“I wish I could pretend you were joking,” he muttered, his breath warm against my lips.
I didn’t have a chance to respond before his mouth was on mine, which was just as well, since whatever I said would have likely been a lie anyway. He was right.
Neither of us would ever be happy while the other one was actively in danger, but this—the feeling of his body entwined with mine, every nerve on fire while our bond wrapped us bothin unending warmth—it was worth every moment of chaos and pain that life wanted to throw at us.
It had to be.
Chapter 25
Everly
The sun hadn’t yet risen the next time I woke.
Instead, the bright shimmer of the auroras danced along the sloped ceiling, shifting from one color to the next in slow soothing ribbons. They wove across the stones, glinting faintly along the chandelier, as if mocking the idea that sleep was a thing mortals were ever meant to fully experience.
My veins still hummed with the echo of my mana, like the aftertaste of ice and shadows, along with the lingering sting of the little lightning strike from Batty.
The memory made me rub absently at my sternum, trying to coax a steady breath into lungs that still hadn’t decided if they wanted to rebel.
My fingertips brushed against a tiny foot.
Batty let out a soft, half-hearted hiss to let me know exactly how she felt about my daring to disturb her beauty sleep.
I hadn’t even noticed she’d returned to the bed, her small wings wrapped loosely around my neck, her head burrowed into the hollow of my throat like a living frost scarf. As if she were still holding my mana still. As if she didn’t trust it, or me, to behave without her supervision.
Had she always been able to body-slam my mana into submission?
Or was that some new evolution of whatever strange connection was forming between us?
My gaze drifted toward the door to the queen’s suites and the small library in the study. To the old leather-bound book Isren had given me forlight reading.
Perhaps it was time that became a priority.
I slipped carefully from beneath the blankets, mindful of both Draven’s sleep and Batty’s temper, and pulled on the plush robe Mirelda had left by the bed. After coaxing Batty into one of the deep pockets, I eased open the door and stepped into my suites.
The room was dim, moonlight and auroras spilling through the balcony doors in pale ribbons. Wynnie was sprawled sideways across my old bed.
She’d insisted on staying close, something I was grateful for. I paused, taking in the sight of her chest rising and falling in steady, blissfully uncomplicated sleep.
This had been my room not that long ago.
Had been. Past tense.
It was funny how quickly a space could shift. How her familiar scent of honey and snowdrops already permeated the air and how the walls felt warmer, somehow, just with her in it.
Then there were the small tinctures on the bedside table, and the carefully tended potted herbs in the windowsills. All of it made the room feel more hers than it ever had mine.
Had I even tried to make it mine at all? Or had I been too busy surviving to put down so much as a root?Other than the nest of blankets I’d built in the chair by the fire, of course, but those were gone now.
I hadn’t done that to the adjoining suites, either, still unable to wrap my head around the concept of home, still not sure that I wouldn’t wind up back here, alone, one day.
So, I shoved the thoughts aside, quietly lifting the forgotten lantern from Wynnie’s nightstand, and padded silently to the study.
The faelight cast a cool azure glow along the shelves, highlighting the spines of both new and familiar tomes. Ones on Winter law. Ancient frostbeast records. A few volumes on Court diplomacy whose presence I tried not to take too personally.
And then there was the one I reached for now with its thin, worn leather and gold lettering faded into near-oblivion.
Once I was back in Draven’s bed, I opened to the first page. Isren’s neat handwriting was scrawled across the first page just above the title.
