“Why should any of it matter?” she asked as she reloaded the bow. “Why let that shape who you are?”
“Mind your sight,” he instructed. “And you know nothing of what it means to be reviled in Hilos. I withstood their criticism daily. Must I now endure yours?”
“Criticism?”
“Is that not what this is?”
“You’re a prince.” Dyna made a face as she leveled her eyes with the bowstring. The arrow zipped away and pierced the bottom of the tree with athunk. “What value do you give my opinion? As if you ever cared what I think.”
Cassiel glared at her. “Of course, I do.”
“Why?”
“Because I care for you,” he snapped.
Far more than he should.
Far more than he could bear.
Dyna gaped at him, the bow slipping from her fingers. Heaving a ragged curse under his breath, Cassiel picked up his knife and leaped off the short crag. He landed in the valley below.
“Stop pulling away,” she said softly as a wistful pang sank in his chest. “We keep bickering but only because I wish to understand. Please speak to me.”
He halted in place, forcing himself to obey her wish. That was how much power she’d unknowingly gained over him. Where his first instinct was to put her first.
“You are right, you know,” he grumbled, waving a hand. “I’m a stupid Celestial. You deserve better than some arrogant, stubborn-headed, full-of-himself prince.”
Dyna laughed, the sound pulling a small smile to his face. She leaped off the crag, and Cassiel reared back to catch her with a grunt. She was soft, warm, and smelled like sunlight. He held her in his arms as he looked at her, never knowing what to say.
Her full lips curved. “You forgot foolish.”
“I think that is a given.” He set her down.
Dyna’s smile wavered as she sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t have been angry. Perhaps startled, but I wouldn’t have held it against you.”
Cassiel couldn’t bring himself to answer. If he did, it would reveal much more than he cared to show anyone.
Shadows swept through the valley as the rustle of wings snapped his awareness into place. Cassiel hauled Dyna under the thick canopy of a willow tree and lifted a finger to his mouth. Pulling her close, they held quiet. He spied the Valkyrie flying overhead through the branches. Yelrakel led the flock with Sowmya on her flank.
“You don’t want them to find you?” Dyna asked, her voice barely a whisper. “I thought we were headed to Hermon Ridge.”
“We are, but I would rather make our journey there in due time. I do not wish to explain myself to my uncle yet,” he said in her ear, his lips grazing her cheek. Dyna’s breath hitched.
Cassiel drew away, as was proper, but Dyna clung to his coat. She rested her head on his chest, and he instinctively wrapped her in his wings as her arms slipped around his torso. The warmth of her embrace held him together. Somehow, she’d whittled away those jagged pieces and filled the hollow corners. He shouldn’t welcome it. He shouldn’t want any of this.
Neither of them moved, even after the Valkyrie were long gone. They stayed beneath the tree in comfortable silence, breathing in the fresh air as a gentle patter of the rain fell. It was a symphony accompanying the rustle of leaves and distant steady chatter of critters in the underbrush. Cassiel looked away from the beauty of the grove to the one beside him.
She was a wonder, this human. If he was being honest, Dyna had saved him as many times as he saved her. Starting from the moment she stumbled into his life, taking him away from the one that suffocated him. He had gotten used to feeling her emotions. Sensing where she was, and now everything she physically experienced.
They were connected, undeniably so.
But this ... this was different.
“Will you tell me only thing?” Dyna said. Several emotions crossed her face at once. Hesitation, caution, and something else he was afraid to identify lest it be his imagination. She dropped her gaze, lashes nearly brushing her cheeks. “Does it disgust you to be bonded to a common human?”
Of all the things she could ask, that was the least expected.
Cassiel tentatively wove her silky hair through his fingers. Her eyes lifted, green pools meeting his and holding. “You are a fair many things,” he whispered, shifting closer as his gaze dropped to her mouth. “But common is not one of them.”
