“Great.” Nox tipped his head at the two of them. “We’ll meetback here in an hour and make camp in the mountain pass until the shipment arrives.”
Arowyn cracked her neck from side to side. “Sounds good.” She put a hand on Everett’s shoulders. Giving me a quick wink, she said, “See you on the other side.”
They disappeared in a faint shimmer. As planned, Nox and I grabbed the reins of their horses and made our way down the other path until we found a covered area to tie them. I twisted my fingers in the bottom of my fitted leathers, biting my lip as I looked back at the entrance to the Guardian Forge.
“Nervous?” Nox asked behind me.
I let out a hum. “I don’t like thewaitingpart.”
His hands snaked around my waist. He pressed his lips to my neck, making me tilt my head to the side. “We could do other things to pass the time.”
I laughed and tapped his cheek. “We would maketerribleguards.”
“But very productive.” He spun me to face him and planted a lingering kiss on my lips. A breeze picked up around us, blowing my hair around our faces. He broke away to lift his nose to the wind, and the movement was so Shifter-like that I couldn’t help but smile.
“A storm’s coming,” he said, sniffing the air. “Hopefully they get done scouting before it breaks.”
“Well, aren’t you a handy little weather detector?”
He grinned. “My mother was the best at it. She’s a raven Shifter, so she has a strong affinity for the sky. She would always pull me aside when she smelled one coming and teach me how to look for the signs.” He had a faraway look in his eyes as he gazed up at the darkening clouds.
“I’ve never heard you talk about her,” I said quietly. “Is she…”
“She’s alive.” A sad smile quirked at his lips. “She’s in Tenebra, actually. Scarven banished her five years ago when she tried to help Vera escape. I hadn’t seen her since then, until we went several weeks ago.”
My eyes widened. “You went to see your mother?”
He nodded. “Before my task for Scarven and going to the capital. It was a quick visit. He has men on her all the time, so I didn’t want to be suspicious.”
“How was she? What’s she like?” I blurted out. I wanted to know everything about this man and his past. I wanted to hear about his childhood. His favorite bedtime stories, all the embarrassing tales of his youth, what life as the governor’s son was like. Did he have his mother’s eyes? Her smile? Did he get his charm from her, or maybe his compassion?
“She’s doing well, I guess. As well as she can be. She made a life for herself in Tenebra, but is still biding her time to be able to come back to Drakorum. To be afamilyagain.”
The wistfulness in his voice dissipated as he chuckled. “I think you’d like her. And Iknowshe’d like you. Even with his men watching her constantly, she still found a way to form her own little rebellion, right under their noses. Father said she was always a troublemaker when they were younger.”
I nudged his shoulder. “Now I see where you get it from.”
“I could never get away withanything. When she was in her raven form, she could hide so easily and catch me in the act. I tried to blame a broken vase on our dog once when I was nine, but she’d seen me sliding down the banister. What she didn’t know was that I was trying to fly. I wanted to be a raven, like her.”
“Not a lion?” I asked, thinking about his father’s form.
Nox shook his head. “I never wanted that kind of strength. A raven is strong in its own right, but it’s…it’s quiet. Deliberate. A silent force that doesn’t demand attention. That was my mother.”
The way he talked about his mother and how he yearned for a Shifter form like hers made things that much clearer to me. He was given the power of adragonand all its volatile nature, when that was never what he wanted to begin with.
“I think you still have that,” I said. He turned to me with a raised eyebrow. “I know your dragon isn’t exactly silent or gentle,but I think, in a way,youare. You carry so much power inside you, Nox. You could’ve easily been like Scarven and abused it.”
Something in his eyes flickered, and he turned to stare back at the mountain.
I rubbed a hand on his arm. “But you’renothinglike him. You’re so gentle and compassionate with those kids at the Keep. Withme, even. You could destroy anything in your path, but you don’t. You know how to cherish things. Maybe part of that comes from your mother.”
He caught my fingers in his grip and squeezed, then kissed the tips. “Maybe,” he murmured. “I wish you could meet her.”
“I will, Nox,” I said firmly. “I know I will. When this is all over.”
He leaned toward me, his gaze latched on my lips, when the air shifted behind us.
“Knock knock,” Arowyn said as she and Everett popped back into existence, scaring me so badly, I leaped straight in the air. She chuckled. “Someone’s jumpy.”
