“I love you, too.”
I lifted my head, looking into her eyes, awed at how beautiful she looked just then, her hair wild, her cheeks flushed, her lips swollen from my kisses.
Her entire body glowing as if the Valalumir had lit up inside her. “You’re smiling,” she said.
I grinned even wider, feeling almost silly. “I can’t stop.” I laughed, and stroked her cheek.
“I love it when you smile. You don’t do it enough, you know. But you look so fucking handsome when you do.” She leaned up to kiss me, then laid back, her hazel eyes sparkling with flecks of gold. “Even better. You look happy.”
I grinned so wide it almost hurt. “I feel happy,” I said. And I meant it at that moment. Happiness, even brief fleeting seconds of the emotion, was something that for years had felt impossible. Happiness had felt like a feeling that was not meant for me, not made for me. Like I’d been born wrong and didn’t have the ability to feel this thing that everyone else seemed to come by so easily, this thing that everyone else had, that everyone else sought. But for this moment, it was like I’d been let in on the secret. Let in a door that had always previously been locked.
Nothing in my world was right. The horrors still existed. The past. And what I knew lay outside this room was still there. This small cocoon of love and safety and joy we’d built for ourselves was fleeting. But at this moment, none of that mattered. Only Lyr did. Only the pounding of my heart, the light in my soul, and the way my body never felt so perfect as it did when it was holding her.
“I think I am happy,” I said. “At least, I am, when I’m with you.”
“Do you mean that?”
By the Gods. She looked so full of joy when I said that, I thought my heart would burst. I took it back, I never felt more perfect than when I made her look like this. Forgetting her cares, her worries.
“Of course,” I said, kissing her jaw, and her cheek. “When I’m with you like this, it’s like everything bad just kind of falls away. And when I think about what we have to face, all the trials ahead, I don’t know. With you like this? It all feels more bearable. Like we can win. Like we can do this. Together.” And maybe it was just the post-sex glow, but right then I truly believed what I was saying. I felt stronger, more capable. I kissed her again. “It feels like just knowing you’re by my side, I can handle anything. Fight anyone. I love being with you. I love everything about you.” I brushed a loose strand of hair from her face. “You make me so happy, Lyr. Always. Always when I’m with you.”
Her smile faltered. “And when you’re not with me?” she asked, her voice suddenly small.
I sighed, my grin now rueful. “I’m working on that.”
She nodded, pulling my face back to hers, kissing me again with a maddening kind of slowness. Like we did have forever. And I wished to the Gods we did. I could have stayed in that kiss all night.
“What about you, partner?” I asked, as we took a breath. “Are you happy?”
“When I’m with you,” she said, kissing the corner of my lips. “Always.”
“And when you’re not with me?” I asked.
“I’m also working on that,” she said, her voice shaking. And I knew the spell was ending. Reality was sinking back in.
“Do you want to practice,” I asked, gently drawing back from her. I was softening inside her and overly sensitive.
She let me pull out, but wrapped me in her arms, holding me close. “No, don’t go. Not yet. You spent too many nights away from my bed. And anyway, I still need my apprentice here. For a different kind of practice.”
“Well,” I teased. “I can never abandon a novice in need. Especially when they require further lessons.”
I knew I should leave and return to my room. But something inside me kept me on the bed, kept me from moving. An unwillingness in my soul to leave her side.
“Let’s stay happy then,” I said. “I’ll practice with you here, a little while longer.Mekara.”
“Rakame.”Lyr nodded, and I rested my head against her breast, letting her stroke my hair, until my eyes closed.
Sometime later, I woke to a gentle breeze rolling through the window. A promise of spring. Lyr’s naked body was illuminated by the moon. She was on her side, snuggled up against me, the blanket having fallen to her hip. I reached out and stroked her arm, then slid my hand between her breasts, to her beating heart. The Valalumir pulsing inside.
We’d dozed off, though by my estimates of the moon’s position in the sky, no more than an hour had passed.
I took a deep breath, drinking her in.
Gods, she was so fucking beautiful. I knew I needed to sleep, either that or leave. But I couldn’t stop watching her. She looked so peaceful like this. Unaware of the trials that lay before us. She looked happy. The way I was happy when I was with her. The way I always wanted to see her.
But the feeling was weakening. I felt all too aware at that moment of what might come next, and I had the urge to scoop her back into my arms, to hold and protect her. To promise every God and Goddess who still listened, to pleadwith the Council of Forty-Four, or whoever the hell was in charge, to keep her safe, to swear that if it came down to it, this time, they’d take my life over hers.
Lyr stirred suddenly. Her eyelashes fluttered, her eyes opening, and she shifted, looking me up and down, her breathing even and slow.
