A more perfect hell could not have been crafted for her ina thousand years, and she loathed Kav, and his complicity in this travesty, with every fiber of her being. With every lonely night, she crept ever closer to the temptation to seek him out and try to?—
—to what?She had no ability to control or force him. The rest of the griffins would be on his side ... even Lirin was unlikely to openly defy the others. If Cela went back to the island, she might never be able to leave again.
Andthatwould truly be hell: surrounded by people who were once her friends and now hated her, unable to touch anyone, her children and Tyr forever beyond her reach. She could not imagine living under those conditions.
What she had now with Tyr was a mere crumb of the happiness she craved ... but it was so much more than she could have on the island.
She still had his laughter and jokes in the evening as they ate quiet dinners in the kitchen, sharing the duties of feeding the twins. She had the stories he told her about the ways of the outside world, all the many things he patiently explained, his head bent close to hers but not quite touching, never touching. She had the joy of watching him with the twins, who had bonded with him as swiftly and deeply as if he was the only father they had ever known—and he might as well have been, because their own biological father had disowned and abandoned them.
She had her job at the bakery, where Peyton and Gaby welcomed her as ready friends. Mitch at the diner continued to be reservedly friendly, telling her that he had asked around in his own circle of shifter friends and found out nothing helpful. Gaby’s husband Derek had reported back the results of his own equally fruitless investigation.
So there was no immediate victory on the horizon, no light breaking through the clouds to deliver a solution. Butwhat she did have was infinitely precious to her, all the more so as she grew enamored of the outside world and its many offerings. Tyr had taken her to a library for the first time, and she was instantly swept away by the sight of all those books. Now she liked to visit the library in the afternoon, while waiting for Tyr to pick her up, to get a few new books for her voracious reading.
She was not so fond of television. Tyr didn’t have one, and while she had seen it a couple of times by now in other people’s houses and businesses, she had trouble getting as carried away by it as she could be sucked into books. She understood that it wasn’t real, it was basically like live-action books, but it felt too distant and removed from her own life for her to relate. Those fancy people with their perfect makeup and their perfect houses were nothing like her own messy, imperfect, infinitely beloved life.
The most precious times in her new life were quiet mornings at home. The bakery was closed on Sundays and Mondays, so those were the days when Cela got to spend slow, lazy, wonderful mornings at home with Tyr.
She didn’t generally sleep in, accustomed as she was now to waking up early. Having mastered the art of slipping out of bed without disturbing the twins, she padded in her bathrobe to the kitchen, started the coffeemaker (she still didn’t have a taste for it, but Tyr liked it) and made herself a cup of tea.
Tyr usually didn’t sleep in much later than Cela these days, as he was used to waking up when she left. Cela would find herself a quiet place to sit with tea and a book, and Tyr joined her when he got up, fixing himself a cup of coffee and coming to sit with her.
With the weather now into the flush of early summer, they often took their cups out on the porch and watched theworld brighten around them in the morning sun. Tyr talked about his plans for the greenhouse. It was already past the main greenhouse season, when everyone was buying plants for their spring gardens. But he was starting some seeds and working on a small stock of houseplants and ornamentals.
“I think by fall I can have some perennials in stock, and then over the winter I’ll have a chance to get the hang of starting seeds and lay in a stock of common garden plants for spring.”
Cela hadn’t realized until they had begun talking about it that Tyr had never done this before. He was learning the greenhouse business from scratch, starting from zero just the same as she was. The house was littered with books on gardening, soil types, climate zones, and different kinds of houseplants. He was working so hard to learn how to do it.
“In fact, I think I’ll be able to open for customers in the next few days.” Tyr frowned, leaning forward on the porch swing with his hands wrapped around his coffee mug. “Is it going to be all right having people here? I don’t want you to be uncomfortable, or put the twins in any danger.”
“No, not at all. They’re controlling their shifting much better now, and I can keep them in the backyard if we have any concerns. As long as we’re in the orchard or back in the woods, no one’s going to see us.”
She had begun exploring the woods at the edge of the yard. It was a lovely place, crisscrossed with trails and full of small ponds, very private and secluded. She felt no concern about letting the kids shift and romp around her, toddling on their baby legs.
“It’s your house too,” Tyr told her, looking at her seriously. “I want you to feel like you can say no to anything that you don’t want.”
“Of course I can. I know that.”
The one thing she couldn’t do was say yes to what she wanted most.
On one of her mornings off, while the twins slept, she climbed the stairs to Tyr’s bedroom. The door stood slightly open, and there was a lamp on inside. Cela tapped lightly at the door.
Tyr was sitting in bed, reading. He sat up in surprise at the sight of her, wearing nothing but her nightgown. His mouth opened as he took in all of her, the shape of her body under the loose fabric, her nipples standing in firm pinpoints against it. Then he said, “Is everything all right?”
“It’s fine. Can I come in?”
“Yes—yes, of course. Always.”
He moved over on the bed. Cela came in and sat down on the edge. She wasn’t wearing underwear beneath the nightgown. She felt slightly damp and more than a little excited.
“I was thinking we could try something,” she said. “We can’t touch, but ... maybe we could do something else? You know, lie close together and—and touch ourselves. Do you want to do that?”
“Oh God,” Tyr said. “Uh, I mean, yes. Yes, let’s do that.”
Cela started to lie on her back, but Tyr whipped back the covers, so that the sheets were exposed for her. Tyr’s sheets, where Tyr had been sleeping. She lay down carefully, keeping a safe distance. The bed smelled pleasantly of him.
Tyr pulled the covers up, flipping an end over her, which she adjusted to suit herself.
“Is this okay?” he asked.
