Chapter 35
Larkspur
“He’s awake!”
Dritan’s rumpled tunic and mussed hair greeted me at the door of his flat in Helos. I rarely came here, too fearful of being recognized.
His eyes widened, and his mouth hung open as he pulled me by both my hands inside. “Is he well?”
The quaint flat was tidy; everything had its place. Woven rugs and thick curtains kept out the chill. He’d crafted a life for himself with no royal standing, with his own hands... It was admirable.
I nodded. “As well as one can be while trying to adjust to missing the last twenty years. He’s easy to talk to—very kind. And he doesn’t blame me for what happened that night with the mirror. Which means he won’t blame you either.”
Dritan needed to meet him; soon enough, we’d be married. This secret could not carry on.
He pulled me into an embrace. “Not yet,” he whispered.
“Why not?” I hated the petulant tone that accompanied my question.
The man my mother had told me stories of would welcome family with open arms.
“Because,” Dritan said and withdrew from the embrace to cup my cheeks in his hands, “I want to marry you first, with no outside opinions, or factors, or complications. If he doesn’t believe me, if he tells your parents…”
Did Dritan truly fear that anything could stop us from being married? He clearly didn’t understand the amount of stubbornness I’d inherited.
“Dritan, I would marry you regardless of who your father is. You know that, right?”
When he met my gaze, I saw the weight of his uncertainty, but he nodded.
I squeezed his cheeks. “I don’t give a fuck what your rightful surname is or your line of work. If you chose to never tell him—though I hope you do—I’d still love you. But you deserve to know your family. I want that for you.”
He smiled down at me, his posture slackening in relief as he pulled my hips forward so that he could envelop me with his body. “You’re my family, Larkspur,” he breathed out between our lips. “The only family that matters, the only one I care to accept me.”
I closed my mouth over his and pushed him deeper into his flat until his knees hit his mattress.
With swollen lips, a messy braid, and my heart so light it could float to the clouds, I trotted up the stairs to Umber House.
It had been our first time. Our breath had raced, and we’d both fumbled around until we could finally calm ourselves enough to enjoy it.
It was tender and beautiful.
“In the Shadows we trust,” I whispered at the entry. The heavy doors creaked open, and multicolored tiles greeted me, along with a cool breeze from the windows.
After sneaking up to my cousin’s bedchamber, I knocked three times, waited, and then added a fourth—a secret code we’d created.
Shuffling behind the door alerted me that he was home. Hurley appeared, wearing his tunic backwards. There was movement on the balcony. I’d interrupted something.
Had he tossed his latest tryst out to scale the trellis? Surely that was unnecessary.
“What’s wrong?” he asked in a hushed tone, motioning for me to come inside. I followed him in, but lingered at the entry—the best position to be if I needed to flee.
“Nothing is wrong...”
This was terribly awkward.
Thinking about going to Aunt El or Wyeth seemed worse.
“I...” Biting my lower lip, I scanned his chamber and avoided his waiting gaze.
He’d always lived minimally—no paintings on the stucco walls, no trinkets or extraneous decor. The bedsheets were askew, but otherwise it would appear no one lived here.
“Lark. Spit it out,” he urged. “Are you hurt?”
I shook my head. My entire face burned. “No, I’m perfectly fine. Better than. Tonight I… was with a man. In a physical manner for the first time. And I don’t know what to do now. I hoped you could help me.”
His hands scraped down his cheeks, and his brow furrowed. “Did he force you?” His tone turned lethal.
“No!” I snapped back. “Not at all. It was my choice. But the curse...”
Caym’s curse on Desidero’s bloodline meant that if I, as a Shadow Origin, bore a child, I lost my immortality. I couldn’t risk that happening before I faced the Death Origin.
Hurley looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. I knew he struggled to see me as more than the little girl who he’d humored playing marbles and jumping stones with.
Better than anyone, he knew what growing up with my family had been like—the pressures and anxieties we faced.
He stayed silent. Was he really going to make me spell it out for him?
“I can’t be with child. Not yet. If I bear an heir, then we’ve broken Isolde’s prophecy. I can’t risk it—what do the ladies you bed do?”
His palms drew circles over his closed eyelids now. “Go to my vanity—top drawer on the left. Yellow vials,” he groaned out.
I crossed the room and found the tonics. “How much do I drink?”
“Half the bottle. And... just take all of them with you.” He seemed eager for the topic to be dropped. I’d happily oblige. There were six dust-covered vials in the drawer.
“Do they expire?” I wrinkled my nose.
“Nope,” he said. When I glanced at him, he was stiff as a board and still too shocked to react.
Maybe it had been unfair to ambush him this way, but he’d been the only one I trusted.
“If you need more, for the love of Sources, please go to Wyeth. Or any other healer. I won’t be stocking any more here. ”
My brow furrowed as I wondered why not. I held no high ground to interrogate him.
Pocketing the vials, I stepped over to him and threw my arms around his middle. “Thank you, cousin. Please, please don’t tell Papa.”
He huffed a long sigh and reluctantly hugged me back. “You’re going to be the death of me, Lark,” he answered. “I hope this man knows how many people will kill him if he so much as harms a hair on your head.”
I exited quietly, thinking about just that.
For the first time, I understood why Dritan hesitated to reveal his identity.