“Tamsyn,” Vetr said evenly, his frost eyes cutting straight to the quick of me, as though he needed those words to take root inside me. “The skelm isn’t known for mercy. Especially Kaldr. They killed him. I’m sorry. The sooner you can accept that Fell is no longer alive, the sooner you will be at peace.” He said this so earnestly, his voice winding around me in a curl of mist like he wanted that for me. He wanted me to find peace.
I wanted that peace, too.
My hand throbbed anew then, mocking me. I brought it to my chest, pressing it there as though I could silence the pulsing brand with my body and will alone.
Vetr tracked the motion, missing nothing. After a moment, as though considering it carefully, he reached out. His hand stopped, hovered over mine as though giving me time to react, to retreat; then he took my marked hand in his. Watching my face, he gently traced the mark, his thumb running along the slashing lines with a tenderness that I was coming to expect from him.
All of me sagged then, the fight leaving me, my exhaustion exposed.
“Why do I feel him?” Shivers trembled through me as I looked up at him. “When will it stop?” I demanded hoarsely. “If he’s gone … how much longer must I live with his ghost in me?” The words dropped as jagged as broken glass between us.
“It will pass with time,” he assured me. “It’s like memory. Eventually it dulls and fades. The dragon bond runs deep, but when you move on and start living for yourself again … when you let new things in …”
His voice trailed away as his thumb continued to stroke my palm, the touch becoming charged, like the air before a storm, invigorating, and somehow sensual, too. He bent his head and pressed a long, lingering kiss to my palm, directly over the buzzing X.
Let new things in …
“How?” I whispered, leaning into his lips—into the promise of relief. “How do I do that?”
He lifted his head, his silvery eyes locking on me, tracking over my eyes, nose, lips.
He released my hand and brought his thumb to my face, to my mouth. He stroked my bottom lip in a languorous swipe. “I’ve been waiting to taste this mouth for a long time, Little Flame.”
I blinked rapidly. That nickname did things to me. It shouldn’t, but it did. “You have?”
“The experience did not disappoint. Your mouth is sumptuous, a feast. I want to kiss you again. I want to savor all of you.”
Heat flooded my face, fired throughout my body. I gave my head a small shake. Wanting him was a dangerous thing. I almost said that, but stopped myself, realizing that he was not one to turn away from danger. He lived his life on the edge of a blade, flying into dangerous territory all the time, mingling with those who hated and wished him only ill. Danger might very well be an inducement for him.
His stare pierced me.
I opened my mouth. No sound came out.
He went on. “You have to make room for new things in your life.”
“You mean …you.”
He took so long to answer, I felt a moment of doubt that I had misinterpreted him, that I somehow misunderstood his outrageous whisperings. Until he lifted one big shoulder in a half shrug. “Would I be so very hard to accept?”
Accept Vetr? Fell’s brother?
I wanted the idea to be repellent. Instead, I could only hear myself say, “Accept you as—” I swallowed thickly, feeling suddenly lightheaded, as though I had imbibed too much verdaberry wine.
Mist grew and thickened around us, moving over me, hazy there-not-there fingers trailing over my skin. It was him, I knew, working his magic. Tendrils of fog traced my jaw, caressed my throat.
Vetr was doing it, creating and controlling the haze, weaving it around us, manipulating the vapor so that it stroked me like a lover. The distance that separated us was closing. He was moving toward me as silent and subtle as the mist itself.
My fists clenched a soft pillow, pressing it tighter against me.
“Accept me as yours, Tamsyn, and I will be yours. We will belong to each other.” His voice was its own form of magic, subtle and hypnotic. One of his hands claimed mine again, rubbing the X,massaging it, easing the ache there with the pressure of his touch. “Be with me and this will fade.”
Would it, though?
I looked down to where his fingers were working so diligently upon my palm, and I felt a confusing mix of relief and sorrow as his touch eased the echo of Fell into submission.
Relief and sorrow. Like oil and water. Two things that should not exist together, but there they were, all jumbled into a messy, tangled knot inside me.
Did Iwantto lose Fell completely?
