47. Astra
Astra
Gold light came through unshuttered glass—the first we had slept beside since the road began—and warmed the floorboards at the foot of the bed.
We had left the physician’s room the evening before.
Two floors above the empty Conclave, one of the old lineages had abandoned a bedroom better furnished than any inn we had slept in on the road: a wide bed, a writing desk with a dry inkwell, a wardrobe still holding somebody’s second-best coat, and a rug worn thin between the mattress and the window.
No one had come back to claim any of it.
Kieran had claimed the left half of the bed and part of mine, one arm heavy across my ribs. He breathed slowly against my shoulder. His injured wrist lay above the blanket, and his shoulder rested easily against my back.
Jonah slept on my other side with one hand loose over his chest. His boots were under the desk rather than beside the door.
Caspian was awake at the foot of the bed, propped on one elbow with my ankle resting in his palm. His thumb moved once over the old scar and went still when he saw me watching.
“How long?” I asked.
“Not long.”
“That means nothing when you say it.”
“I’m learning to do nothing. Precision would defeat the purpose.”
Kieran spoke into the pillow without opening his eyes. “If Ashford has discovered leisure before breakfast, nobody startle him. We may never see it again.”
Jonah’s mouth shifted at one corner. His eyes remained closed. “You’ve been awake for ten minutes.”
“I’ve been resting brilliantly for ten minutes.”
A kitchen fire had been lit somewhere below us. The smell of bread climbed the stairwell and slipped beneath the door, warm yeast and browned crust in a building long given over to water, lamp oil, and stone.
I could have risen. There were freed prisoners still searching for names, records to sort, rooms to open, and a witness circle no one yet knew how to seat. None of it had followed us through the door. For once, the morning belonged only to the four people in the bed.
I covered Caspian’s hand at my ankle. Kieran’s breathing changed behind me. Jonah opened his eyes.
“I want this morning,” I said. “Slow. Nobody watching the door. Nobody hurrying because something worse is coming.”
Kieran lifted his head. Sleep had pressed a red line along his cheek. “Yes.”
Jonah turned onto his side to face me. “Tell me what you want.”
Caspian met my eyes from the foot of the bed. “Yes.”
I drew Caspian toward me by the hand resting at my ankle. He came the length of the mattress and kissed me, one palm braced beside my shoulder while the other stayed open against my ribs.
His mouth was careful until I held his jaw and kissed him harder. Then he stopped being careful. When he drew back, his breath was rougher than mine.
Caspian moved beside me as Jonah knelt between my knees. Jonah rested his hands on the mattress rather than on me and waited.
I opened my knees. “There.”
His hands settled beneath my thighs. Kieran laced his fingers through mine and raised our joined hands above my head, pausing when my injured shoulder pulled.
“Lower,” I said.
He brought our hands down to the pillow and kissed the place where my neck met my shoulder. “Better?”
“Yes.”
Jonah bent his mouth to me.
The first stroke of his tongue drew my hips from the mattress. His forearm held firm beneath my thigh, the burnt-copper lines bright against his skin. Kieran’s mouth moved slowly along my throat while Caspian traced the scar at my ankle and then the inside of my calf, each pass climbing higher.
“Easy,” Kieran murmured against my temple.
Jonah kept the pressure steady. The pleasure built slowly enough that I felt every change: Caspian’s thumb reaching the tender hollow behind my knee, Kieran’s fingers tightening around mine, Jonah’s mouth softening just before he pressed harder.
When I came, it ran through me in one long pull.
My back lifted. Kieran kissed me through it, and Caspian’s hand closed around my calf.
Jonah stayed where he was until my shaking eased. Then he kissed the inside of my thigh and looked up.
“Still here,” I said.
He smiled.
I lay still until my breathing eased. Caspian’s hand remained around my calf, Kieran’s fingers stayed linked with mine, and Jonah rested his cheek against my thigh.
I reached behind me and caught his wrist. “Behind me. I want you there.”
Caspian went still for one beat. Then he settled against the headboard, and I turned and climbed into his lap with my back to his chest. His bandaged palms found my hips and waited while I settled myself against him.
He entered me slowly from beneath. The stretch stopped me halfway. He waited with his breath warm against the back of my neck until I pressed down for more. His hands tightened and then loosened again.
Kieran came onto his knees in front of me and bent his mouth to my breast. Jonah lay beside us. I caught his wrist and brought his hand between my thighs. His thumb found the rhythm that made Caspian’s hips break their careful pace.
Caspian’s rhythm broke first. His forehead dropped between my shoulder blades, breath breaking against my skin as he held me through the last uneven thrusts. The sound he made when he came was low enough that I felt it more than heard it.
My own release followed under Jonah’s hand and Kieran’s mouth. It struck harder than the first, folding me back against Caspian while the three lines brightened beneath my skin and then eased with me.
“Good,” Caspian said into my shoulder.
I covered one of his hands at my waist. His fingers turned beneath mine and held.
Kieran kissed my knee. “Still want me?”
“Come here.”
He helped me off Caspian’s lap and eased me onto my side rather than moving me by the injured shoulder. Kieran fitted himself along my back. Jonah lay facing me, close enough that our foreheads touched, his hand warm on my hip.
Kieran entered me slowly from behind. His burned arm stretched above my head, wrist resting on the pillow clear of our weight, while his other hand spread across my stomach. Jonah’s fingers found me from the front and matched Kieran’s pace without either man speaking.
Jonah’s hand slowed until I met his eyes.
“Don’t stop,” I said.
He kissed me as the rhythm deepened. Kieran’s breath roughened at my ear. Pleasure gathered low and heavy, Jonah’s hand holding the pace while Kieran drove it through me. When I came again, Kieran said my name against my shoulder and followed half a breath later, his body shaking once behind mine.
We stayed tangled until his breathing slowed. Jonah smoothed his palm over Kieran’s forearm where it crossed my waist, then withdrew his hand when Kieran loosened his hold.
Jonah lay beside us, breathing hard and still watching my face. I turned in the rumpled sheets and put my hand flat on his chest. “I want you.”
His pulse struck hard beneath my palm. “Yes.”
I pushed him gently onto his back and took him into my mouth. He was already hard. I tasted salt as I drew him deeper. His hand came to my hair and stopped there, fingers spread rather than closing until I pressed my head deliberately into his palm.
Caspian rested a hand at the back of Jonah’s neck. Kieran leaned against Jonah’s shoulder and spoke low near his ear, too quiet for me to catch every word. Whatever he said made Jonah laugh. I took him deeper, and the laugh broke into a gasp.
“I notice everything,” Jonah managed, eyes shut. “Terrible habit.”
“Not everything,” Kieran said. “You missed Astra looking at you.”
Jonah opened his eyes and looked down at me. I held his gaze and moved my hand with my mouth. His breath caught. His hips lifted once before he checked the motion, and my name came rough from his throat when he came.
His fingers loosened immediately. His eyes dropped to the hand that had held my hair. I kissed the inside of his wrist before I moved back up the bed, and his shoulders eased.
We ended in a heap with no useful arrangement to it. My calf lay across Caspian’s thigh, Jonah’s arm had gone numb beneath Kieran’s shoulders, and one of the pillows had reached the floor. Nobody moved to retrieve it.
Kieran got up only when his stomach complained loudly enough for all of us to hear.
He returned with a basin and cloth, then cleaned each of us in turn with his good hand.
When his injured wrist made wringing out the cloth impossible, Caspian took it from him and twisted the water free without comment.
Kieran hummed while he worked.
“You’re humming,” I said.
“I’m celebrating.”
Jonah shifted to make room for him. “Does celebration need a melody?”
“Eventually it will have verses.”
“Then we should stop him now,” Caspian said.
Our laughter moved through the room and out the open window. Somewhere below, a hammer struck several times. No one in the bed went still at the sound.
My mother had carved Survive beneath a table in the Tower. For the first time, I could remember the word without obeying it.
A knock came when the smell of bread had grown impossible to ignore. Rev entered with a loaded tray, took in the four of us and the state of the sheets, and set breakfast on the writing desk.
“About time somebody in this building slept in,” she said.
Cosima’s voice carried up the stairwell behind her, arguing cheerfully about which kitchen had first claim on the remaining flour. Farther away, Delphine sang badly over some task and made no attempt to lower her voice.
Rev reached the door, then looked back. “Sadie asked for a second helping of eggs. First thing she’s asked for without thanking me first.”
Nobody answered at once. Kieran looked down at the cloth in his hand. Jonah’s fingers found mine beneath the blanket. Rev nodded as if we had said enough and closed the door behind her.
We sat up around the tray. Kieran tore the first loaf open while it was still hot enough to sting his fingers.
“I’m going downstairs after this,” he said. “Those ovens have been cold for years, and I intend to offend everyone who ever allowed that.”
“Delphine asked me to help with the west-wing files,” Jonah said. “Then she told me they could wait a week.”
“Will they?”
He considered. “A day.”
“Reckless,” Kieran said.
Caspian poured coffee into four mismatched cups. “Aldric wants me at the witness benches by midday.”
“And?” I asked.
“He knows where to find me.”
We ate in the wreckage of the bed, passing bread and cups from hand to hand. Kieran got crumbs in the quilt and made no apology. Jonah buttered a heel and set it in my hand. Caspian’s bare feet stayed tucked beneath Kieran’s calf.
“Marrow asked after the two of you,” Caspian said to Kieran and me. “He wanted you to know he was grateful the shoulder held. The admission appeared to pain him.”
“Tell him I’m touched,” Kieran said. “I’d send flowers, but I have bread.”
“You are not sending Marrow our breakfast.”
Kieran guarded the loaf against his chest. “Finally, someone protects breakfast.”
Caspian rose and opened the window the rest of the way. The hinges caught halfway. He pushed until they gave. A cartwheel struck a rut in the square below. Someone called for a length of rope. A dog barked until someone shouted its name.
Across the square, two women raised a line of washing between buildings that had kept their shutters closed for years. A sheet caught the morning wind and snapped once, bright against the stone.
I lay back among the three men I loved. Below us, the cart rattled on and the dog kept barking.