“Let me see.” Ko reached for her sleeve, and she flinched.
He froze, hand suspended. My little brother, who’d faced down a titan wraith without blinking, now looked ready to cry.
Or kill something.
“Pop quiz, Serafina.” Zane’s grin strained at the edges. “What’s the number one rule of wound care?”
“No picking scabs?” she tried.
“No suffering in silence.” He gave her a fake pout. “Zero points for you, buttercup.”
“We’ll look at it later,” I decreed as I adjusted her breakfast tray over her stretched-out legs.
We gravitated like moths, Zane commandeering the space to her left, Koa folding himself cross-legged at her feet, me anchoring the right flank. I filled her in on the staff as we ate, watching her face for any sign of discomfort at our proximity. She showed none, so long as we didn’t move too fast.
When Ko and Z talked about our tour of the manor, her eyes lit up, and enthusiasm cut through her fatigue. Seeing that, we spared no details. Between bites of salmon and quiche, we painted Evermere in words. Zane’s rendition featured secret tunnels and a moat stocked with piranhas that I had to step in and explain weren’t real when she excitedly asked to see them. That earned us a disappointed pout, and I speared Z with a death glare.
Ko told her about the kitchen pantry, which was bigger than our old apartment, and the library archives. My own contributions, where I planned to install motion sensors and pressure plates, earned eye rolls from my brothers and blinks from our girl.
“I can’t wait to see the rest of the place,” she chirped, her voice gaining a little strength. “Did you read the motto over the gates?A place beyond the hunt, where shadows rest and dawns endure. I love it. It’s like a promise of safety and hope. Do you think…” Her eyes dropped to where her fingers plucked at her linen napkin. “Could that be true forme, too?”
The threadbare yearning in that whisper unraveled something hard behind my ribs.
“We’ll make it true,” I assured her.
Her smile hit like sunlight after eternal night, fragile, precious, and lethally disarming.
“Mrs. Wentzel mentioned there’s a fox den in the apple orchard. I thought you might enjoy watching the kits emerge in a few weeks.” Ko’s knuckles turned white around the butter knife, wary of showing her so much of his softness.
Saving him, Brumous let out a loud belch that reeked of salmon. Seri’s laugh came out hoarse, but real, warming the room better than any hearth.
Speaking of warm…
She kept rubbing her arms, shivering despite the adequate interior temperature. I crossed the room to the wardrobe, my boots barely making a sound. Inside, folded neatly, was a soft, cream-colored blanket. I grabbed it, turned back to her, and unfurled it with a softwhoosh, fine merino wool whispering across her shoulders. She startled at first, then her fingers found my wrist, her calluses catching on old scars.
“Thank you.”
Her second smile proved more devastating than I ever could have imagined. Small, soft, barely there, but I’d earned it. It wasmine, and mine alone.
“Can I, um, ask a question?”
“Any time you want,” I assured her as I resumed my seat at her side.
“How often…” Her bottom lip trembled as her lovely gray eyes flooded with fear again.
Nothing.Nothingin my life had prepared me for the pure pain of seeing my beloved in distress.
“Serafina, we won’t hurt you,” I murmured, furious at my lack of skills in this area, a deficiency I would be correcting as soon as possible. “The beloved bond would not allow it even if we were so inclined. Which we aren’t.”
“I just was wondering how often you’ll, uh, need to feed from me.” She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, her pulse faster than a rabbit’s.
The courage it must have taken her to ask that left me breathless.
Then Zane’s loud laughter made her flinch like she was dodging a thrown stone. My hand shot out to cradle hers before I could think better of it and found her skin remained chilled despite the blanket’s warmth.
“Beloved, no,” Koa said gently, as if explaining rain to a parched flower, while I sat there speechless and Zane giggled to himself. “We’re not vampires. We don’t live on stolen blood.”
I caught the exact moment her fear converted to confusion, her eyebrows knitting together, lips parting in a soft ‘o’ of realization. The slow flush creeping across her neck fascinated me more than any battlefield stratagem ever had.
