“Easy for you to say. You’ll be gone.” But her tone had softened with resignation. He was lucky she was a good mother and wanted to see her child happy. “What’s she like, this human who’s ensnared you?”
“You’ll like her.” He squeezed her hands. “She’s ambitious and hardworking, like you. Stronger than she looks. And she makes me feel...” He struggled for words. Through the bond, Idabel’s exhaustion was deepening. She was probably heading home to Maiden Hall to sleep for a few hours before her shift in the Tower. “She makes me feel like myself. Not the commander, not the cliffborn climbing ranks. Just myself.”
Ghantal’s expression softened further. “I’ll look after her, but don’t expect miracles when you get back. I can’t grow her a pair of wings.”
“Thank you.” He rose, suddenly exhausted. “I should rest. Tomorrow will be a long night.”
“Will you be able to see her before you leave?”
“I don’t know.” The uncertainty gnawed at him. Through the bond, he felt Idabel settling into sleep, her emotions quieting to a warm contentment that made his chest ache. “I hope so.”
Ghantal stood, gathering her polishing supplies. “If you don’t, I’ll tell her you wanted to. Females set store by such things.”
She retreated to her chamber, leaving him alone with the dying candles and the distant warmth of his mate’s sleeping mind. Tomorrow, the Sixth Watch would deploy. Tomorrow, he would leave his mate behind, possibly forever. But tonight, at least, she was safe and content, the bond humming between them.
He broke his own rules and roosted in his nesting chamber so he could breathe in her scent for one more day.
Chapter 14
Idabel
She was so late, the shop windows were already dark except for the faint glow of a lantern seeping from the back room. Its light painted golden strips between the shelves of amber bottles. She tried the door and found it unlocked. The brass bell above it chimed as Idabel slipped inside, where she was enveloped by the familiar scent of dried lavender and bitter tinctures.
“Betje, are you still here?” Idabel’s voice came out rough, her throat tender from crying out Brandt’s name. The soreness between her legs was making itself apparent now, too.
A crash echoed from the workroom, followed by rapid footsteps. Betje appeared in the doorway, her auburn coils wild and spectacles slightly askew.
“Thank the fallen gods.” Betje crossed the shop in three strides and gripped Idabel’s upper arms, examining her for damage before tugging her into the brighter light of the back room. Relief transformed her face so completely that Idabel’s chest tightened with guilt. “When you didn’t come, I sent someone to Maiden Hall. They said they hadn’t seen you, and I thought” —her voice cracked as she pulled Idabel into a crushing hug that smelled of her familiar rosemary and ink—”I feared that you’d been badly hurt. I thought a gargoyle had killed you. I never should have put you up to Lord Wilkin’s scheme. It’s far too risky. We’ll find another way.”
“I’m sorry.” The words felt inadequate for the worry she’d caused poor Betje. “I should have sent word, but it all happened so quickly.”
“Are you hurt?” Betje’s hands moved to frame Idabel’s face, turning it toward the lantern light. “Did one of them attack you? That young one you mentioned, or—”
“No. Not him. Brandt intercepted me on my way here.”
Betje’s eyes widened behind her spectacles. “The commander who destroyed your garden? What did he want?”
Heat crept up Idabel’s neck as she nodded. “He carried me to his roost.”
Betje’s blinked like an owl. “Why in Tael-Nost did he do that?”
“He wanted to know what I smelled like.”
“He wanted to smell you?” Betje’s voice pitched higher with each word.
“And then he...we...” Idabel’s hand drifted to her shoulder where the bite mark throbbed beneath her chemise. Even through the fabric, she could feel the raised edges where his teeth had pierced her skin. “He asked me to be his mate.”
The workroom fell so quiet that Idabel could hear the candle crackling in the lantern. Betje’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound emerged.
“I said yes,” Idabel clarified.
“Mated. You’re mated to a gargoyle.” Betje pulled off her spectacles to clean them on her apron, as if clear lenses might change what she’d heard. “The commander who destroyed your illegally grown herbs has claimed you as his mate.”
“When you say it like that, it sounds strange.”
“It is strange!” But Betje’s shock was already melting into something warmer. “Oh, you’re brilliant. This is even better than a bite. A mate bond! They can’t punish him for claiming his mate, but it’s a clear violation of the treaty.”
“Actually, they bite their mates.” Idabel sheepishly pulled the neckline aside, revealing the perfect imprint of Brandt’s teeth.
