“You did everything you could,” Kai said, examining Fala’s water-wrinkled fingers. “You always do.”
Fala left Kai’s arms and ran her hands over her wet hair as tears spilled over her lashes. “You didn’t see the fear in her eyes or how she struggled to breathe.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Fala closed her eyes and released a shaky breath. “It isn’t the first time this has happened. It won’t be the last.”
They lived inside a mountain. Accidents were bound to happen. It was a sign of Fala’s humanity that she hadn’t yet started to accept it, and one of many reasons why Kai loved her.
Kai swam back to her wife and pulled her close. “You need a night away from it all. Let’s stay here for a while. With everyone attending the ceremony, we’ll have this entire room to ourselves.” She swept her palms down Fala’s naked waist, stopping at her hips. “No one will look for us here.”
Fala’s large brown eyes rolled back. “My grief isn’t a reason for you to avoid our calling.”
Kai flinched. “I didn’t say it was.”
“I’m not skipping the ceremony.”
Fala pushed free of Kai again, and Kai let her, following her with her eyes alone. The Eternal One had the last six nights to name their husband and hadn’t. The battle was won.
But was it?
“Fala, do youwanta husband?”
Fala rose from the pool, water sluicing down her brown skin in a shower. “I’ve waited six nights for you to care what I want.Nowyou ask?”
The question landed like a strike to the face. Kai had been adept at making thisherproblem. Her decision. In all her anxiety and fear and selfish demands, she’d forgotten that her wife might also have an opinion.
Fala shook her head. “I don’t know what I want, Kai, but if the gods have a plan for us, who are we to tell them they’re wrong?”
Kai’s stomach sank to the rock bottom of the pool, and she felt too heavy to follow her wife from the pool. Fala was never harsh. The fact that she was now… Kai had gone too far. She just wished she knew what to say.
Standing, she faced Fala, who already had a drying towel knotted around her body and her clothes clenched in one hand. She started away from the pool without so much as a glance back.
“Fala, please?—”
“I’ll see you at home.”
There were a thousand things she could’ve said. Not one would’ve reached her.
Kai stood alone in the pool. The warm water clung like sweat now, thick, stifling. The corridor beyond swallowed her wife whole and left no ripple behind.
“I’ll see you at home,” Kai muttered to herself.
“You will.”
The voice came from the steam—low, calm, masculine. And far too close. Kai twisted sharply, instincts on edge.
She found him deep within the warm mist of a somewhat distant alcove, half-submerged in the water, arms spread across the stone embankment. His face was tilted back, eyes shut. The water lapped gently around him, revealing little else but the slope of his bare shoulders, the corded muscle of his arms, and the way his chest rose and fell just above the surface. His long brown hair was knotted atop his head, damp strands clinging to the sides like he'd barely bothered to tame them.
The presence of a male here wasn’t unusual—these waters were open to all. Her error had been in not noting him earlier.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“You didn’t sound so sure that you’d see her at home. I was only saying that you will. It’s clear she loves you. A bad day has a way of disguising one’s real intentions.”
He raised his head and opened his eyes. He didn’t leer. His expression was almost meditative, eyes half-lidded. And there, on his forehead, were two crescents, back-to-back. Fifth Clan. Rising Moon had one of the most labor-intensive jobs in the mountain, and came here often to rest their tired muscles.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
