"You will be Arakis." I look at him fully. "And we will call you Ari."
Colsar exhales slowly. "Arakis Floravar Rathmor."
The name holds in the room the same way the other one did, settling into the quiet alongside it, and Fiorakis makes a soft sound as though she approves, and the fire burns low in the corner, and outside whatever remains of the night holds still around us.
For the first time since any of this began, everything feels whole.